Homework answers / question archive / reading "Sound Reasoning for Useful Answers" in a Chapter 3  and looking for peer review articles, discuss the following  What are the two types of discourse? What are the two types of Argument?  will provide book The focus of the discussion once we go over the concept is to: Would you be able to think about the example of discourses & arguments in business world or argument and how to you compare it to the theory Probable answers There are traditionally four different types of discourse, namely: argument, narration, description, and exposition Argumentation Argumentative written work or talking is the point at which the writer is endeavoring to persuade a crowd of people that his or her feeling is right, commonly by utilizing rationale and engaging the group of onlookers' feeling of reason

reading "Sound Reasoning for Useful Answers" in a Chapter 3  and looking for peer review articles, discuss the following  What are the two types of discourse? What are the two types of Argument?  will provide book The focus of the discussion once we go over the concept is to: Would you be able to think about the example of discourses & arguments in business world or argument and how to you compare it to the theory Probable answers There are traditionally four different types of discourse, namely: argument, narration, description, and exposition Argumentation Argumentative written work or talking is the point at which the writer is endeavoring to persuade a crowd of people that his or her feeling is right, commonly by utilizing rationale and engaging the group of onlookers' feeling of reason

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reading "Sound Reasoning for Useful Answers" in a Chapter 3 

and looking for peer review articles, discuss the following 

What are the two types of discourse?

What are the two types of Argument? 

will provide book

The focus of the discussion once we go over the concept is to: Would you be able to think about the example of discourses & arguments in business world or argument and how to you compare it to the theory

Probable answers

There are traditionally four different types of discourse, namely: argument, narration, description, and exposition

Argumentation

Argumentative written work or talking is the point at which the writer is endeavoring to persuade a crowd of people that his or her feeling is right, commonly by utilizing rationale and engaging the group of onlookers' feeling of reason. Nearly anything can utilize this frame, from papers and addresses to sermons and political talks. In a contention, the essayist or speaker starts with a proposal, which is a reasonable, unequivocal proclamation of convictions or feelings. Proof should then be introduced in a reasonable and efficient way. In the event that an audience acknowledges the confirmation, he or she ought to concur with the proposal.

Narration

The principle objective of account composing or talking is as a rule to recount a story, frequently with a specific end goal to make the crowd feel diversely about a specific subject. Accounts may appear as a play, novel, society story, journal, or myth. Things for the most part unfurl from a solitary individual or character's point of view, and have a tendency to be extremely distinct. This sort of correspondence for the most part offers to a crowd of people's humankind, frequently by drawing on basic encounters or feelings that are effectively relatable or by delineating conditions that provoke the creative ability.

At the point when individuals utilize portrayal, they for the most part depend on one of a greater amount of the five human faculties to depict something with the goal that it turns out to be in a flash paramount and relatable. It is typically used to enable the group of onlookers to envision individuals and spots, yet it can likewise put the gathering of people in a specific inclination or make a specific sort of air. The author or speaker utilizes things and descriptive words to give the perusers and audience members a feeling of what something resembles physically.

Exposition

The apparatus known as "exposition" is intended to educate the group of onlookers about a specific subject. There are a few distinctive descriptive devices journalists and speakers can utilize, including definition, investigation, thoroughly analyze, issue and-arrangement and circumstances and end results. There are numerous qualities and shortcomings related with each kind of composition, and each sort has a totally extraordinary reason. For instance, giving somebody the meaning of a word gives one sort of data, though looking into two contrasting suppositions regularly paints a truly extraordinary picture.

Example

We met right on time at our office at the beginning of today to choose the twenty-five boats which are to be first paid off. After that to Westminster and eaten with Mr. Dalton at his office, where we had one extraordinary court dish, however our papers not being done we could [not] make an end of our business till Monday next. Mr. Dalton and I over the water to our proprietor Vanly, with whom we concur as to Dalton …

Two sorts of arguments:

1)INDUCTIVE arguments

When thinking inductive, a man begins with a particular explanation keeping in mind the end goal to make a projection to a general articulation/conclusion. At the end of the day, one or a couple of articulations should make it likely that the conclusion is right. Likely, so you can't be 100% certain. Regardless of the possibility that the announcements are valid, the conclusion still can be false. You ought to consequently dependably ask: "okay, yet is there no special case?". In this way, you ought to dependably focus when somebody is contending inductive. Particularly moral civil arguments and discourses are known for their inductive character. Inductive contentions are assessed as solid or powerless. An inductive conclusion is solid if the thinking appears to be dependable. On the off chance that the conclusion unrealistically takes after from the announcements (premises) at that point the contention is called powerless. A conclusion is at times called fitting when the announcements in the premises are valid and the thinking is solid

Example strong inductive reasoning (1)

Contention: I know two clients living in that area that compensation gravely

Conclusion: (So) In the event that you know somebody from that area he will likely not pay.

Case solid inductive thinking (2)

Contention: I know several inadequately paying clients in that area

Conclusion: (So) In the event that you know somebody from that area he will likely not pay

DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS

In a deductive ARGUMENTS reality of the conclusion fundamentally takes after from reality of what is guaranteed. In a deductive contention a "yes, yet ..." in regards to the thinking is unrealistic.

In the event that a speaker makes a deductive contention, the thinking is by definition substantial (in any case reality of the recommendations). The determination is right.

Standard illustration legitimate deductive thinking (1)

On the off chance that it is raining then the road is wet (general run the show)

It is down-pouring (particular articulation)

(So) The avenues are wet (conclusion)

Illustration not legitimate deductive thinking (2)

In the event that it is raining then the road is wet (general run the show)

The road is wet (particular articulation)

Talk and contention

The demonstration of "making" a contention and "having" a contention are currently consolidated into an asingle talk of argumentation and are made out of three segments. To begin with, dis-course is an answer for completing question that require a procedure of denotion for a specific position. Second, arguers must design their cases on the premise of others, which requires social, relevant, and objective situated considering. Indeed, even lone action like written work requires a nonexistent recipient, to whom the argumentation is coordinated. What's more, third, contention is a piece of day by day considering (Charging, 1987). It plays in every day choices about routine life. Contention talk incorporates counterargument and social work on including approaches to realize joint considering and connections with Ed to focalize sentiments that are endeavoring to legitimize a specific view.Argument talk uses the techniques for talk examination to think about argumenttation. is implies that there is an emphasis on interactional groupings that structure and control the contentions occurring in a conversational situation. ?e talk custom likewise gives talk based strategies to exploring argumentation. Discussion examination is a useful instrument for investigating argumentation whimsical talk.

What are the two types of discourse?

Answer:

There are Four Primary types of Discourse like Argument, Narration, Description and Exposition, again a communication activity can include more than one type of Discourse for its quick succession, as Questions want two types of Discourse, let me Explain the same,

• Argument:

This is an Important type of discourse and communication which further can convince an audience that the speaker or writer is correct, in such case they take help from evidence and establish reason for making their statement Correct,

Let’s say an Example – Speaker was talking about the health benefits of Grapefruit for his own business requirement, as few people around him was creating biased statement on it, so, here speaker started using evidence by collecting Various Reference and article from Internet and Reliable source, also did Research for establishing and spreading best Information on health benefits of grapefruits,

• Narration:

This type of Discourse and Communication can describe a story mingled with Emotion and Empathy involved,

Let’s say an Example like employee Mistreated within an Organization and felt embarrassed for such event, so that Employee further forwarded his entire grievance with realistic story behind and presented the same before General Manager of the Organization, mingled with Emotional statements, where as other employee also put their empathy for such Injustice,

What are the two types of Argument?

Answer:

There are two types of Argument, Those are Deductive arguments and Inductive Arguments,

Deductive arguments:

This type of argument can be valid or sound, in case of valid Argument, argument need to give Conclusion, again, in such case, if one or more of the argument can be false, then Conclusion would become False,

For Example, if Machine Production uses assembly operation ( This argument is True) and all the machines go through In house production (This argument is false), then the conclusion made that machine production go through in house Operation, is here false

Further for Sound Argument, true argument can only generate a true Conclusion

Inductive Arguments:

This argument can have different level of logical strength, if strength is so high, then higher would be the probability that Conclusion is true

For Example,

UK government planned for budget Expenditure for the Military department is so largest in the world history, (The argument is True here), then such Military Department will last for long years( Therefore, Conclusion is true) 

