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Dear MBA students,

ESLSCA 49C
As agreed please find attached the Mid Term Exam, you should:
1. Answer ALL questions, Part1 & Part2
2. Use your text book, extra text book, the internet, and other references.
3. DON'T discuss or share, by any means of communication, with any other students (even for those who are marr
be counted as 'Plagiarism'
4. It is NOT ACCEPTED to just copy and paste from any source, your interpretation and write-up is a MUST to g
5. Reply with your file .xls, of your answer to ME ONLY, to ashraf@ashrafelsafty.com .
6. MUST include your first name and family name WITHIN the file name (ex.: DrAshrafElsafty-E-RM-49C-M
7. Use BLUE color for your text answers, or just fill in the shaded blocks.
8. Email directly to ME ONLY no later than agreed deadline day and time 10th March 2015, 10:00 pm, oth
9. Please give every single question the needed high care, as grades are NOT equally distributed among que

Again we are studying to learn, and we are now leveraging our learning capacity and measuring our knowledge le
So please focus on your time and answers to learn while filling the exam.

Wish you all the best of luck.

Kind Regards,
Dr. Ashraf Elsafty
Adjunct Professor, Strategist
Strategic Management & Research Methods.
ESLSCA, MIU, Riti/MsM cairo outreach.
45FDA
Dr. Ashraf Elsafty
Research Methods
ESLSCA 49C
Mid term Exam
Part ONE

Q Part 1:
1 When is Applied research, as distinct from
Basic research, useful? Write you own example
(about 8 lines)

5 Why is it important to gather secondary


information during problem definition on the
background of the organization? (about 2
paragraph)

6 How would you go about doing a literature


survey in the area of human rights? (about 4-6
lines)
7 What is the critical purpose of the literature
review (4-6 statements)

8 Why is appropriate APA important? What are


the consequences of not giving credit to the
source from which materials are extracted?
(about 4-6 statements)

9 “The problem definition stage is perhaps more


critical in the research process than the
litrature review”. Discuss this statement.
(about 4-6 lines)

10 Offer a clearly focused problem statement in


the broad area of corporate learning (1
statement)
11 Why should one get hung up on stakeholders
analysis, if one already knows the broad
problem area to be studied? (about 2
paragraphs).

12 After studying and extracting information from


all the relevant work done previously, how
does the researcher know which references,
articles, and information should be given
prominence in the literature survey? (about 2-
3 paragraphs).

13 Below is the gist of an article from Business


Week. After reading it, (a) identify the broad
problem area, (b) define the problem, and (c)
explain how you would proceed further. (about
a; 2 lines, b; 1 statement, c; 3 statements)

While Chrysler’s minivans, pickups, and sports


utilities take a big share of the truck market, its
cars trail behind those of GM, Ford, Honda, and
Toyota. Quality problems include, among other
things, water leaks and defective parts.
14 What is the problem statement in the following
situation? (1 statement)
Employee Loyalty: Companies benefit through
employee loyalty. Crude downsizing in
organizations during the recession crushed the
loyalty of millions. The economic benefits of
loyalty embrace lower recruitment and training
costs, higher productivity of workers, customer
satisfaction, and boost the morale of fresh recruits.
In order that these benefits may not be lost, some
companies, while downsizing, try various
gimmicks. Flex leave, for instance, is one. This
helps employees receive 20% of their salary, plus
employer-provided benefits while they take a 6-12
month sabbatical, with a call option on their
services. Others try alternatives like more
communication, hand-holding, and the like.

15 How would you define the problem in the


following case? (3 lines)
Accounting Gets Radical: The GAAP (Generally
Accepted Accounting Principles) do an
unacceptable job of accounting for the principal
activities of the Information Age companies.
Today, investors are in the dark because the
accounting is irrelevant. The basic purpose of
accounting is to provide useful information to help
investors make rational investment, credit, and
similar decisions, but today’s most important
assets and activities – intellectual capital and
knowledge work – are totally ignored. Professor
Robert A. Howell wants to reform the accounting
system with the goal of making clear the
measurement of how companies produce cash and
create value.
16 Because literature review is a time-consuming
exercise, a good, in-depth interview should
suffice to develop a theoretical framework.
Discuss this statement. (about 4 paragraphs).

