...After studying this chapter, you should be able to 1. Explain why proper “problem definition” is essential to useful business research 2. Know how to recognize problems 3. Translate managerial decision statements into relevant research objectives 4. Translate research objectives into research questions and/or research hypotheses 5. Outline the components of a research proposal 6. Construct tables as part of a research proposal CHAPTER 6 PROBLEM DEFINITION: THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS RESEARCH Chapter Vignette: Deland Trucking Has a “Recruitment” Problem David Deland, who has owned his trucking business for 20 years, struggles with the spreadsheet in front of him. His recruitment specialist sits glumly across from his desk, pondering what kind of response to give to the inevitable question, “Why are our recruitment costs so high?” Next to the specialist sits James Garrett, a business research consultant who has been hired by the Deland Trucking Company to get a handle on the recruitment expenses the company has seen skyrocket over the last six months. “I just don’t get it,” David sighs in frustration. “We have seen a 45 percent increase in our trucker recruitment advertising costs, and our trucker intake and orientation expenses are killing us! James, I just don’t understand what is happening here.” James and the specialist have had some initial discussions, but there is no easy way to reduce those costs without reducing the number of truckers that Deland hires. “Perhaps we can...
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...ABCVEGGIES.com E-MARKETING PLAN ABCVEGGIES.COM’S PLAN FOR ONLINE EXPANSION Nanette Riggs 288311 QRT2 18 March 2013 PROPOSAL AND Marketing Plan ABCVEGGIES.COM’S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR ONLINE EXPANSION A1. Viability in an online market ABCveggies Today ABCveggies is an independent, organic farm, currently operating out of a warehouse located in the north end of Sarasota, FL since early 2009. The unique feature of ABCveggies is that the produce is grown on the roof of a warehouse located in a light industrial zone. ABCveggies is dedicated to the following principals: • Sustainable organic gardening • Feeding families • Education, and • Earning a living The business consists of a vertical grow system installed on the rooftop of the warehouse and has in place 200 poles, each with 6 stryofoam buckets, capable of growing at least 4 plants each, for a total minimum capacity of 4800 plants. The owner has an additional 5 acres of land available for installation of vertical grow systems, but doesn’t want to develop it ahead of a customer base to purchase the produce. While the owner has been operating the rooftop farm successfully since 2009, there is still not a very strong customer base. In order to expand the business and to develop a customer base consisting of substantial proportion of repeat clientele, the owner has decided to expand the online presence of the business. In order to determine the best design...
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...ChangeThis Y Save to disk Hide/Show menus Guerrilla Marketing Over 90 field-tested tactics to get your business into the frontlines continued > We know this is a gorilla, not guerrilla. But it’s a better picture, isn’t it? by Jay Conrad Levinson Not using Adobe Acrobat? Please go to http://changethis.com/content/reader | iss. 4.04 | i | U | X |+| NEXT f ChangeThis 1. MAKE CUSTOMERS A BIRTHDAY CARD Guerrilla Ray Fisher of Keylock Mini Storage in Pinellas Park, Florida celebrates his tenantsʼ birthdays with a card he creates himself. He prints a poem on the card and gets four cards out of each piece of 8-1/2 x 11 card stock. He goes to Kinkos to have the cards printed and cut. Since sending the cards, Fisher has received a very positive response. One tenant even dropped by office just to say he really appreciated the card. Fisher started a file organized by month to pre-address the cards to make it easy to mail within a week of upcoming birthdays. Any service business can profit from this personal touch. 2. A STICKY SUCCESS STORY Guerrilla Mike Cohen informs us that no one ignores coupons from Captain Tonyʼs Pizza in Cleveland, Ohio. Thatʼs because they are printed on Post-It™ notes and placed each month on every door in their delivery area.The typical response rate is 30%. Cohen honors us by calling this promotional concept, Guerrilla Mail. He attributes the programʼs success to both the look and the feel of the coupon. It resembles...