chapter 1 Research in Business >learningobjectives After reading this chapter, you should understand . . . 1 What business research is and how it differs from decision support systems and business intelligence systems. 2 The trends affecting business research and the emerging hierarchy of research-based decision makers. 3 The different types of research studies used in business. 4 The distinction between good business research and that which falls short of professional quality. 5 The nature of the research process. “ Forward-thinking executives recognize that analytics may be the only true source of sustainable advantage since it empowers employees at all levels of an organization with information to help them make smarter decisions. ” Wayne Eckerson, director of research, business applications and architecture group, TechTarget coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 2 25/01/13 8:39 PM >bringingresearchtolife MindWriter Myra Wines, director of consumer affairs for MindWriter, Inc., has been charged with the task of assessing MindWriter’s CompleteCare program for servicing laptops. As a result, she sent several well-respected research ?rms a request for proposal (RFP), and she and her team are interviewing the last of those ?rms, Henry & Associates. Newly promoted to her position, Wines has a TV journalism and government public relations background. She has been a MindWriter laptop owner since it came on the market decades earlier and has never personally experienced a problem. She wants a research supplier from whom she can learn, as well as one whom she can trust to do appropriate, high-quality research. The last interviewee is Jason Henry, managing partners, Henry & Associates. H&A comes highly recommended by a professional colleague in a different industry. H&A has gained a reputation for merging traditional methodologies with some creative new approaches. Myra is interested in exploring the firm’s methodology for customer satisfaction studies. As Wines approaches Henry in the waiting area, she extends her hand. “Welcome to MindWriter, Jason. I’m Myra Wines.” Henry rises, clasping Wines’s hand in a firm hand shake. “Pleased to meet you, Myra.” Myra directs Jason’s attention to a long corridor. “My team members are gathered in our conference room just down this hall. Let’s join them, shall we?” The interview process starts with Henry’s short presentation on H&A and its capabilities. As the interview progresses, Henry shares some impressive results accomplished for former clients in noncompetitive industries. The last slide in his presentation features a top industry award H&A recently won for its customer satisfaction methodology. During the Q&A that follows, Henry demonstrates current knowledge of the computer industry (he’s obviously read numerous articles), confidence, and expertise, at a level that Wines initially had not expected given his relatively youthful appearance. At the conclusion of the interview, Wines is leaning toward hiring Henry & Associates, but wants to confer with her team. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 3 The next day, Myra calls Jason at his office. “We’ve chosen Henry & Associates for the MindWriter CompleteCare assessment contract. Congratulations.” “Thank you,” accepts Jason. “You’ve made the right choice.” “I’ve got two seats on a flight to Austin next Wednesday,” shares Myra. “Can you join me? This will be my first look at the CompleteCare facility and my first face-to-face contact with its manager. I’d like someone along who can lay the groundwork for the project and understand the number crunching that’s already been done.” The phone goes silent as Jason pauses to consult his BlackBerry. Two internal meetings will need to be shifted, but MindWriter is an important new client. “Yes, I can work that in as long as we’re back by 7 p.m. I’ve got an evening commitment.” “Shouldn’t be a problem,” shares Myra. “Those seats I mentioned are on the corporate jet. We’ll be back by 5:30. I’ll meet you in the lobby at the county airstrip at 8 a.m. Wednesday then.” “A quick question,” interrupts Jason before Myra can disconnect. “I need some idea of what’s happening at this meeting.” “The meeting is to get you started. I’ll introduce you to other people you will be working with and share more details about the concerns we have with the CompleteCare program,” shares Myra. “Fine. Can you arrange a third seat? It would be best to include Sara Arens from the very beginning. Her expertise will be crucial to the success of the assessment program.” “Yes, you mentioned her before. That shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ll check and get back to you.” “Then, Wednesday, Sara and I will plan on asking probing questions and listening to discover exactly what 25/01/13 8:39 PM >bringingresearchtolifecont’d facts management has gathered, what the managers are concerned about, what the problem is from their point of view, what the problem really is at various levels of abstraction . . .” “Listening to people. Discussing. Looking at things from different viewpoints. Those are things I am also very good at,” shares Myra. “Good. After we hear them out, we come to what H&A is good at: Measurement. Scaling. Project design. Sampling. Finding elusive insights. May I assume we’ll be collaborating on the report of results?” “Absolutely. I’ll call you back within 10 minutes about that third seat.” > Why Study Business Research? One of the fundamental shifts in organizational management in the last 10 years has been the purposeful integration of the Internet by managers at every level of decision making. It might be as simple as tracking project management through SharePoint sites or email messages, or as complex as call routing to various worldwide service centers to ensure the shortest wait time or using GPS to route delivery trucks to eliminate left turns. This integration wasn’t purposeful at the beginning of the last decade. Some have said that managers, many trained in lower-technology approaches, were actually dragged all but kicking and screaming into using the Internet as a workspace. But the speed of technology change, and newer generations who have been raised with smart phones and tablet computers, have forced organizations to be more purposeful in their technology integration. Researchers, as part of those organizations, have been pulled along—some reluctantly, but increasingly with enthusiasm. By the Internet, we mean not just the company-generated content of the World Wide Web where information (and non-information) expands at an alarming rate, but also the rapid advance of usergenerated content in social media. As data sources expand managers experience increasing pressure to make some sense of the massive amount of data generated. The Internet has also influenced the way in which we collaborate to define problems and opportunities, as well as our processes for information collection and analysis brought about by the technologies that make up the space known as the “cloud.” It is in this space that research is experiencing fundamentally change, not just the tools of researchers but also the methodology of research. Thus we chose our cloud cover design to represent the theme of this edition: researchers are turning to new spaces to understand what motivates people and organizations, and understand processes and machines. They are using new tools to search for new business models, and to understand fundamental shifts in human behaviors, emotions, and attitudes. You are about to begin your study of business research, both the process and the tools needed to reduce risk in managerial decision making. Business research, as we use it in this text, is a systematic inquiry that provides information to guide managerial decisions. More specifically, it is a process of planning, acquiring, analyzing, and disseminating relevant data, information, and insights to decision makers in ways that mobilize the organization to take appropriate actions that, in turn, maximize performance. A variety of different types of research projects are grouped under the label “business research,” and we will explore them later in this chapter. Assume for the moment that you are the manager of your favorite full-service restaurant. You are experiencing significant turnover in your waiter/waitress pool, and some long-time customers have commented that the friendly atmosphere, which has historically drawn them to your door, is changing. Where will you begin to try to solve this problem? Is this a problem for which research should be used? Perhaps you are the head of your state’s department of transportation, charged with determining which roads and bridges will be resurfaced or replaced in the next fiscal year. Usually you would look at the roads and bridges with the most traffic in combination with those representing the most economic disaster, if closed. However, the state’s manager of public information has expressed concern about the potential for public outcry if work is once again directed to more affluent regions of the state. The manager suggests using research to assist in making your decision, because the decision is one with numerous operational, financial, and public relations ramifications. Should you authorize the recommended research? 4 coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 4 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 5 >snapshot Mercedes-Benz and TNS Infratest Develop Stars Insight Stars Insight is an online research collaboration between Mercedes-Benz (MB) and TNS Infratest (TNS). “The original purpose of Stars Insight is capturing insights on needs, values, and attitudes of the important 20- to 45-year-old compact car driver,” shared Christian Bauer, MP/MR customer insights for Daimler AG. The insights would be used to craft marketing initiatives. TNS drew upon the strengths of Web 2.0 to deliver several key research assets: neutrality of moderation, researcher objectivity, data quality, and respondent anonymity while still allowing MB to narrow its focus to a particular target group of compact car owners. “Through a series of methods—including data from the recruiting screening process, statements Interactivity is the hallmark of Stars Insight. For example, a “hotspot is a period of 2–3 weeks where the community members deal with one speci?c topic—for example, what are appropriate ways to target young customers who might not yet drive or want to buy a Mercedes,” shared Kai Blask, associate director automotive for TNS Infratest. “Within the hotspot we assign the community members one speci?c task. For example, develop a communication strategy for the market launch of model XY. The respondents work on this either alone or in groups. All participants upload their concepts to the community on a speci?c date.” Member uploads are usually high-quality Word, PowerPoint, or other digital ?les. “Afterwards, all other community members can evaluate the ideas and give 1 to 5 points for each idea, explained Blask. “The member’s from member’s pro?le pages, surveys (both preplanned and instantaneous), online discussions, participant blog posts, and hotspot creative competitions between community members— TNS is able to provide data that helps MB in several ways. Data create a picture of what a modern brand should be, identify future distribution channels, craft authentic target group communication measures by testing advertising, develop the ideal con?guration of the desired automobile, identify target group purchase intention criteria, identify the price expectations in the compact-car segment, and understand modern mobility concepts,” explained Sandra Klaunzler, senior consultant automotive, TNS Infratest. idea with the best evaluations wins a speci?c prize or extra points,” as well as signi?cant attention from Mercedes-Benz. Overall MB has 1,700 members in Stars Insight. Sixty percent of the members own a compact car (not a MercedesBenz) and 40 percent own a Mercedes-Benz (no matter what model/segment). TNS won the 2011 Best Study award from the German Association for Marketing and Social Research for the development of the Mercedes-Benz process. It leveraged Acquia Commons social business software to build the awardwinning Mercedes-Benz social community website. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 5 www.mercedes-benz.com; www.stars-insight.com; www.tns-infratest.com; www.acquia.com 25/01/13 8:39 PM 6 >part I Introduction to Business Research As the opening vignette and the early decision scenarios reveal, decision makers can be found in every type of organization: businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and public agencies. Regardless of where these decision makers are found or whether their resources are abundant or limited, they all rely on information to make more efficient and effective use of their budgets. Thus, in this book, we will take the broadest perspective of managing and its resulting application to business research. At no other time in our history has so much attention been placed on measuring and enhancing return on investment (ROI). At its most simplistic, when we measure ROI, we calculate the financial return for all expenditures. Increasingly, organizational managers want to know what strategies and tactics capture the highest return. In the last dozen years, as technology has improved our measurement and tracking capabilities, managers have realized they need a better understanding of employees, stockholders, constituents, and customer behavior in order to influence the desired metrics. Business research plays an important role in this new measurement environment. Not only does it help managers choose better strategies and tactics, but business research expenditures are increasingly scrutinized for their contribution to ROI. The research methods course recognizes that students preparing to manage any function—regardless of the setting—need training in a disciplined process for conducting an inquiry of a management dilemma, the problem or opportunity that requires a management decision. Several factors should stimulate your interest in studying research methods:1 1. Information overload. Although the Internet and its search engines present extensive amounts of information, the information’s quality and credibility must be continuously evaluated. The ubiquitous access to information has brought about the development of knowledge communities and the need for organizations to leverage this knowledge universe for innovation—or risk merely drowning in data. 2. Technological connectivity. Individuals, public-sector organizations, and businesses are adapting to changes in work patterns (real-time and global), changes in the formation of relationships and communities, and the realization that geography is no longer a primary constraint. With the increased acceptance and use of mobile technology, information snacking, short online visits to get specific answers, has become the norm for information gatherers. This could have a profound influence on information collection designed to serve the needs of managers who want quick, smaller chunks of information, each of which is more decision relevant. While this influence is expected in quantitative techniques such as surveys, qualitative research is also increasingly embracing smaller iterative engagements with research subjects to drive research. 