Unit I Mini Project

You are not required to submit the responses, but use your answers as the foundation for the assignment listed below.

1. Identify a business decision situation that requires action in your organization. Be clear and succinct.

2. Assess the current situation.

3. Identify two symptoms.

4. Identify likely problems causing each symptom.

5. Write a decision statement (this is always a question).

6. Identify research objective (potential result) that corresponds to the decision statement.

7. Restate research objective in the form of a question (known as the research question).

8. Develop a hypothesis by (1) reviewing the research objectives and identifying the variables and (2) specifying the variables in a declarative statement and describing the direction of the relationship.

Unit II Mini Project

Write a three- to five-page literature review on your selected topic. Ensure your literature review has the following:

Introduction: Provide an overview of the topic. Explain why the question is important and a brief description of the research design. State the purpose of conducting the literature review. Discuss major trends in the field. Explain how the literature review will be organized.

Body: Discuss the current status of the topic. Organize this section according to the previously mentioned themes or something similar. Discuss relationships that may exist in the literature.

Conclusion: Highlight major points discussed in the previous sections. Be sure to relate the information back to the purpose and relevance of the research.

Include a minimum of five sources. Three of the sources must be from peer-reviewed journals. Use and follow APA style for this assignment.

Unit III Mini Project

Write a two- to three-page report discussing the sampling design for the proposal.

Generate a sampling design that will yield the best results for your research objective. Include the following information:

1. Research the objective.

2. Description of the population: Process for identifying the target population and selecting the sampling frame

3. Describe the sampling procedures (convenience, quota, simple random), and justify your rationale for choosing the procedure(s).

4. Determine the sample size using one of the techniques from Chapter 17.

5. Calculate the confidence interval at 90%, 95%, and 99% to get an interval estimate, and explain the results.

6. Identify the different types of biases that are likely to occur and explain what steps you will take to minimize them.

7. Conclusion: Highlight the major points discussed in the previous sections. Be sure to relate the information back to the purpose and relevance of the research.

Unit IV Mini Project

Write a two-page paper describing a basic experimental design for the proposal.

Design a basic experiment to assess a cause and effect relationship based on your research question. Include the following information:MBA 5652, Research Methods 4

1. Research the objective.

2. Explain if the design is a true experiment or a quasi-experiment. Justify your selection.

3. Develop a hypothesis based on your research question.

4. Evaluate your hypothesis according to the characteristics provided in the lecture. Be specific.

5. Describe the independent variables, blocking variables, dependent variables, and extraneous variables.

6. Explain how you plan to deal with issues related to internal and external validity. Be specific.

7. Conclusion: Highlight the major points discussed in the previous sections. Be sure to relate the information back to the purpose and relevance of the research.

Unit V Mini Project

Using the survey that you developed in Unit III, choose 10 people in your organization to respond to the survey. Before disseminating the surveys, please pre-code the data (refer to Chapter 19, pp. 470-471) or follow the example provided in the lecture.

Perform the following:

1. Create a data file using an Excel worksheet.

2. Compute descriptive statistics for the variable(s), and explain the measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion that are most appropriate for your study.

3. Create a pie chart with percentages.

4. Compute a frequency table and histogram for each variable.

5. Decide which measures of central tendency, spread, and graphical display would be most appropriate for the study.