17 Good models are complex. What’s more, a good


model should include both moderating and
mediating variables. Discuss this statement.
(about 2-3 paragraphs).

18 University researchers usually develop more


complex and elaborate models than Business
researchers. Discuss this statement. (yes or no,
with clear reasoning).
19 In an applied research context you do not need
to explain the relationships between the
variables in your conceptual model. Discuss
this statement. 2-3 paragraphs of solid
reasoning).

20 For the following case titled Sleepless Nights at


Holiday Inn (published in Business Week and
adapted here):
a. Identify the problem with conceptual model, b.
Develop a theoretical framework, c. Develop at
least four hypotheses. All with needed figuers.
Sleepless Nights at Holiday Inn: Just a few years
ago, Tom Oliver, the Chief Executive of Holiday
Hospitality Corp., was struggling to differentiate
among the variety of facilities offered to clients
under the Holiday flagship – the Holiday Inn Select
designed for business travelers, the Holiday Inn
Express used by penny pinchers, and the Crowne
Plaza Hotels, the luxurious hotels meant for the big
spenders. Oliver felt that revenues could be
quadrupled if only clients could differentiate
among these. Keen on developing a viable strategy
for Holiday Hospitality which suffered from brand
confusion, Tom Oliver conducted a customer
survey of those who had used each type of facility,
and found the following. The consumers didn’t
have a clue as to the differences among the three
different types. Many complained that the
buildings were old and not properly maintained,
and the quality ratings of service and other factors
were also poor. Furthermore, when word spread
that one of the contemplated strategies of Oliver
was a name change to differentiate the three
facilities, irate franchises balked. Their mixed
messages did not help consumers to understand
the differences either. Oliver thought that he first
needed to understand how the different
classifications would be important to the several
classes of clients, and then he could market the
heck out of them and greatly enhance the
revenues. Simultaneously, he recognized that
unless the franchise owners fully cooperated with
him in all his plans, mere face lifting and
improvement of customer service would not bring
added revenues.

21 Exercise 4.1 (From your text book, 5th edition)

State the dependent variable and why.

22 Exercise 4.2
State the dependent variable.

23 Exercise 4.3
Fill in the below table :
Variable type
Independent

Dependent
Independent

24 Exercise 4.5
Fill in the below table :
Variable type
Independent

Dependent
Moderating
#VALUE!

Answer

Applied research is concerned in making a research to solve specific


problem faced and experienced in an organization to support
manager using the right solution.
While basic research is being used to contribute in knowledge base
and understand a phenomena which is not specified to a certain
problem happening in specific organization.
example: wne a researcher make a research studying the labor
satisfaction with amout of merit increase in general this would be
basic reseach. if the researcher is assigned from specific
organization in specific industry to solve customer satisfaction
issue and how it could be related to merit increase, thie would be
applied research.

It will help you to gain a deep understanding of the issue so that you
can address it properly.
It can help you to formulate/reformulate your topic (or, to put it
another way, it can help you decide whether to broaden or narrow
your topic).
Background sources might include references that you can use to
find additional sources for your project.

Literature survey is the documentation of a comprehensive review


of the published and unpublished work from secondary sources of
data in the areas of specific interest to the researcher and to be
done in the area of business ethics the researcher should identify
the source of data through offering detailed information regarding
citations, quotations, references and so on.
defining the research problem, to find out the various problems
that occur in an organization and provide an assessment of the
organization and provide good advice. A good literature provides
the foundation for developing a comprehensive theoretical
framework from which hypotheses can be developed for testing

citation importan to protect the rights of the writer who ownes the
idea and to. Not giving the source the credit is plagiarism

problem defination is more important and wrong or too general


defination will lead to wrong solution
a. The broad problem : Quality problems cause Chrysler cars lower
in market share.

b. Problem statement: how quality problems would affect market


share
c.
Problem statement.