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...3 Managerial Decision Making: Sherman's Business Course Barbara E. Walvoord Loyola College in Maryland A. Kimbrough Sherman Loyola College in Maryland This chapter begins the discussion of the four classes the research team studied. A. Kimbrough Sherman's production management course is a required course which deals with the operational aspects of a business, such as what goods and services it provides, where it locates, and how it organizes resources, people, and processes. The course has two major thrusts: (1) strategic and tactical decision making and (2) standard (mostly quantitative) decision techniques. Writing in Sher- man's course was directed at the strategic and tactical areas. We (Walvoord and Sherman) collaborated in gathering the data and writing the chapter with generous help from McCarthy and other team members, who helped to shape the study, check data, and critique chapter drafts. Like the other classroom chapters that follow, this chapter addresses our research questions (p. 4) through an examination of Sherman's expectations and each of the six areas of difficulty we constructed for all the classrooms, focusing on how Sherman's methods and the students' strategies appeared to have affected the difficulties. (We follow the basic organizational pattern we outlined on p. 15. Our definitions of difficulties and strategies appear...
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...BSBRES401A analyse and present research information p85 q5 Employee Job Satisfaction for flexible working Please take a few minutes to tell us about your job and how the organization assists you | Strongly Disagree | Somewhat Disagree | Neither Agree nor Disagree | Somewhat Agree | Strongly Agree | I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things. | | | | | | New work ways gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment. | | | | | | I have the tools and resources to do my job well. | | | | | | On my job, I have clearly defined quality goals. | | | | | | The Company does an excellent job of keeping employees informed about matters affecting us. | | | | | | When a customer is dissatisfied, I can usually correct the problem to their satisfaction. | | | | | | I understand why it is so important for (Company name) to value diversity (to recognize and respect the value of differences in race, gender, age, etc.) | | | | | | My job makes good use of my skills and abilities. | | | | | | My supervisor’s manager visibly demonstrates a commitment to quality...
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...Management School of Hospitality and Tourism Management University of Surrey 2014 Table of Contents List of tables and figures 4 Acknowledgements 5 List of Abbreviations 6 Section A. Organisation evaluation 8 The Executive Summary 8 The Placement Overview 9 1. The Evaluation of the EP’s activities 10 1.1 The EP format 11 1.2 The History of the EP 11 1.3 Geographical Locations and Facilities 12 2. The People 16 2.1 Visions and Strategies 16 2.2 Institutional structure and management 16 2.2.1 External structure 16 2.2.2 Internal Structure 17 2.3 Management of the EP 21 2.3.1 EP’s Political management 21 2.3.2 EP’s Organisational management 22 2.3.3 EP’s Communication Management 23 2.4 Staffing, recruiting and training 24 2.4.1 Staffing 24 2.4.2 Recruiting 27 2.4.3 Training 27 3. The Numbers 27 3.1 Strict rules for efficient and transparent budget implementation 32 3.1.1 Separation of functions 32 3.1.2 Use of standard documents 32 3.2 Controls of the budgetary procedure 32 3.2.1 Internal controls 33 3.2.2 Internal audits 33 3.2.3 External controls 33 4. Evaluation and conclusion 34 4.1 SWOT analysis 34 4.2 Conclusions 35 Section B. Personal and professional development 36 1. Getting a Placement 36 2. Placement year objectives 37 3. Placement experiences 38 References 40 Appendices 43 List of tables and figures Figure 1. EP Locations Source: BBC.com (2014) 9 Figure 2. EU Coverage Source:...
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...HBR CASE STUDY How to Change the World Alan Wilson has several career options but only one ambition – to make a difference. by Howard H. Stevenson Daniel Vasconcellos LAN WILSON PEERED past his Atomics at the skiers whizzing by 20 feet below the chairlift. The sky had darkened, and a light, wind-whipped snow was falling, but the changing conditions certainly hadn’t deterred the diehards. He watched a young woman hurtle down the steep slope, poles and powder flying. He carefully adjusted his goggles. He hadn’t said much to his best friend, Karl, during their 10-minute ride together. Alan was feeling reflective. What was he going to do with his life now that some exciting new possibilities had opened up? People think it’s miserable to have no options, he thought, but in a way, it’s more stressful to have too many. Three-quarters of the way up the mountain, the strengthening wind gently rocked the chair. Karl pulled out the trail map and pointed a gloved finger at one of the black-diamond runs. “The A HBR’s cases, which are fictional, present common managerial dilemmas and offer concrete solutions from experts. hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 29 LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY | HBR CASE STUDY | How to Change the World Couloir Noir is the one on the right,” he said. “What do you think?” Alan and Karl shared a passion for moguls. Alan had been a Division 1 skier in college, and Karl, who’d grown up in Kitzbühel, Austria, had...