3. Shifting global centers of economic activity and competition. The rising economic power of Asia and demographic shifts within regions highlight the need for organizations to expand their knowledge of consumers, suppliers, talent pools, business models, and infrastructures with which they are less familiar. This shift increases the value of research designs that can accommodate different norms, values, technologies, and languages. Some in the research industry believe innovation in research methodology will come from the developing world, not the developed economies, as countries in the developing world are already embracing mobile/social research methodologies to a greater degree. 4. Increasingly critical scrutiny of big business. The availability of information has made it possible for all a firm’s stakeholders to demand inclusion in company decision making, while at the same time elevating the level of societal suspicion. Interconnected global systems of suppliers, producers, and customers have made the emergence and viability of megabusinesses not only possible, but likely. 5. More government intervention. As public-sector activities increase, in order to provide some minimal or enhanced level of social services, governments are becoming increasingly aggressive in protecting their various constituencies by posing restrictions on the use of managerial and business research tools (e.g., Do-Not-Call List, Spyware Act). 6. Battle for analytical talent. Managers face progressively complex decisions, applying mathematical models to extract meaningful knowledge from volumes of data and using highly sophisticated software to run their organizations. The shift to knowledge-intensive industries puts greater demand coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 6 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 7 on a scarcity of well-trained talent with advanced analytical skills. The integration of global labor markets, with its infusion of new talent sources, is only a partial answer. Many believe the value of research may no longer be in collecting data, but rather in focusing on context, implications, and outcomes. Data collection and even some major elements of analysis may become the future domain of technologists and data scientists. Researchers will be forced to offer new value based on strategic consulting principles, as data collection becomes more of a commodity. 7. Greater computing power and speed. • Lower-cost data collection. Computers and telecommunications lowered the costs of data collection, drastically changing knowledge about consumers both at store and household levels; employees at the position, team, and department levels; suppliers and distributors at the transaction, division, and company levels; and equipment at the part, process, and production-run levels. • Better visualization tools. High-speed downloads of images allow us to help people visualize complex concepts; this enriches measurement capabilities. • Powerful computations. Sophisticated techniques of quantitative analysis are emerging to take advantage of increasingly powerful computing capabilities. • More integration of data. Computer advances permit business to create and manage large electronic storehouses of data that cross functional boundaries. • Real-time access to knowledge. Today’s computers and software offer the power to collect and analyze data and customize reporting in real time for much quicker decision making. 8. New perspectives on established research methodologies. Businesses are demonstrating a palpable hunger for breakthrough insights and more effective methods to get them. Businesses experiencing rapid technological and social change are looking for researchers who can help them keep not just current with the rapid pace of change but in front of it. Older tools and methodologies once limited to exploratory or qualitative research are gaining wider acceptance in dealing with a broader range of managerial problems. To do well in such an environment, you will need to understand how to identify quality information and to recognize the solid, reliable research on which your high-risk managerial decisions can be based. You will need to know how to conduct such research. Developing these skills requires understanding the scientific method as it applies to the decision-making environment. Many students will also need to hire research suppliers or write an effective RFP (request for proposal). To facilitate that goal, Appendix 1a, available from the text Online Learning Center, describes how the research industry works. Appendix A, at the end of the book, describes how to effectively plan and document research requests and proposals. Along with other reference material provided throughout the book, we address your needs as information collector, processor, evaluator, and user. > Information and Competitive Advantage Managers have access to information other than that generated by business research. Understanding the relationship between business research and these other information sources—decision support systems and business intelligence—is critical for understanding how information drives decisions relating to organizational mission, goals, strategies, and tactics. Goals A local bakery would have different goals than Nabisco, but each likely has goals related to sales (membership), market share, return on investment, profitability, customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, customer retention, employee productivity, production efficiency, maximization of stock price (or owner’s equity), and so on—whether codified in a written plan or detailed only in an entrepreneur’s brain. To assist in making increasingly complex decisions on goals, strategies, and tactics, managers turn first to information drawn from the decision support system, combined with that generated by business intelligence on competitive and environmental activity. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 7 25/01/13 8:39 PM 8 >part I Introduction to Business Research >picpro?le As NTT Communications indicates, “Today, information is everything. It’s the core of your business and you can’t exist without it.” NTT uses the private cloud for seamless and secure data access worldwide. www.ntt.com Decision Support The need to complete one or many exchanges with its prospective customers, members, or constituents drives every organization. No matter how we define an exchange—a purchase, a vote, attendance at a function, a donation to a cause—each exchange, along with the strategic and tactical activities designed to complete it, generates numerous elements of data. If organized for retrieval, collectively these data elements constitute a decision support system (DSS). During the last two and one-half decades, advances in computer technology made it possible to share this collected transactional data among an organization’s decision makers over an intranet or an extranet. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 8 25/01/13 8:39 PM 9 >chapter 1 Research in Business Today, sophisticated managers have developed DSSs, where data can be accessed in real time (as transactions are completed). Catalog managers (e.g., casual clothing retailer Lands’ End) know exactly what tactics generate a transaction from a particular individual within their prospect and customer databases, as well as just how profitable each customer is to the company and an estimate of that customer’s lifetime value to the company. Such managers have a distinct advantage in strategic and tactical planning over those without real-time access to transactional data. Business Intelligence Because no decision exists in a vacuum, the decision maker must have a broad knowledge of the firm’s environment. A business intelligence system (BIS) is designed to provide the manager with ongoing information about events and trends in the technological, economic, political and legal, demographic, cultural, social, and, most critically, competitive arenas. Such information is compiled from a variety of sources, as is noted in Exhibit 1-1. Often, data from a DSS or BIS stimulate the question “Should we do business research?” In the MindWriter example, this might be data collected about laptop problems needing repair; or, for our restaurant whose friendliness quotient is changing, it might be customer comments collected by the wait staff. Strategy Strategy is defined as the general approach an organization will follow to achieve its goals. In an earlier example, a restaurant was receiving comments that the friendly atmosphere was changing. This perception may have been the result of a change in strategy. Perhaps the restaurant decided to switch from an atmosphere where patrons were encouraged to linger over their meal (occupying >Exhibit 1-1 Some Sources of Business Intelligence Press releases or press events Recordings of public proceedings Speeches by elected officials Website of agency or department Presentations at conferences Press releases or press events Government/ Regulatory Literature searches Government reports Records of public proceedings Competitive Syndicated studies Clipping services Website Business research Business Intelligence Demographic Syndicated industry studies Literature searches Business research Economic Government reports Websites Patent filings Syndicated industry studies Presentations at conferences coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 9 Syndicated studies Technological Cultural & Social Press releases or press events Literature search Clipping services Government reports Public opinion organizations Business research 25/01/13 8:39 PM 10 >part I Introduction to Business Research >snapshot Client Perspective of Consultancy Skills Needed to Be an Effective Researcher Recently a group of research clients participated in a GreenBook blog about researchers consultancy skill needs. Here is what they shared. • Researchers need to think strategically. Insights are ultimately about strategy—spelling out implications and recommendations, highlighting opportunities, and describing how business decision makers might use them. • Researchers need to be insights- and actionspecialists. Researchers need to think like business decision makers, delivering concrete, call-to-action insights. The insights and recommendations need to re?ect an understanding of the rapidly changing contexts and landscapes that the business faces—nimble, ?exible, proactive, and forward thinking. • Researchers need to challenge decision makers. Insights need to be bold, provocative. Business decision makers are looking for solutions, direction. • Researchers need to advocate. Researchers need to tell a story, engage an audience, inspire and impassion business decision makers to action. They should learn to become as comfortable using the word should as the word could. Advocacy is fact-supported beliefs, not ambivalence. a table for a long period of time while adding incremental revenues with each additional course) to a new strategy of turning each table in a shorter time frame by changing food preparation and the menu. A firm usually implements more than one strategy at a time. With regard to training, one organization might train its data warehouse employees with mostly classroom activities, while another will use on-the-job training. Another strategy might describe how an organization handles maintenance on its equipment—rigorous periodic maintenance versus maintenance only when equipment breaks down. Microsoft recently completed a major corporate restructuring. It decided to tie its 600 managers’ compensation, not to sales and profits, but to levels of customer satisfaction as measured by periodic customer satisfaction surveys.2 The discovery of opportunities and problems that influence strategic decisions is often the task of the BIS in combination with business research. Tactics Business research also contributes significantly to the design tactics—those specific, timed activities that execute a strategy. Business research also can be used to help a manager decide which of several tactics is likely to successfully execute the desired strategy. In our earlier example, our restaurant manager might have changed the menu (marketing tactic) to feature entrées that could be prepared faster (operations tactic) and delivered to a table more quickly. The manager might also have instituted a new training program (HR tactic) to implement a new zoned, tablecoverage structure (operations tactic), along with a new sales-incentive program (HR tactic) that discouraged the wait staff from making small talk with patrons and rewarded teamwork and efficiency. All of the above examples demonstrate the purposes of business research: • • • • coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 10 To identify and define opportunities and