Problem Definition:
Problem Statement:
Theoretical Framework :

Hypotheses:

The dependent variable is performance of the employee in the branch


The dependent variable is Product desirability

Variable Name
Training

Production of workers
Good Supervision

Variable Name
Off-Job Classroom Training

Productivity
Age
Answer

As per the definition of Applied-Basic research in (Uma Sakaran and


Roger Bougie), Applied research is the intention of applying the
findings resulted from the basic research to be applied in order to
solve certain problem occurred in Certain organization .it could be
applied by managers in order to support them in their final
decision.Basic research generating knowledge to understand
certain phenomenon of interest for the researcher; it is a result of
many applied researches in different organizations in order to
develop a generic theory for a certain industry, universities
professors are always engaged in such type of research

In order to be fully aware with the contextual factors of the


company which are the 9 elements of the organization
• Organization
• Management function
• Organizational level
• Business function
• Geographical
• Industry
• External environment
• Internal environment
• Time
all the above will make it easy for the researcher to understand the
root cause of the problem and knowing all factors in the
organization which will help him in solving the problem

Literature Survey should be conducted from trusted resources like


books,academic,profesional journals,reports,theses ,conference
proceeding ,unpublished manuscripts ,the researcher has to use a
combination of different resources in order to get accurate
information about the research problem ,and it should be
mentioned as a reference in order to avoid any plagiarism
The purpose of Literature is to check the published and
unpublished work from secondary data source which are related to
the research problem and to ensure that none of the important
variables are left out of the study .it is possible that some of the
critical variables are never highlighted in the preliminary data
gathering stage or because they are not mentioned during the
interviews. Critical review provides researchers with a frame work
which include the identification and definition of the relevant
variables related to the study and to provide relationships between
them in a conceptual model. A good literature provides the
foundation for developing a comprehensive theoretical framework
from which hypotheses can be developed for testing.it also gives an
idea on the research methods which have been used in other
similar research which provides answers their own research
questions.so it gives the researh the rigor and testability which are
the research hallmarks and it could be replicated in another
environment

Citation is important as the researcher has to mention whose work


he is building on and whose ideas he is challenging, highlighting on
many resources give an intention that the researcher did a great
effort in order to get the suitable solution for the research problem,
most published articles are copyrighted and there are rules on how
much you could repeated from the original text without the author
permission, so at least it is important to mention your references in
order to respect the intellectual property and the copyrights of
others. The consequences of not mentioning the data sources, the
researcher could be sued for plagiarism.

Narrowing down the problem from its original base and state well
the research question will definitely conclude in a good problem
statement which will support the researcher to solve the specific
problem encountered in the work setting in case of applied
research

How could coporate Culture influence Employee performance ?


Doing a detailed problem definition and identify exactly the
problem
And narrowing the broad problem to a specified one will help the
researcher to simplify the problem and help him to reach the
solution easily

Researchers should give importance to the sources according to


the problem definition
and how it is related to his problem, and in order to get a fast
overview for each source
The abstract gives an overview of the study purpose, research
strategy, findings and conclusion; Introduction could give the
researcher also a good overview of the research
and the researcher should also evaluate the source according to
number of references stated, variables stated are valid and reliable,
did it make contribution to the field, is the
research problem and question presented in a clear and analytical
way, is it published and reviewed from high publisher

a. The broad problem :


Chrysler cars are falling behind in market share

b. Problem statement: How could improve Chrysler its Market


share?
c. Narrowing the broad problem to a small one which is the quality
problem of vehicle parts which cause water leaks ,accordingly need
to find a solution for such quality problem by using quality
assurance tools in order to prevent in future quality problem in
products which will help Chrysler to compete in the market
Problem statement.
What actions needed from the organization to be done in order to
maintain
the loyalty of the employees during downsizing situation?

