Question 5:

Based on an analysis of the last six months’ sales, your boss notices that sales of beef products are
declining in your chain’s restaurants. As beef entrée sales decline, so do profits. Fearing beef sales
have declined due to several newspaper stories reporting E. coli contamination discovered at area
grocery stores, he suggests a survey of area restaurants to see if the situation is pervasive.

a What do you think of this research suggestion?

b How, if at all, could you improve on your boss’s formulation of the research question?

Answers:

a/

There are a variety of reasons why meat discounts may be dwindling. Recent research suggests that
monetary fragility and declining staple costs may be a factor in the café's limited traffic. It's possible
that hamburger sales are down due to fear or shoppers making better choices. There could be a
disturbing impact on the flexibly of hamburgers if the café's headchef is running out of or low on
stock. This could have a variety of consequences inside the restaurant, such as servers not
recommending the beef entrée and instead recommending other options to customers. To
determine the cause, an investigation of all elements and factors must be conducted inside the café.
Deals stock may be a good place to start to see what entrées have grown in popularity and which
have fallen, and then use those in sight as a standard to compare with other restaurants. A study of
zone eateries might encourage lower prices, but it wouldn't motivate the sales reduction or assist
the director in dealing with the situation. This would result in managers jumping from one project to
the next, wasting research dollars. The main issue that the administration is dealing with is a
decrease in meat entrée sales. What should be done to increase meat entrée sales, which is a
question that management should pose and to which an answer is required? Both internal and
external reasons should be addressed in order to answer this question. Other questions along the
same line of thought that could be answered when conducting exploratory research to resolve this
issue include: What would management be able to do to reverse the downward trend in hamburger
courses? Is it appropriate to sell beef entrées? If so, in which sections? Should a hamburger entrée
be marketed as a unique ingredient?

b/

The first stage in developing the supervisor's detailing of the investigation question is to obtain an
explanation of the investigation question. The executives might make predictions about how the
company would do, but "without the relevant data, an organization cannot appropriately prepare
nor determine the next stage for the company". The investigation's main goal is to figure out why
meat entry deals are dropping in the cafe natural packing order. The administrative issue is the
deterioration of bargains and unlucky advantages from hamburger entrées. "Create different
inquiries by continuously differentiating the fundamental inquiry, "create different inquiries by
continuously separating the underlying inquiry. This result would be known as the administration
research question pecking order" would be the consequence. The scientist and the board may begin
by examining real challenges that the executives are currently dealing with.