problems. To define, monitor, and refine strategies. To define, monitor, and refine tactics. To improve our understanding of the various fields of management.3 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 11 > Hierarchy of Information-Based Decision Makers Although not all organizations use business research to help make planning decisions, increasingly the successful ones do. Exhibit 1-2 shows an emerging hierarchy of organizations in terms of their use of business research. In the top tier, organizations see research as the fundamental first step in any venture. They go beyond the tried-and-true methodologies and use creative combinations of research techniques to gain deep insights to aid in their sophisticated decision making. Some even develop their own proprietary methodologies. These firms may partner with a small group of outside research suppliers that have the expertise to use innovative combinations of research methods to address management dilemmas. These visionary managers can be found in research firms, service firms, nonprofit organizations, and product and service manufacturers and distributors. Minute Maid, the manufacturer that brings us fresh and frozen juice-based products, fosters decision making at this level. Its vice president of Consumer and Marketing Knowledge is a member of the firm’s highest strategic planning team.4 Implementation and activation of the research are the critical stages of decision makers in this tier. Design Forum, an architectural and graphic design firm specializing in retail design and positioning for such firms as Lexus, Dunkin’ Donuts, and McDonald’s, is another firm operating at this level; every recommendation to each client is based on data drawn from the use of extensive research. In the second tier of the hierarchy are those decision makers that rely periodically on research information. They usually turn to business research primarily when they perceive the risk of a particular strategy or tactic to be too great to proceed without it. They rely heavily on those methodologies that proved themselves in the last several decades of the 20th century—surveys and focus groups—often choosing the methodology before fully assessing its appropriateness to the dilemma at hand. This tier is occupied by many large, medium, and small organizations of all types. Some of the firms newly arrived to this tier are in transition from the base tier. They have realized that failing to collect information prior to decision making or failing to extract insight from information that has been collected in their DSS puts them at a distinct competitive disadvantage. >Exhibit 1-2 Hierarchy of Information-Based Decision Makers Top Tier • Every decision guided by business research. • Firms develop proprietary methodologies and are innovative in their combination of methodologies. • Enterprise-wide access to research data and ?ndings. Visionaries Middle Tier Standardized Decision Makers Base Tier Intuitive Decision Makers coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 11 • Some decisions based on business research. • Firms use tried-and-true methodologies, excluding others that might be appropriate. • Limited enterprisewide data and ?ndings. • Most decisions based on past experience or instinct. • Decisions supported with limited qualitative research. 25/01/13 8:39 PM 12 >part I Introduction to Business Research >snapshot Pattern Thinking at Yum! Brands When PepsiCo spun off its restaurant division into a separate corporation, Yum! Brands, Inc., some might have thought that the removal of the struggling restaurants from the more popular and successful snack foods was an end rather than a beginning. But David Novak, saw an opportunity to learn from the best. “To take advantage of our unique position of being a brandnew public company made up of well-established brands, we did a best-practice tour of some of the most successful companies around at the time in order to take inspiration from them and borrow any good ideas we could ?nd. We visited seven companies in all— GE, Walmart, Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, Target, Coke, and UPS—and then came back and crystallized what we’d learned.” Yum! combined observation with individual depth interviews to gain insights—patterns—that could be used in the restaurant division. Novak employed a technique he coined as pattern thinking. Pattern thinking is “where you look at what’s working for someone else and apply it to your own situation.“ The technique generated more than incremental improvements, it helped Yum! take a giant leap forward. Using this approach he and his team identi?ed ?ve Dynasty Drivers for Yum! Brands. “These were the things that we believed would make us an enduringly great company and included: A Company Where Everyone Makes a Difference; Customer and Sales Mania; Competitive Brand Differentiation; Continuity in People and Process; and Consistency in Results.” Novak identi?ed a valuable lesson for researchers. “Pattern thinking requires that you keep your eyes open and actively seek out new ideas wherever you can ?nd them. And you won’t truly have your eyes open unless you have enough humility to admit that the best ideas aren’t always going to come from you.” www.yum.com Finally, the base tier comprises those managers who primarily use instinct and intuition rather than research knowledge to facilitate their decisions. These firms may or may not have sophisticated DSSs or BISs. They believe themselves to be so close to customers and distribution partners, as well as to employees and other stakeholders, that they rarely need business research. When they do collect information, they use a limited amount of qualitative research, often in the form of an informal group discussion or small number of individual interviews, to confirm their ideas. Especially in the businessto-business arena, they often rely on feedback filtered by members of the sales force. Following guidelines for adequate sampling or other procedures of scientific inquiry is not fundamental to this group. Larger firms that occupy this tier are influenced as much by organizational culture as by resources. Many small companies find themselves in this tier not because of an unwillingness to use business research but based on a perception that any more formalized research is too expensive to employ and that their resources won’t accommodate this mode of decision making. The trends of the past two decades, especially the technology that has been driving research methodologies of data collection and dissemination, make it likely that managers who do not prepare to advance up the hierarchy will be at a severe competitive disadvantage. Some examples of where business collects its data are shown in Exhibit 1-3. > The Research Process: A Preview Writers usually treat the research study as a sequential process involving several clearly defined steps. Exhibit 1-4 models the sequence of the research process. No one claims that research requires completion of each step before going to the next. Recycling, circumventing, and skipping occur. Some steps are begun out of sequence, some are carried out simultaneously, and some may be omitted. Despite these variations, the idea of a sequence is useful for developing a project and for keeping the project orderly as it unfolds. The research process begins much as the opening vignette suggests. You will notice that the top of the model is devoted to understanding the manager’s problem—the management dilemma. A management dilemma triggers the need for a decision. For MindWriter, a growing number of complaints about postpurchase service started the process. In other situations, a controversy arises, a major commitment of resources is called for, or conditions in the environment signal the need for a decision. For coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 12 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 13 >Exhibit 1-3 Where Business Collects Research Information Type of Data Where/How Data Source Transactional Online and in-store purchases Customer Online, phone, in-store inquiries Potential customer, customer Observational Conversational (Touch points) Internet Analytics Warehouse and shipping manifests Logistic partners, employee Machine performance Machine data log Online Web visits and in-store shopping trips Customer, employee Competitor interactions Customer Click-through paths on Web Potential customer, customer In-store customer service interactions Customer, employee Stock price valuations Investors Biometric measures (e.g., neuromarketing, fMRI, PET, eye tracking) Potential customer, customer, employee Surveys, online and in-store intercepts Potential customer, customer, employee Call center interactions Customer, employee In-store customer service interactions Customer, employee Web chat interactions Customer, employee In-store checkout Customer, employee Candidate interviews Potential employee Performance reviews Employee Exit interviews Employee Annual stockholder meetings Investor Financial performance presentations Financial analyst, institutional investor Listening tours Customer, supplier, logistic partner, employee, decision in?uencer Twitter posts Customer, employee, competitor, trade associations, distributor Facebook posts (company site) Customer, employee, trade associations, distributor Blog activity Customer, employee, competitor, trade associations, distributor Other social media posts or discussions Customer, employee, competitor, trade associations, distributor Keyword searches Potential customer, customer Click analysis Potential customer, customer Google+ Potential customer, customer Our interviews and research for this edition, revealed several sources of research data. This table is adapted from that research and author experience as well as from material by Cynthia Clark, “5 Ways to Learn What Customers Aren’t Telling You,” 1to1 Magazine, March 5, 2012, accessed March 8, 2012 (http://www.1to1media.com/view.aspx?docid=33464) and “Harness the Conversation: Business in Today’s Social World,” Cvent, accessed March 8, 2012 (http://www.cvent.com/en/sem/business-in-todays-social-worldsurvey-ebook.shtml). MindWriter, the critical event could have been the introduction by a competitor of new technology that would revolutionize the battery life of laptops. Such events cause managers to reconsider their purposes or objectives, define a problem for solution, or develop strategies and tactics for solutions they have identified. In every chapter, we will refer to this model as we discuss each step in the process. Our discussion of the questions that guide project planning and data gathering is also incorporated into the various elements of the model. In the chapters that follow, we discuss scientific research procedures and ethical conduct by showing their application to the pragmatic problems of managers. At a minimum, coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 13 25/01/13 8:39 PM 14 >part I Introduction to Business Research >Exhibit 1-4 The Research Process Clarifying the Research Question Discover the Management Dilemma Define the Management Question Define the Research Question(s) Exploration Refine the Research Question(s) Chapters 2–5 Exploration Research Proposal Appendix A Research Design Strategy (type, purpose, time frame, scope, environment) Data Collection Design Chapters 6–14 Sampling Design Instrument Development & Pilot Testing Data Collection & Preparation Data Analysis & Interpretation Chapter 15 Chapters 16–18 Research Reporting Chapters 19–20 Management Decision our objective is to make you a more intelligent consumer of research products prepared by others (see Appendix 1a, available from the text Online Learning Center) as well as to enable you to perform quality research for your own decisions and those to whom you report. Exhibit 1-4 is an important organizing tool because it provides a framework for introducing how each process module is designed, connected to other modules, and then executed. Thus, it organizes the book. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 14 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 15 Is Research Always Problem-Solving Based? Researchers often are asked to respond to “problems” that managers needed to solve. Applied research has a practical problem-solving emphasis. Whether the problem is negative, like rectifying an inventory system that is resulting in lost sales, or an opportunity to increase stockholder wealth through acquiring another firm, problem solving is prevalent. The problem-solving nature of applied research means it is conducted to reveal answers to specific questions related to action, performance, or policy needs. Pure research or basic research is also problem-solving based, but in a different sense. It aims to solve perplexing questions or obtain new knowledge of an experimental or theoretical nature that has little direct or immediate impact on action, performance, or policy decisions. Basic research in the business arena might involve a researcher who is studying the results of the use of coupons versus rebates as demand stimulation tactics, but not in a specific instance or in relation to a specific client’s product. In another pure research scenario, researchers might study the influence on productivity of compensation systems that pay by piece-work versus salary-plus-bonus structures. Thus, both applied and pure research are problem-solving based, but applied research is directed much more to making immediate managerial decisions. In answer to the question posed at the beginning of this section, Is research always problem-solving based? the answer is yes. Whether the typology is applied or pure, simple or complex, all research should provide an answer to some question. If managers always knew what was causing problems or offering opportunities in their realm of responsibility, there would be little need for applied research or basic research; intuition would be all that was necessary to make quality decisions. > What Is Good Research? Good research generates dependable data that are derived by professionally conducted practices and that can be used reliably for decision making. In contrast, poor research is carelessly planned and conducted, resulting in data that a manager can’t use to reduce his or her decision-making risks. Good research follows the standards of the scientific method: systematic, empirically based procedures for generating replicable research. We list several defining characteristics of the scientific method in Exhibit 1-5 and discuss below the managerial dimensions of each. 1. Purpose clearly defined. The purpose of the business research—the problem involved or the decision to be made—should be clearly defined and sharply delineated in terms as unambiguous as possible. Getting this in writing is valuable even in instances in which the same person serves as researcher and decision maker. The statement of the decision problem should include its scope, its limitations, and the precise meanings of all words and terms significant to the research. Failure of the researcher to do this adequately may raise legitimate doubts in the minds of research report readers as to whether the researcher has sufficient understanding of the problem to make a sound proposal attacking it. 2. Research process detailed. The research procedures used should be described in sufficient detail to permit another researcher to repeat the research. This includes the steps to acquire participants, informed consent, sampling methods and representativeness, and data gathering procedures. Except when secrecy is imposed, research reports should reveal with candor the sources of data and the means by which they were obtained. Omission of significant procedural details makes it difficult or impossible to estimate the validity and reliability of the data and justifiably weakens the confidence of the reader in the research itself as well as any recommendations based on the research. 