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...American Holidays The following are holidays that we celebrate in the United States: New Years Eve and New Years Day New Years Day is the first day of the year, January 1st. it is a celebration of the old year and the new one to come. People make New Years Resolutions each New Years and promise themselves that they will keep this resolution until next year. New Years Eve is a major social event. Clubs everywhere are packed with party-goers who stay out all night and go nuts at midnight. At midnight it is a tradition to make lots of noise. The traditional New Years Ball is dropped every year in Times Square in New York City at 12 o’clock. This event can be seen all over the world on television. Valentine’s Day Saint Valentine’s Day is a day that is set aside to promote the idea of “love”. It is celebrated on February 14th. People send greeting cards or gifts to loved one and friends to shoe them that they care. Easter Easter is a major Christian holiday that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated on Sunday between March 22 and April 25. The 40 days leading up to Easter are observed as Lent. Besides the religious aspects of Easter, people also celebrate spring or the sign of the new life. Flowers are seen everywhere. There are often Easter Parades such as the one in New York City where people dress up in their new spring clothes. Children receive Easter baskets filled with candy Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and jelly beans! The dying...
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...Proposed Tourism Development in: _______Intramuros______ TM09306: Tourism Planning and Development __________________________________________________________________Final Report ABSTRACT A historical place called Intramuros that is once a center for government religion and military superiority during the Spanish era, During the time it was called a walled city because of the tall walls that covered all over the place. But during the 2nd World War it was heavily damage due to bombings and also, the Japanese used it for their prison barracks. This paper shows the profile of the case study area which consist of Geographic Characteristics, Socio-economic, and Political profile. This explains the current status of Intramuros in terms of population, environmental quality, economic condition, and the educational institutions in the area. Political profile is one of the most important factors to consider since the government is the one who gives financial support to accomplish certain projects or plans. The city of Intramuros has many things to offer. Even if it is not blessed with natural and archeological resources, the “walled city” is rich in history and culture that plays a major role in preserving our heritage and national identity since, it is easily overlooked by many Filipinos. In order to know the strategies that we are going to utilize and to come up with our group’s goal and mission, we use Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats Analysis...
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...Interlink Consulting Services, Inc., www.interlinkconsulting.com, Dr. Culture, www.drculture.com Dr. Culture Country & Cultural Sketch: KUWAIT Kuwait is slightly smaller than New Jersey covering nearly 7,000 sq. miles. It is the worlds 157th largest country. The capital, Kuwait city, lies on the southern shore of Kuwait Bay. Oil, no surprise, is Kuwait’s only major natural resource and dominates the economy. Water, on the other hand, is so scarce, the majority of water must be imported or processed at one of their several desalinization facilities. Kuwait “Snapshot” (CIA World Fact Book 2010 & Others As Indicated) Population .......2,692,526 (NOTE: This includes 1,291,354 non-nationals) Population Growth rate:........................................................3.5% Annually Percentage Living in Urban Areas:.......................................................98% DEVELOPMENT DATA Human Dev. Index* rank ..............................................31 of 177 countries (UN Human Development Report 2008-09) Per Capita GDP ............................................................................$54,100 (#7 World Ranking) Adult literacy rate ..............................................94% (male); 91% (female) Infant mortality rate ................................................ 18.97 per 1,000 births Life expectancy ..................................................77.7 (male); 78.9 (female) Meteorologically speaking, it surprises many that there are four...
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...MBA : UNIT1 Teaching Notes : 1. Definition of Research 2. Business Research 3. Features of a Good Research Study 4. Areas of Business Research 5. How to start Business Research 6. Business Research Analysis : Basic Steps 7. Business Research Problem 8. Primary Business Information 9. Research Proposal ( also in Unit2) 10. Research Methods versus Methodology 11. Types of Research 12. Functions of Business Research 13. Relevance of Business Research to Managers 14. Need to perform Business Research 15. Managerial Effectiveness and Research 16. Management Consultant 17. The Building Blocks of Science in Research 18. Induction & Deduction in Business Research 19. The Case Study as a Research Method 20. Case Study to Assess Business Situations 21. Difference between the case method and a case study? 22. Business Research Topics 23. Business Research in the 21st Century Definition of Research Research in common parlance refers to a search for knowledge. Once can also define research as a scientific and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. In fact, research is an art of scientific investigation. The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English lays down the meaning of research as “a careful investigation or inquiry specially through search for new facts in any branch...
