The%20Management-Research%20Question%20Hierarchy

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The Management-ResearchQuestion Hierarchy
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Working with the Hierarchy

• Management Dilemma
• The symptom of an actual problem
• Not difficult to identify a dilemma, however
  choosing one to focus on may be difficult
• Dropping Sales, Reduced Profits, Employee
  Turnover, Inventory Problems, Unstable Stock
  Market, Recession in US economy, Political
  instability because of ensuing General elections
• (Both Internal External issues)

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Working with the Hierarchy

• Management Question Categories
• Choice of purposes or objective
• Generation and evaluation of solutions
• Troubleshooting or control situation
• PLC, Inventory Problem, HR Policy, Investment
  decision, Distribution channel

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Working with the Hierarchy

• Fine tune the Research Question
• Examine concepts and constructs
• Break research questions into specific
  second-and-third-level questions
• Verify hypotheses with quality tests
• Determine what evidence answers the various
  questions and hypothesis
• Set the scope of your study
• Is it the problem of Managerial skills especially
  among the middle managers?

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Working with the Hierarchy

• Investigative Questions
• Questions the researcher must answer to
  satisfactorily arrive at a conclusion about the
  research question
• Is it the lack of competent support staff?

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Working with the Hierarchy

• Measurement Questions
• The questions we actually ask or extract from
  respondents
• Is the remuneration low as compared to --- ?
• Do the staff members have required competence?
• Is there role clarity?
• Is there a growth prospect?
• Is the working environment good?

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Other Processes in the Hierarchy

• Exploration
• Recent developments
• Predictions by informed figures about the
  prospects of the technology
• Identification of those involved in the area
• Accounts of successful ventures and failures by
  others in the field

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Research Process Problems

• The Favored Technique Syndrome
• Company Database Strip-Mining
• Unresearchable Questions
• Ill-Defined Management Problems
• Politically Motivated Research

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Designing the Study

• Select a research design from the large variety
  of methods, techniques, procedures, protocols,
  and sampling plans

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Resource Allocation Budgets

• Guides to plan a budget
• Project planning
• Data gathering
• Analysis, interpretation, and reporting
• Types of budgeting
• Rule-of-thumb
• Departmental or functional area
• Task

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Contents of a Research Proposal

• Statement of the research question
• Brief description of research methodology
• Pilot Testing
• Data collection
• Data preparation
• Data analysis and interpretation
• Research reporting

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Data Collection

• Characterized by
• abstractness
• verifiability
• elusiveness
• closeness to the phenomenon
• Types
• Secondary data
• Primary data

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Final Steps in Research

• Data analysis
• Reporting the results
• Executive summary
• Overview of the research
• Implementation strategies for the recommendations
• Technical appendix