3. Research design thoroughly planned. The procedural design of the research, and its choice among competing designs, should be clearly described and carefully planned to yield results that are as objective as possible. A survey of opinions or recollections ought not to be used when more reliable evidence is available from documentary sources or by direct observation. Bibliographic searches should be as thorough and complete as possible. Experiments should coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 15 25/01/13 8:39 PM 16 >part I Introduction to Business Research >Exhibit 1-5 What Actions Guarantee Good Business Research? Characteristics of Research What a Manager Should Look For in Research Done by Others or Include in Self-Directed Research Chapter Purpose clearly de?ned • Researcher distinguishes between symptom of organization’s problem, the manager’s perception of the problem, and the research problem. 4, 5 Research process detailed • Researcher provides complete research proposal. 4, Appendix A Research design thoroughly planned • Exploratory procedures are outlined with constructs de?ned. 3, 4, 5, 6–14 • Sample unit is clearly described along with sampling methodology. • Data collection procedures are selected and designed. High ethical standards applied • Safeguards are in place to protect study participants, organizations, clients, and researchers. 2, 19, 20 • Recommendations do not exceed the scope of the study. • The study’s methodology and limitations sections re?ect researcher’s restraint and concern for accuracy. Limitations frankly revealed • Desired procedure is compared with actual procedure in report. • Desired sample is compared with actual sample in the report. 6, 14, 15, 19, 20 • Impact on ?ndings and conclusions is detailed. Adequate analysis for decision maker’s needs • Suf?ciently detailed ?ndings are tied to collection instruments. 15–20 Findings presented unambiguously • Findings are clearly presented in words, tables, and graphs. 15–20 • Findings are logically organized to facilitate reaching a decision about the manager’s problem. • Executive summary of conclusions is outlined. • Detailed table of contents is tied to the conclusions and ?ndings presentation. Conclusions justi?ed • Decision-based conclusions are matched with detailed ?ndings. 15–20 Researcher’s experience re?ected • Researcher provides experience/credentials with report. 19, 20 have satisfactory controls, reducing threats to internal validity and enhancing the probability of external validity (generalizability). Direct observations should be recorded as soon as possible after the event. Efforts should be made to minimize the influence of personal bias in selecting and recording data. 4. High ethical standards applied. Researchers often work independently and have significant latitude in designing and executing projects. A research design that includes safeguards against causing mental or physical harm to participants and makes data integrity a first priority should be highly valued. Ethical issues in research reflect important moral concerns about the practice of responsible behavior in society. Researchers frequently find themselves precariously balancing the rights of their subjects against the scientific dictates of their chosen method. When this occurs, they have a responsibility to guard the welfare of the participants in the studies and also the organizations to which they belong, their clients, their colleagues, and themselves. Careful consideration must be given to those research situations in which there is a possibility for physical or psychological harm, exploitation, invasion of privacy, and/or loss of dignity. The research need must be weighed against the potential for these adverse effects. Typically, you can redesign a study, but sometimes you cannot. The researcher should be prepared for this dilemma. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 16 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 17 >picpro?le Keeping abreast of new methodologies and techniques is a never-ending process for a strong researcher. Following researchrelated blogs, following and participating in LinkedIn groups, and attending conferences are critical to this process. The Next Generation Market Research blog and LinkedIn group managed by Tom Anderson, founder and managing partner of Anderson Analytics, is a prime example. Note that Anderson provides links to many other research-related blogs from his own at www.tomhcanderson.com/next-gen-market-research-top-blogs. 5. Limitations frankly revealed. The researcher should report, with complete frankness, flaws in procedural design and estimate their effect on the findings. There are very few perfect research designs. Some of the imperfections may have little effect on the validity and reliability of the data; others may invalidate them entirely. A competent researcher should be sensitive to the effects of imperfect design. The researcher’s experience in analyzing data should provide a basis for estimating the influence of design flaws. As a decision maker, you should question the value of research about which no limitations are reported. 6. Adequate analysis for decision maker’s needs. Analysis of the data should be extensive enough to reveal its significance, what managers call insights. The methods of analysis used should be appropriate. The extent to which this criterion is met is frequently a good measure of the competence of the researcher. Adequate analysis of the data is the most difficult phase of research for the novice. The validity and reliability of data should be checked carefully. The data should be classified in ways that assist the researcher in reaching pertinent conclusions and clearly reveal the findings that have led to those conclusions. When statistical methods are used, appropriate descriptive and inferential techniques should be chosen, the probability of error should be estimated, and the criteria of statistical significance applied. 7. Findings presented unambiguously. Some evidence of the competence and integrity of the researcher may be found in the report itself. For example, language that is restrained, clear, and precise; assertions that are carefully drawn and hedged with appropriate reservations; and an apparent effort to achieve maximum objectivity tend to leave a favorable impression coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 17 25/01/13 8:39 PM 18 >part I Introduction to Business Research of the researcher with the decision maker. Generalizations that outrun the statistical findings or other evidence on which they are based, exaggerations, and unnecessary verbiage tend to leave an unfavorable impression. Such reports are not valuable to managers wading through the minefields of organizational decision making. Presentation of data should be comprehensive, reasonably interpreted, easily understood by the decision maker, and organized so that the decision maker can readily locate critical findings. 8. Conclusions justified. Conclusions should be limited to those for which the data provide an adequate basis. Researchers are often tempted to broaden the basis of induction by including personal experiences and their interpretations—data not subject to the controls under which the research was conducted. Equally undesirable is the all-too-frequent practice of drawing conclusions from a study of a limited population and applying them universally. Researchers also may be tempted to rely too heavily on data collected in a prior study and use it in the interpretation of a new study. Such practice sometimes occurs among research specialists who confine their work to clients in a small industry. These actions tend to decrease the objectivity of the research and weaken readers’ confidence in the findings. Good researchers always specify the conditions under which their conclusions seem to be valid. 9. Researcher’s experience reflected. Greater confidence in the research is warranted if the researcher is experienced, has a good reputation in research, and is a person of integrity. Were it possible for the reader of a research report to obtain sufficient information about the researcher, this criterion perhaps would be one of the best bases for judging the degree of confidence a piece of research warrants and the value of any decision based upon it. For this reason the research report should contain information about the qualifications of the researcher. Good business research has an inherent value only to the extent that it helps management make better decisions to achieve organizational goals. Interesting information about consumers, employees, competitors, or the environment might be pleasant to have, but its value is limited if the information cannot be applied to a critical decision. If a study does not help management select more effective, more efficient, less risky, or more profitable alternatives than otherwise would be the case, its use should be questioned. Alternatively, management may have insufficient resources (time, money, or skill) to conduct an appropriate study or may face a low level of risk associated with the decision at hand. In these situations, it is valid to avoid business research and its associated costs in time and money. Business research finds its justification in the contribution it makes to the decision maker’s task and to the bottom line. > A Glimpse at Four Research Studies From each of the following illustrations of management dilemmas, we can abstract the essence of research. How is it carried out? What can it do? What should it not be expected to do? As you read the four cases, be thinking about the possible range of situations for conducting research, and try answering these questions: (1) What is the decision-making dilemma facing the manager? (2) What must the researcher accomplish? ClassicToys You work for ClassicToys, a corporation that is considering the acquisition of a toy manufacturer. The senior vice president for development asks you to head a task force to investigate six companies that are potential candidates. You assemble a team composed of representatives from the relevant functional areas. Pertinent data are collected from public sources because of the sensitive nature of the project. You examine all of the following: company annual reports; articles in business journals, trade magazines, and newspapers; financial analysts’ assessments; and company advertisements. The team members then develop summary profiles of candidate firms based on the characteristics gleaned from the sources. The final report highlights the opportunities and problems that acquisition of the target firm would bring to all areas of the business. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 18 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 19 MedImage You are the business manager for MedImage, a large group of physicians specializing in diagnostic imaging (MRI, nuclear, tomography, and ultrasound). A prominent health insurance organization has contacted you to promote a new cost-containment program. The doctors’ committee to which you will make a recommendation will have a narrow enrollment window for their decision. If they choose to join, they will agree to a reduced fee schedule in exchange for easier filing procedures, quicker reimbursement, and listing on a physicians’ referral network. If they decline, they will continue to deal with their patients and the insurance carrier in the current manner. You begin your investigation by mining data from patient files to learn how many are using this carrier, frequency of care visits, complexity of filings, and so on. You then consult insurance industry data to discover how many potential patients in your area use this care plan, or similar care plans with alternative insurance carriers, and the likelihood of a patient choosing or switching doctors to find one that subscribes to the proposed program. You attempt to confirm your data with information from professional and association journals. Based on this information, you develop a profile that details the number of patients, overhead, and potential revenue realized by choosing to join the plan. MoreCoatings MoreCoatings, a paint manufacturer, is having trouble maintaining profits. The owner believes inventory management is a weak area of the company’s operations. In this industry, many paint colors, types of paint, and container sizes make it easy for a firm to accumulate large inventories and still be unable to fill customer orders. You look into the present warehousing and shipping operations and find excessive sales losses and delivery delays because of out-of-stock conditions. An informal poll of customers confirms your impression. You suspect the present inventory database and reporting system do not provide prompt, usable information needed for appropriate production decisions. Based on this supposition, you familiarize yourself with the latest inventory management techniques. You ask the warehouse manager to take an inventory, and you review the incoming orders for the last year. In addition, the owner shows you the production runs of the last year and his method for assessing the need for a particular color or paint type. By modeling the last year of business using production, order, and inventory management techniques, you choose the method that provides the best theoretical profit. You run a pilot line using the new control methodology. After two months, the data show a much lower inventory and a higher order fulfillment rate. You recommend that the owner adopt the new inventory method. York College You work for York College’s alumni association. It is eager to develop closer ties with its aging alumni to provide strong stimuli to encourage increased donations and to induce older, nontraditional students to return to supplement enrollment. The president’s office is considering starting a retirement community geared toward university alumni and asks your association to assess the attractiveness of the proposal from an alumni viewpoint. Your director asks you to divide the study into four parts. Phase 1 First you are to report on the number of alumni who are in the appropriate age bracket, the rate of new entries per year, and the actuarial statistics for the group. This information allows the director to assess whether the project is worth continuing. Phase 2 Your early results reveal a sufficient number of alumni to make the project feasible. The next step in the study is to describe the social and economic characteristics of the target alumni group. You review coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 19 25/01/13 8:39 PM 20 >part I Introduction to Business Research gift statistics, analyze job titles, and assess home location and values. In addition, you review files from the last five years to see how alumni responded when they were asked about their income bracket. You are able to describe the alumni group for your director when you finish. Phase 3 It is evident that the target alumni can easily afford a retirement community as proposed. The third phase of the study is to explain the characteristics of alumni who would be interested in a universityrelated retirement community. For this phase, you engage the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and a retirement community developer. In addition, you search for information on senior citizens from the federal government. From the developer you learn what characteristics of retirement community planning and construction are most attractive to retirees. From the AARP you learn about the main services and features that potential retirees look for in a retirement community. From government publications you become familiar with existing regulations and recommendations for operating retirement communities and uncover a full range of descriptive information on the typical retirement community dweller. You make an extensive report to both the alumni director and the university president. The report covers the number of eligible alumni, their social and economic standings, and the characteristics of those who would be attracted by the retirement community. Phase 4 The report excites the college president. She asks for one additional phase to be completed. She needs to predict the number of alumni who would be attracted to the project so that she can adequately plan the size of the community. At this point, you call on the business school’s research methods class for help in designing a questionnaire for the alumni. By providing telephones and funding, you arrange for the class to conduct a survey among a random sample of the eligible alumni population. In addition, you have the class devise a second questionnaire for alumni who will become eligible in the next 10 years. Using the data collected, you can predict the initial demand for the community and estimate the growth in demand over the next 10 years. You submit your final report to the director and the president. What Dilemma Does the Manager Face? The manager’s predicament is fairly well defined in the four cases. Let’s see how carefully you read and understood them. In the ClassicToys study, the manager, the senior vice president for development, must make a proposal to the president or possibly the board of directors about whether to acquire a toy manufacturer and, if one is to be acquired, which one of the six under consideration is the best candidate. In MedImage, the physicians in the group must decide whether to join the proposed managed health care plan of one of their primary insurers. In the MoreCoatings study, the owner of the paint manufacturer must decide whether to implement a new inventory management system. At York College, the president must propose to the board of directors whether to fund the development of a retirement community. How did you do? If you didn’t come to these same conclusions, reread the cases before proceeding to catch what you missed. In real life, management dilemmas are not always so clearly defined. In the MoreCoatings study, rather than pinpointing the problem as one of inventory management, the paint manufacturer’s owner could have faced several issues: (1) a strike by the teamsters impacting inventory delivery to retail and wholesale customers; (2) the development of a new paint formula offering superior coverage but requiring a relatively scarce ingredient to manufacture, thereby affecting production rates; (3) a fire that destroyed the primary loading dock of the main shipping warehouse in the Midwest; (4) the simultaneous occurrence of all three events. As the research process begins with a manager’s decision-making task, accurately defining the dilemma is paramount but often difficult. We outline the research process that begins this activity at the end of this chapter and address it in detail in Chapter 4. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 20 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 21 The Types of Research Studies Represented by the Four Examples All four studies qualify as applied research and can be classified as reporting, descriptive, explanatory, or predictive. Reporting At the most elementary level, a reporting study provides a summation of data, often recasting data to achieve a deeper understanding or to generate statistics for comparison. The task may be quite simple and the data readily available. At other times, the information may be difficult to find. A reporting study calls for knowledge and skill with information sources and gatekeepers of information sources. Such a study usually requires little inference or conclusion drawing. In the ClassicToys study, the researcher needs to know what information should be evaluated in order to value a company. In the study of management, this knowledge would be acquired primarily in courses in financial management, accounting, and marketing. Knowing the type of information needed, the researcher in the ClassicToys study identifies sources of information, such as trade press articles and annual reports. Because of the possible effect of the toy manufacturer evaluation on the stock prices of the conglomerate instigating the study and each toy company, only public sources are used. Other reporting studies of a less sensitive nature might have the researcher interviewing source gatekeepers. In the York College study, for example, interviewing the director of local retirement facilities might have revealed other sources to include in the search. Such an expert is considered a gatekeeper. Early in your career, identifying gatekeepers for your firm and industry is critical to success as a manager. Purists might argue that reporting studies do not qualify as research, although such carefully gathered data can have great value. A research design does not have to be complex and require inferences for a project to be called research. In the early part of your career, you will likely be asked to perform a number of reporting studies. Many managers consider the execution of such studies an excellent way for new employees to become familiar with their employer and its industry. Descriptive A descriptive study tries to discover answers to the questions who, what, when, where, and, sometimes, how. The researcher attempts to describe or define a subject, often by creating a profile of a group of problems, people, or events. Such studies may involve the collection of data and the creation of a distribution of the number of times the researcher observes a single event or characteristic (known as a research variable), or they may involve relating the interaction of two or more variables. In MedImage, the researcher must present data that reveal who is affiliated with the insurer, who uses managed health care programs (both doctors and patients), the general trends in the use of imaging technology in diagnosing illness or injury severity, and the relationship of patient characteristics, doctor referrals, and technology-use patterns. Descriptive studies may or may not have the potential for drawing powerful inferences. Organizations that maintain databases of their employees, customers, and suppliers already have significant data to conduct descriptive studies using internal information. Yet many firms that have such data files do not mine them regularly for the decision-making insight they might provide. In the opening vignette, Myra Wines could mine numerous company databases for insight into the nature and number of service-related problems arising after purchase and, similarly, for information about product use inquiries. A database generated by warranty registration cards could reveal significant data concerning purchaser characteristics, as well as purchase location and product use behavior. A descriptive study, however, does not explain why an event has occurred or why the variables interact the way they do. The descriptive study is popular in research because of its versatility across management disciplines. In not-for-profit corporations and other organizations, descriptive investigations have a broad coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 21 25/01/13 8:39 PM 22 >part I Introduction to Business Research appeal to the administrator and policy analyst for planning, monitoring, and evaluating. In this context, how questions address issues such as quantity, cost, efficiency, effectiveness, and adequacy.5 Explanatory Academics debate the relationship between the next two types of studies, explanatory and predictive, in terms of which precedes the other. Both types of research are grounded in theory, and theory is created to answer why and how questions. For our purposes, an explanatory study goes beyond description and attempts to explain the reasons for the phenomenon that the descriptive study only observed. Research that studies the relationship between two or more variables is also referred to as a correlational study. The researcher uses theories or at least hypotheses to account for the forces that caused a certain phenomenon to occur. In MoreCoatings, believing the problem with paint stockouts is the result of inventory management, the owner asks the researcher to detail warehousing and shipping processes. It would be a descriptive study if it had stopped here. But if problems in the processes could be linked with sales losses due to an inability to make timely deliveries to retail or wholesale customers, then an explanatory study would emerge. The researcher tests this hypothesis by modeling the last year of business using the relationships between processes and results. Predictive If we can provide a plausible explanation for an event after it has occurred, it is desirable to be able to predict when and in what situations the event will occur. A predictive study, the fourth type, is just as rooted in theory as explanation. NATA, a national trade association for the aviation industry, may be interested in explaining the radiation risks from the sun and stars for flight crews and passengers. The variables might include altitude, proximity of air routes to the poles, time of year, and aircraft shielding. Perhaps the relations among the four variables explain the radiation risk variable. This type of study often calls for a high order of inference making. Why, for example, would a flight at a specified altitude at one time of year not produce so great a radiation risk to the airliner’s occupants as the same flight in another season? The answer to such a question would be valuable in planning air routes. It also would contribute to the development of a better theory of the phenomenon. In business research, prediction is found in studies conducted to evaluate specific courses of action or to forecast current and future values. The researcher is asked to predict the success of the proposed retirement facility for alumni for York College based on the number of applicants for residency the project will attract. This prediction will be based on the explanatory hypothesis that alumni frequent programs and projects sponsored by the institution because of an association they maintain between their college experience and images of youthfulness and mental and physical stimulation. Finally, we would like to be able to control a phenomenon once we can explain and predict it. Being able to replicate a scenario and dictate a particular outcome is the objective of control. In the York College study, if we assume that the college proceeds with its retirement community and enjoys the predicted success, the president will find it attractive to be able to build a similar facility to serve another group of alumni and duplicate that success. Control is a logical outcome of prediction. The complexity of the phenomenon and the adequacy of the prediction theory, however, largely decide success in a control study. At York College, if a control study were done of the various promotional approaches used with alumni to stimulate images of youthfulness, the promotional tactics that drew the largest number of alumni applications for residency could be identified. Once known, this knowledge could be used successfully with different groups of alumni only if the researcher could account for and control all other variables influencing applications. Any of the four types of studies—reporting, descriptive, explanatory, or predictive—can properly be called research. We also can conclude from the various examples that research is a systematic inquiry aimed at providing information to solve managerial problems. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 22 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 1 Research in Business 23 >summary 1 Research is any organized inquiry carried out to provide information for solving problems. This includes reporting, descriptive, explanatory, and predictive studies. We emphasize the last three in this book. Business research is a systematic inquiry that provides information to guide decisions. More speci?cally, it is a process of determining, acquiring, analyzing and synthesizing, and disseminating relevant data, information, and insights to decision makers in ways that mobilize the organization to take appropriate actions that, in turn, maximize performance. If organized for retrieval, data collected from the day-to-day operations of the organization constitute a decision support system (DSS). A business intelligence system (BIS) is designed to provide the manager with ongoing information about events and trends in the technological, economic, political and legal, demographic, cultural, social, and, most critically, competitive arenas. Research studies are used to supplement DSS and BIS. 2 The managers of tomorrow will need to know more than any managers in history. Business research will be a major contributor to that knowledge. Managers will ?nd knowledge of research methods to be of value in many strategic and tactical situations. They may need to conduct research either for themselves or for others. As buyers of research services, managers will need to be able to judge research quality. Finally, they may become research specialists themselves. Not all managers have established research as a priority in their process of decision making. Consequently, a hierarchy of research-based decision makers is emerging. The top tier contains those managers who use research as a fundamental step in all decisions and who use creative vision to establish proprietary methodologies. The middle tier includes those managers who occasionally turn to research but only rely on the tried-and-true methods. The bottom tier is those managers who by choice or economic circumstance choose to rely on intuition and judgment rather than business research. 3 The research process is a model for the development and interpretation of research studies. Although many researchers perceive the research study as a sequential process involving several clearly de?ned steps, no one claims that research requires completion of each step before going to the next. Recycling, circumventing, and skipping occur. Some steps are begun out of sequence, some are carried out simultaneously, and some may be omitted. Despite these variations, the idea of a sequence is useful for developing a project and for keeping the project orderly as it unfolds. 4 What characterizes good research? Generally, one expects good research to be purposeful with a clearly de?ned focus and plausible goals; with defensible, ethical, and repeatable procedures; and with evidence of objectivity. The reporting of procedures—their strengths and weaknesses—should be complete and honest. Appropriate analytical techniques should be used; conclusions drawn should be limited to those clearly justi?ed by the ?ndings; and reports of ?ndings and conclusions should be clearly presented and professional in tone, language, and appearance. Managers should always choose a researcher who has an established reputation for quality work. The research objective and its bene?ts should be weighed against potentially adverse effects. 5 Research is any organized inquiry carried out to provide information for solving problems. This includes reporting, descriptive, explanatory, and predictive studies. Reporting studies provide a summation of data, often recasting data to achieve a deeper understanding or to generate statistics for comparison. A descriptive study tries to discover answers to the questions who, what, when, where, and, sometimes, how. An explanatory study attempts to explain the reasons for the phenomenon that the descriptive study only observed. A predictive study attempts to predict when and in what situations an event will occur. Studies may also be described as applied research or basic research. Applied research applies research to discovering solutions for immediate problems or opportunities. Basic (or pure) research aims to solve perplexing questions or obtain new knowledge of an experimental or theoretical nature that has little direct or immediate impact on action, performance, or policy decisions. >keyterms applied research 15 explanatory study 22 research variable 21 business intelligence system (BIS) 9 management dilemma 6 return on investment (ROI) 6 business research 4 predictive study 22 scienti?c method 15 control 22 pure research (basic research) 15 strategy 9 decision support system (DSS) 8 reporting study 21 tactics 10 descriptive study 21 research process 12 coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 23 25/01/13 8:39 PM 24 >part I Introduction to Business Research >discussionquestions Terms in Review 1 What is business research? Why should there be any question about the de?nition of research? 2 What is the difference between applied research and basic or pure research? Use a decision about how a salesperson is to be paid, by commission or salary, and describe the question that would guide applied research versus the question that would guide pure research. 3 Distinguish between an explanatory and predictive research study. 4 Distinguish between a reporting study and a descriptive study. Making Research Decisions 5 A sales force manager needs to have information in order to decide whether to create a custom motivation program or purchase one offered by a consulting ?rm. What are the dilemmas the manager faces in selecting either of these alternatives? 6 Toyota had a major problem with unexplained acceleration in several of its top models in 2010. It closed down production and stopped sales of multiple models. What types of research might Toyota have conducted to make these decisions? 7 You have received a business research report done by a consultant for your ?rm, a life insurance company. The study is a survey of customer satisfaction based on a sample of 600. You are asked to comment on its quality. What will you look for? 8 As area sales manager for a company manufacturing and marketing outboard engines, you have been assigned the responsibility of conducting a research study to estimate the sales potential of your products in the domestic (U.S. or Canadian) market. Discuss key issues and concerns arising from the fact that you, the manager, are also the researcher. Bringing Research to Life 9 What evidence is presented in the Bringing Research to Life vignette of efforts to understand the management dilemma? From Concept to Practice 10 Apply the principles in Exhibit 1-4 to the research scenario in question 8. From the Headlines 11 Kathy Lee Berggren, a professor of oral communication at Cornell University, indicates “a lot of my students really [only] scratch the surface with the type of research they’re doing.” According to Andy Guess, at Inside Higher Ed, “Just because students walk in the door as ‘digital natives’, doesn’t mean they’re equipped to handle the heavy lifting of digital databases and proprietary search engines that comprise the bulk of modern, online research techniques.” Students erroneously think a Google search is research. As you read through the reasons that should stimulate your interest in studying research methods or evaluate the nine factors that guarantee good research, what actions do you propose to narrow the gap between students’ research competence and what’s required of a modern college graduate about to become a manager? >cases* Data Development Inc. Ohio Lottery: Innovative Research Design Drives Winning HeroBuilders.com * You will ?nd a description of each case in the Case Index section of this textbook. Check the Case Index to determine whether a case provides data, the research instrument, video, or other supplementary material. Written cases are downloadable from the text website (www.mhhe.com/cooper12e). All video material and video cases are available from the Online Learning Center. The ?lm reel icon indicates a video case or video material relevant to the case. >online learning center appendices You’ll ?nd the following appendix available from the Online Learning Center to supplement the content of this chapter: Appendix 1a: How the Research Industry Works. coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 24 25/01/13 8:39 PM coo21507_ch01_001-025.indd 25 25/01/13 8:39 PM >chapter 2 Ethics in Business Research >learningobjectives After reading this chapter, you should understand. . . 1 What issues are covered in research ethics. 2 The goal of “no harm” for all research activities and what constitutes “no harm” for participant, researcher, and research sponsor. 3 The differing ethical dilemmas and responsibilities of researchers, sponsors, and research assistants. 4 The role of ethical codes of conduct in professional associations. “ Today, it would be remiss to say that the privacy profession is anything but ?ourishing. Companies are increasingly hiring privacy of?cers and even elevating them to C-suite positions; the European Commission has proposed a statute in its amended data protection framework that would require data protection of?cers at certain organizations, and at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) membership recently hit 10,000 worldwide. ” Angelique Carson, CIPP/US, International Association of Privacy Professionals coo21507_ch02_026-047.indd 26 21/01/13 10:30 PM >bringingresearchtolife Jason Henry has returned to the of?ce following a proposal presentation designed to capture a research project from a potential new business. Sara Arens, Jason’s partner, and Jason had worked together many hours on the project proposal. Both had hopes that the project would represent an entrée to signi?cant new business for Henry and Associates. “How did the proposal meeting go with MicroPeripheral this morning,” inquired Sara as Jason dropped into a chair across from Sara’s desk. “It didn’t,” flatly stated Jason. “Well, we had a good proposal, but we can’t win every contract,” commiserated Sara. “Do we know why?” “Oh, we could have had the contract,” claimed Jason. “I just decided the contract wasn’t right for Henry and Associates.” “Now you’ve got my attention,” said Sara, leaning forward. “That would have been a small piece of business now, but being a research supplier to such a large computer peripheral manufacturer showed definite possibilities for a lucrative long-term relationship. What went wrong?” “According to its president, Bill Henderson,” explained Jason as he and Sara walked back to Jason’s office, “MicroPeripheral (MP) has taken a near-lead position in peripherals for laptop computing, but peripherals are volatile. Peripherals grow smaller every month and have to be sold more cheaply. Henderson needed a detailed market report that MP could very well afford to pay for, but he really wanted something we couldn’t deliver.” “The proposal we developed was for a detailed market study,” puzzled Sara. “Yes, but he had in mind an entirely different study than we proposed. He proposed hiring a headhunter to set up interviews for a mythical senior diversification manager position within a mythical company—he called it a disguised study. He wanted us to provide the focus group facility for the interviews so that we coo21507_ch02_026-047.indd 27 could use our equipment to digitally record every interview.” “I fail to see how this would have given him the market data he needed,” stated Sara, now clearly confused. “According to Henderson, another CEO had tried this ploy and been able to attract competitors’ employees to be interviewed. Every interview added greatly to the firm’s understanding of the competition and the market. But then they hit the jackpot. One of the candidates was a key exec from the major competitor. On the basis of that interview and the information the duped executive innocently revealed, the company decided to shut down its California production line and open production in Mexico for a smaller, faster, cheaper version of its main product. The advance notice permitted the firm to steal significant market share.” “He had the gall to suggest we participate in this fraud?” “Henderson assured me that it wasn’t illegal, but I didn’t stick around to hear more. I literally grabbed our proposal from the desk top—the one with the Henry and Associates logo boldly marked on the front—and walked out.” “So I imagine you’ve been on the phone since you returned,” surmised Sara. “I called every single research firm whose logo was visible in the array of proposals on Henderson’s desk. They were all most appreciative,” said Jason, smiling for the first time. “And it’s likely,” smiled Sara, “that Henderson will soon find all his other proposals will be withdrawn.” 