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...Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. 'Once upon a time' is how all the best children's stories begin and 'prostitute' is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning. Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Like all prostitutes, she was born both innocent and a virgin, and, as an adolescent, she dreamed of meeting the man of her life (rich, handsome, intelligent), of getting married (in a wedding dress), having two children (who would grow up to be famous) and living in a lovely house (with a sea view). Her father was a travelling salesman, her mother a seamstress, and her hometown, in the interior of Brazil, had only one cinema, one nightclub and one bank, which was why Maria was always hoping that one day, without warning, her Prince Charming would arrive, sweep her off her feet and take her away with him so that they could conquer the world together. While she was waiting for her Prince Charming to appear, all she could do was dream. She fell in love for the first time when she was eleven, en route from her house to school. On the first day of term, she discovered that she was not alone on her way to school: making the same journey was a boy who lived in her neighbourhood and who shared the same timetable. They never exchanged a single word, but gradually Maria...
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...jon24565_ch05.qxd 11/2/05 1:22 PM Page 138 C H A P T E R 5 Business Ethics and the Legal Environment of Business Learning Objectives After studying this chapter you should be able to: 1. Understand the relationship between ethics and the law and appreciate why it is important to behave ethically. 2. Differentiate between the claims of the different stakeholder groups affected by a company’s actions. 3. Identify the four main sources of business ethics, and describe four rules that can be used to help companies and their employees behave ethically. 4. Describe some methods companies can use to strengthen their ethical rules and positions. 5. Appreciate the important ways in which a nation’s business laws and regulations affect business commerce, occupations, and organizations. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT ? A friend who is an A-student has offered to write your paper, which is worth 25% of your grade, for $50. You need the course to graduate because you only have a low C average. You hate writing, do it very poorly, and know others have had good results submitting this student’s papers as their own. Will you pay the money and submit the paper or submit your own paper and pray for a good result? This chapter will help you learn how to act ethically when facing dilemmas in your business and personal life. This is important because the decisions you make will affect your own future and those of stakeholders of the organizations that...
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...C H A P T E R 5 Business Ethics and the Legal Environment of Business Learning Objectives After studying this chapter you should be able to: 1. Understand the relationship between ethics and the law and appreciate why it is important to behave ethically. 2. Differentiate between the claims of the different stakeholder groups affected by a company’s actions. 3. Identify the four main sources of business ethics, and describe four rules that can be used to help companies and their employees behave ethically. 4. Describe some methods companies can use to strengthen their ethical rules and positions. 5. Appreciate the important ways in which a nation’s business laws and regulations affect business commerce, occupations, and organizations. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT ? A friend who is an A-student has offered to write your paper, which is worth 25% of your grade, for $50. You need the course to graduate because you only have a low C average. You hate writing, do it very poorly, and know others have had good results submitting this student’s papers as their own. Will you pay the money and submit the paper or submit your own paper and pray for a good result? This chapter will help you learn how to act ethically when facing dilemmas in your business and personal life. This is important because the decisions you make will affect your own future and those of stakeholders of the organizations that employ you. A Question of Business How Different Ethical Stances Can Help or Harm...
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...jon24565_ch05.qxd 11/2/05 1:22 PM Page 138 C H A P T E R 5 Business Ethics and the Legal Environment of Business Learning Objectives After studying this chapter you should be able to: 1. Understand the relationship between ethics and the law and appreciate why it is important to behave ethically. 2. Differentiate between the claims of the different stakeholder groups affected by a company’s actions. 3. Identify the four main sources of business ethics, and describe four rules that can be used to help companies and their employees behave ethically. 4. Describe some methods companies can use to strengthen their ethical rules and positions. 5. Appreciate the important ways in which a nation’s business laws and regulations affect business commerce, occupations, and organizations. WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT ? A friend who is an A-student has offered to write your paper, which is worth 25% of your grade, for $50. You need the course to graduate because you only have a low C average. You hate writing, do it very poorly, and know others have had good results submitting this student’s papers as their own. Will you pay the money and submit the paper or submit your own paper and pray for a good result? This chapter will help you learn how to act ethically when facing dilemmas in your business and personal life. This is important because the decisions you make will affect your own future and those of stakeholders of the organizations that...
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