Types of Research to be conducted
I.
When the management decision problem is
known:
2).
Head of an academic department
a. Reporting: Listing of research methods textbooks used in ‘top twenty’
schools.
b. Description: Students satisfaction with different textbooks.
c. Explanatory: Study to examine the relationship between student
examination performance and textbook use (the use of particular
books may be positively related to better learning and examination
performance).
d. Prediction: Student enrollment as predicted by book choice and
average course grades awarded in the past.
II. When the management decision problem has
not yet been specified:
2).
Auto Plant Manager
a. Reporting: Development of an accident statistics summary.
b. Description: Analysis of quality control, defects discovered at final
inspection station, by shift and assembly line.
c. Explanation: Analysis of high absentee employees by demographic
and other measures to determine the “cause” of absenteeism.
d. Prediction: Determination of the effect on assembly line output of the
elimination of convertibles from the product mix.
3).
Admission Director
a. Reporting: Weekly summary of inquiries and applications to the
university.
b. Description: Analysis of applicant rates and acceptances by SAT
scores.
c. Explanation: Survey of admitted students who decline admission to
determine why they declined.
d. Prediction: Analysis of weekly application growth rates for purpose of
forecasting total applications volume.
4).
Investment Analyst
a. Reporting: Periodic report of price and volume movements in a
selected portfolio of common stocks.
b. Description: Comparison of individual stock price and volume
movements relative to major price indexes.
c. Explanation: Analysis of operating results published for a company in
effort to determine causes of profit declines.
d. Prediction: Company profit projections for next year.
5).
Director of Personnel
a. Reporting: A report on employee turnover by department.
b. Description: Employee turnover report, classified by department,
seniority, marital status, and so on.
c. Explanation: An experiment to determine the effect on climate of two
different styles of management.
d. Prediction: A forecast of staffing needs for the next five years.
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6).
Product Manager
a. Reporting: A report on monthly warehouse withdrawals of product.
b. Description: Demographic profiles of users of various major brands of
toothpaste.
c. Explanation: Test marketing of strategies that employ different
advertising weights and price levels.
d. Predictive: Projection of test marketing results to national sales
volume estimates.
7).
Housing Programs Officer
a. Reporting: Historical record of housing plans approved.
b. Description: Demographic profiles of house owners and lessees.
c. Explanation: Population ‘net migration’ into the city and building
plans approved.
d. Predictive: Housing demand forecasts, from population growth and
migration.
8).
Office Manager for a Dentist
a. Reporting: Record of the number of incoming patients on a daily
basis.
b. Description: Study/categorization of patients’ by ailment categories.
c. Explanatory: Relationship between age and ailment frequency.
d. Predictive: Forecast of number of dental visits for the next one year,
for every existing patient.
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