21/01/13 10:30 PM 28 >part I Introduction to Business Research > What Are Research Ethics? As in other aspects of business, all parties in research should exhibit ethical behavior. Ethics are norms or standards of behavior that guide moral choices about our behavior and our relationships with others. The goal of ethics in research is to ensure that no one is harmed or suffers adverse consequences from research activities. This objective is usually achieved. However, unethical activities are pervasive and include violating nondisclosure agreements, breaking participant confidentiality, misrepresenting results, deceiving people, using invoicing irregularities, avoiding legal liability, and more. The recognition of ethics as a problem for economic organizations is repeatedly revealed in surveys. Despite an increase in awareness of formal ethics programs and the presence of written ethical codes of conduct (83 percent), one survey reports that although 52 percent of U.S. workers claim to have observed at least one type of ethical misconduct, only 55 percent of those observing misconduct reported the violation (a decline of 10 percent from a similar study done two years before). Strongethical-culture organizations were 1.6 times as likely to report incidents as weak-ethical-culture organizations. Such lack of action raises questions about the effectiveness of codes of conduct and reporting systems.1 There is no single approach to ethics. Advocating strict adherence to a set of laws is difficult because of the unforeseen constraint put on researchers. Because of Germany’s war history, for example, the government forbids many types of medical research. Consequently, the German people do not benefit from many advances in biotechnology and may have restricted access to genetically altered drugs in the future. Alternatively, relying on each individual’s personal sense of morality is equally problematic. Consider the clash between those who believe death is deliverance from a life of suffering and those who value life to the point of preserving it indefinitely through mechanical means. Each value system claims superior knowledge of moral correctness. Clearly, a middle ground between being completely code governed or relying on ethical relativism is necessary. The foundation for that middle ground is an emerging consensus on ethical standards for researchers. Codes and regulations guide researchers and sponsors. Review boards and peer groups help researchers examine their research proposals for ethical dilemmas. Many design-based ethical problems can be eliminated by careful planning and constant vigilance. In the end, responsible research anticipates ethical dilemmas and attempts to adjust the design, procedures, and protocols during the planning process rather than treating them as an afterthought. Ethical research requires personal integrity from the researcher, the project manager, and the research sponsor. Because integrity in research is vital, we are discussing its components early in this book and emphasizing ethical behavior throughout our coverage. Our objective is to stimulate an ongoing exchange about values and practical research constraints in the chapters that follow. This chapter is organized around the theme of ethical treatment of participants, clients, research sponsors, and other researchers. We also highlight appropriate laws and codes, resources for ethical awareness, and cases for application. Exhibit 2-1 relates each ethical issue under discussion to the research process introduced in Chapter 1. > Ethical Treatment of Participants When ethics are discussed in research design, we often think first about protecting the rights of the participant, or subject. Whether data are gathered in an experiment, interview, observation, or survey, the participant has many rights to be safeguarded. In general, research must be designed so that a participant does not suffer physical harm, discomfort, pain, embarrassment, or loss of privacy. To safeguard against these, the researcher should follow three guidelines:2 1. Explain study benefits. 2. Explain participant rights and protections. 3. Obtain informed consent. coo21507_ch02_026-047.indd 28 21/01/13 10:30 PM >chapter 2 Ethics in Business Research 29 >Exhibit 2-1 Ethical Issues and the Research Process Clarifying the Research Question Discover the Management Dilemma Define the Management Question • Sponsor nondisclosure Define the Research Question(s) Exploration Refine the Research Question(s) Exploration • Sponsor’s right to quality research • Sponsor’s right of purpose nondisclosure • Researcher’s right to absence of sponsor coercion • Researcher's right to absence of sponsor deception Research Proposal Research Design Strategy (type, purpose, time frame, scope, environment) Data Collection Design Sampling Design Instrument Development • Participant deception • Sponsor’s right to quality research • Participant’s right of informed consent • Participant’s right to privacy (refusal) • Sponsor’s right to quality research • Researcher’s right to absence of sponsor coercion • Sponsor’s right to quality research Data Collection & Preparation • Participant’s right to privacy • Participant deception • Sponsor’s right to sponsor nondisclosure • Researcher’s right to safety Data Analysis & Interpretation Research Reporting Management Decision • Sponsor’s right to findings nondisclosure • Participant’s right to confidentiality • Sponsor’s right to quality research • Researcher’s right to absence of sponsor coercion Bene?ts Whenever direct contact is made with a participant, the researcher should discuss the study’s benefits, being careful to neither overstate nor understate the benefits. An interviewer should begin an introduction with his or her name, the name of the research organization, and a brief description of the purpose and benefit of the research. This puts participants at ease, lets them know to whom they coo21507_ch02_026-047.indd 29 21/01/13 10:30 PM 30 >part I Introduction to Business Research >snapshot Privacy’s New Frontier . . . Location-Based Services With the continued growth in use of smart phones, the ability to run software and mobile applications using wireless locationbased services (LBS) is a major attraction for both businesses and customers. With LBS, individuals share real-time and historical location information online to facilitate a variety of activities, including ?nd friends, play games, locate a restaurant, or shop for a bargain. Facebook Places, Living Social, Groupon, and ShopAlert are just a few of the current players. “But alongside the bene?ts, mobile LBS capabilities also involve consumer privacy risks. For example, the top perceived consumer risk of LBS-enabled services is the unintended revelation of a user’s home address. Websites like ‘Please Rob Me’ demonstrate the danger of location-sharing by providing a database of empty homes based on users’ ‘check-ins’ elsewhere,” shared Alysa Zeltzer Hutnik, partner in the privacy and security practice of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP and communications manager, International Association of Privacy Professionals. While consumers have expressed concerns about businesses tracking their Web behavior to target ads, a majority (52%) expressed a “willingness to let their usage patterns and personal information be tracked by advertisers if this resulted in lower product costs or free online content, and 43 percent of consumers said they were willing to receive targeted advertising in exchange for lower fees or service.” Carnegie Mellon University studied the privacy controls of 89 popular LBS applications in 2010. Of those surveyed, 66 percent had some form of privacy policy. And most of these retained all information for an inde?nite period of time. By 2011, a TrustE study revealed “97 percent of the top 100 sites had some form of privacy policy in place, though many companies had a weak understanding of their privacy policies and the third-party software used on their website.” “Even in the absence of black-letter law on LBS practices, “shared Hutnik,” there are some clear dos and don’ts that are worth considering when engaging in business practices involving LBS-enabled services.” • Businesses should know what their LBS service does, what type of data it collects, and whether that data is shared with af?liates, partners, or third parties. • Businesses should appoint privacy-trained personnel to ensure that privacy considerations are identi?ed appropriately and satis?ed, both at the outset of the design of a new service or product, as well as at periodic intervals after the service or product is released publicly. • Businesses should treat LBS information collection and disclosure as sensitive personal information, which means being transparent and careful with the data. • Businesses should demonstrate that they have obtained informed consent to the use or disclose location information before initiating an LBS service. • Businesses should be sensitive to parent expectations as well as the additional legal scrutiny that follows any marketing efforts targeted to young people under 13 years of age. • Businesses should stay current on privacy developments and resources, including activities of the FTC and states’ attorney general. are speaking, and motivates them to answer questions truthfully. In short, knowing why one is being asked questions improves cooperation through honest disclosure of purpose. Inducements to participate, financial or otherwise, should not be disproportionate to the task or presented in a fashion that results in coercion. Sometimes the actual purpose and benefits of your study or experiment must be concealed from the participants to avoid introducing bias. The need for concealing objectives leads directly to the problem of deception. Deception Deception occurs when the participants are told only part of the truth or when the truth is fully compromised. Some believe this should never occur. Others suggest two reasons for deception: (1) to prevent biasing the participants before the survey or experiment and (2) to protect the confidentiality of a third party (e.g., the sponsor). Deception should not be used in an attempt to improve response rates. The benefits to be gained by deception should be balanced against the risks to the participants. When possible, an experiment or interview should be redesigned to reduce reliance on deception. In addition, coo21507_ch02_026-047.indd 30 21/01/13 10:30 PM >chapter 2 Ethics in Business Research 31 the participants’ rights and well-being must be adequately protected. In instances where deception in an experiment could produce anxiety, a subject’s medical condition should be checked to ensure that no adverse physical harm follows. The American Psychological Association’s ethics code states that the use of deception is inappropriate unless deceptive techniques are justified by the study’s expected scientific, educational, or applied value and equally effective alternatives that do not use deception are not feasible.3 And, finally, the participants must have given their informed consent before participating in the research. Informed Consent Securing informed consent from participants is a matter of fully disclosing the procedures of the proposed survey or other research design before requesting permission to proceed with the study. There are exceptions that argue for a signed consent form. When dealing with children, the researcher is wise to have a parent or other person with legal standing sign a consent form. When doing research with medical or psychological ramifications, the researcher is also wise to obtain a signed consent form. If there is a chance the data could harm the participant or if the researchers offer only limited protection of confidentiality, a signed form detailing the types of limits should be obtained. For most business research, oral consent is sufficient. An example of how informed-consent procedures are implemented is shown in Exhibit 2-2. In this example, a university research center demonstrates how it adheres to the highest ethical standards for survey procedures.4 In situations where participants are intentionally or accidentally deceived, they should be debriefed once the research is complete. >Exhibit 2-2 Informed-Consent Procedures for Surveys Content Surveys conducted by the Indiana University Center for Survey Research contain the following informed-consent components in their introductions: 1. Introduce ourselves—interviewer’s name and Indiana University Center for Survey Research. 2. Brie?y describe the survey topic (e.g., barriers to health insurance). 3. Describe the geographic area we are interviewing (e.g., people in Indiana) or target sample (e.g., aerospace engineers). 4. Tell who the sponsor is (e.g., National Endowment for the Humanities). 5. Describe the purpose(s) of the research (e.g., satisfaction with services received/provided by a local agency). 6. Give a “good-faith” estimate of the time required to complete the interview. 7. Promise anonymity and con?dentiality (when appropriate). 8. Tell the participant the participation is voluntary. 9. Tell the participant that item-nonresponse is acceptable. 10. Ask permission to begin. Sample Introduction Hello, I’m [?ll in NAME] from the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University. We’re surveying Indianapolis area residents to ask their opinions about some health issues. This study is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and its results will be used to research the effect of community ties on attitudes toward medical practices. The survey takes about 40 minutes. Your participation is anonymous and voluntary, and all your answers will be kept completely con?dential. If there are any questions that you don’t feel you can answer, please let me know and we’ll move to the next one. So, if I have your permission, I’ll continue. Sample Conclusion The participant is given information on how to contact the principal investigator. For example: John Kennedy is the principal investigator for this ...