Elements of Research Design

CHAPTER 6

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The Research Design
 Research design: a blueprint or plan for the
collection, measurement, and analysis of
data, created to answer your research
questions.
 In this step we need to design the research
in a way that the requisite data can be
gathered and analyzed to arrive at a solution.

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 Research Design
 Each component of the research design offers
several critical choice points.
 No design is superior in all circumstances. Instead,
you need to make choices and create a design that
is suitable for the job at hand.
 Take into consideration the specific objectives,
research questions, and constraints of the project,
such as access to data, time, and/or money.

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Purpose of The Study
The Nature of Studies:
 Exploratory Study
 Descriptive Study
 Hypothesis Testing (Analytical and
Predictive)
 Case Study Analysis

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Exploratory Study
 Exploratory Study is undertaken when
not much is known about the situation
at hand, or no information is
available on how similar problems or
research issues have been solved in the
past.

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Example 6.1
 The manager of a multinational corporation is
curious to know if the work ethic values of
employees working in Prince Hassan
Industrial City would be different from those
of Americans.
That city is a small city, and no information
about the ethic values of its workers.
Also, the work ethic values might be different
to people in different cultures.
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Example 6.1 (Cont.)
 The best way to study the above
situation is by conducting an
exploratory study, by interviewing the
employees in organizations in Irbid
area.

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 Descriptive Study
 Is undertaken in order to ascertain and be able
to describe the characteristics of the
variables of interest in a situation.
 In addition, descriptive studies are
undertaken in organizations to learn about and
describe the characteristics of a group of
employees, as for example, the age, education
level, job status, and length of service.

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Example 6.2
 A bank manager wants to have a profile of
the individuals who have loan payments
outstanding for 6 months and more.
This profile would include details of their
average age, earnings, nature of occupation,
full-time/ part-time employment status, and
the like.
The above information might help the
manager to decide right away on the types of
individuals who should be made ineligible for
loans in the future.
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Example 6.4
 A marketing manager might want to develop a
pricing, sales, distribution, and advertising
strategy for his product.
The manager might ask for information regarding the
competitors, with respect to the following:
1. the percentage of companies who have prices higher
and lower than the industry norm.
2. the percentage of competitors hiring in-house staff
to handle sales and those who use independent
agents.

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Example 6.4 (Cont.)
3. percentage of sales groups organized by
product line, by accounts, and by region.
4. the types of distribution channels used and
the percentage of customers using each.
5. percentage of competitors spending more
dollars on advertising/promotion than the firm
and those spending less.
6. Percentage of those using the web to sell
the product.

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Hypotheses Testing
 Studies that engage in hypotheses testing
usually explain the nature of certain
relationships, or establish the differences
among groups or the independence of two or
more factors in a situation.
 Hypotheses testing is undertaken to explain
the variance in the dependent variable or to
predict organizational outcomes.

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Example 6.5
 A marketing manager wants to know if the
sales of the company will increase if he
doubles the advertising dollars.
 Here, the manager would like to know the
nature of the relationship between advertising
and sales by testing the hypothesis:
If advertising is increased, then sales will also
go up.

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Case Study Analysis
 Case studies involve in-depth, contextual
analyses of matters relating to similar
situations in other organizations.
 Case studies, as a problem solving
technique, are not frequently resorted to in
organizations because findings the same type
of problem in another comparable setting is
difficult due to the reluctance of the
companies to reveal their problems.
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Case Study Analysis
 Case studies that are qualitative in
nature are, however, useful in applying
solutions to current problems based on
past problem-solving experiences.
 Also, case studies are useful in
understanding certain phenomena, and
generating further theories for empirical
testing.
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Type of Investigation: Causal
versus Correlational
 A causal study: Is an inquiry to know
the cause of one or more problems.
 A correlational study: Is an inquiry to
know the important variables associated
with the problem.

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Example 6.9
 A causal study question:
Does smoking cause cancer?
 A correlational study question:
Are smoking and cancer related?
Or
Are smoking, drinking, and chewing
tobacco associated with cancer?
If so, which of these contributes most to the
variance in the dependent variable?
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Example 6.10
 Fears of an earthquake predicted
recently in an area were a causal of a
number of crashes of some houses in
the area in order to be eligible of
insurance policy.

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Example 6.11
 Increases in interest rates and property
taxes, the recession, and the predicted
earthquake considerably slowed down
the business of real state agents in the
country.

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Time Horizon: Cross-Sectional
Versus Longitudinal Studies
 Cross-Sectional Studies
A study can be done in which data are
gathered just once, perhaps over a
period of days or weeks or months, in
order to answer a research question.

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Time Horizon: Cross-Sectional
Versus Longitudinal Studies
Example 6.24
 Data were collected from stock brokers

between April and June of last year to

study their concerns in a turbulent stock
market.
 Data has to be collected at one

point in time. It is a cross-sectional

design.

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Time Horizon: Cross-Sectional
Versus Longitudinal Studies
Example 6.25
 A drug company desirous of investing in
research for a new headache pill conducted a
survey among headachy people to see how
many of them would be interested in trying
the new pill.
 This is a one-shot or cross-sectional
study to assess the likely demand for the
new product.

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Time Horizon: Cross-Sectional
Versus Longitudinal Studies
 Longitudinal Studies
Studying people or phenomena at more
than one point in time in order to
answer the research question.
 Because data are gathered at two
different points in time, the study is not
cross-sectional kind, but is carried
longitudinally across a period of time.

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Example 6.27
 A marketing manager is interested in tracing
the pattern of sales of a particular product in
four different regions of the country on a
quarterly basis for the next 2 years.
 Since the data are collected several
times to answer the same issue, the study
falls under the longitudinal category.

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Time Horizon: Cross-Sectional
Versus Longitudinal Studies
 Longitudinal studies take more time and effort
and cost more than cross-sectional studies. However,
well-planned longitudinal studies could help to
identify cause-and-effect relationships.
 For example, one could study the sales volume of a
product before and after an advertisement, and
provided other environmental changes have not
impacted on the results, one could attribute the
increase in the sales volume, if any, to the
advertisement.

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Exercise 6.1
A supervisor thinks that the low
efficiency of the machine tool operators
is directly linked to the high level of
fumes emitted in the workshop. He
would like to prove this to his
supervisor through a research study.
1. Would this be a causal or a
correlational study? Why?
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Exercise 6.1
2. Is this an exploratory, descriptive, or
hypothesis-testing (analytical or predictive)
study? Why?
3. Would this be a cross-section or a
longitudinal study? Why?

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Exercise 6.1
 Answers:
1. This would be a causal study because the operator
wants to prove to the supervisor that the fumes are
causing operators to be low in their efficiency. In
other words, the machine tool operator is trying to
establish the fact that fumes cause low efficiency in
workers.
2. This is an hypothesis testing because the machine
tool operator wants to establish that fumes cause
low efficiency and convince his workshop supervisor
through such analysis (i.e. establish cause and
effect relationship).

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Exercise 6.1
3. This would be a longitudinal study
because data will be gathered at more than
one point in time. First, the efficiency of the
operators would be assessed at a given rate of
fume emission. Then the fumes emitted
would be manipulated to varying degrees,
and at each manipulation, the efficiency of
the workers would again be assessed to
confirm that the high rate of fume emission
causes a drop in operators’ efficiency.

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