Problem Definition:
the irrelevant accounting system has bad effect on the investors,
it keeps the investors in the dark side as it does not provide the
investors with the useful information about important assets
,intellectual capital and knowledge work.
As per the definition of Literature Survey and Literature critical
review in (Uma Sakaran and Roger Bougie Book). Literature
Review is to check the published and unpublished work from
secondary data source which are related to the research problem
and to ensure that none of the important variables are left out of
the study .it is possible that some of the critical variables are never
highlighted in the interview or by the researcher. literature review
provides researchers with a frame work which include the
identification and definition of all relevant variables related to the
study and to provide relationships between them in a conceptual
model. A good literature provides the foundation for developing a
comprehensive theoretical framework from which hypotheses can
be developed for testing. so it is an important although it is time
consuming excercise, it is a mandatory as it is one of the major steps
of the research process which gives rigor to the research ,while
gathering a primary first hand data such as surveys,interviews and
focus groups also are beneficial but not sufficient to develop a
theoretical frame work and could not lead to the problem research
solution.

there is no relationship between the quality of the model and its


complexity and per the definition of parsimony which is one the
important hallmarks of scientific research ,simplicity in explaining
the phenomena or problems that occur and in generating solution
for the problems ,is always prefer to build our research frame work
with less number of variables that explain the variance more
efficiently than a complex set of variable that marginally add to the
variance.it is not important that good model contains both
moderating and mediating variables ,the most important is to
define the relationship between the dependent and the
independent variable

Yes, I agree with the statement as for the basic research definition is
understanding a certain phenomenon resulting from many applied
researches in order to create a generic theory which could be
applied in different organizations , so checking different models
with different applied research is more complex than applied one
which apply a certain model in a certain organization to solve a
specific problem
In applied research ,the researcher needs to explain the
relationships between variables in his conceptual Model and
integrating his model with theories which are drawn from previous
research about his problem. According to the applied research, the
researcher could not add or remove any independent variable that
is already exists in the theory and proved but he could add any
mediating or moderating variable.The effect of the moderating and
mediating variables on the relation between dependent and the
independent variables should be explained and proved by the
researcher.

Problem Statement: How to implement the differentiation strategy


in order to increase the revenue
Theoretical Framework :
Dependent Variable: Revenue
Independent Variable: Brand Awareness
Independent Variable: Building Maintenance
Independent Variable: Service Quality
Moderating Variable: Fully Franchise
Owner's Cooperation

Brand
Awareness

Building Revenue
Maintenance

Service Quality

Fully Franchise
Owner's
Cooperation

Hypotheses:
Increase Brand Awareness with different types of facilities will
increase the Revenue
Enhancing the Building maintenance will increase revenue
Enhancing quality of service will increase revenue
Without the cooperation of franchise owner on
the new startegy ,the revenue could not be increased

The dependent variable is the performance of the employee


The dependent variable is Product desirability

Variable Name
Production Level of Workers

Good Supervison
Training

Variable Name
Productivity

Off the Job Classroom training


Age
Must add reference(s) used

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.
Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.
(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.
enue

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.
Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.
(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R.


(2010). Research Methods for
Business: A Skill Building
Approach, 5th Edition.
Chichester, United Kingdom:
Wiley.
45FDA
35

If a bank manager wants to analyze the relationship


between interest rates and bank deposit patterns of
A
clients, a ‘field study’ is the most suitable method of
investigation.

A. true
B. false

36

A marketing manager aims to investigate the


relationship between customer satisfaction and store
loyalty among Syrian consumers. For this purpose, B
data will have to be collected from Syrian stores and
the ‘unit of analysis’ is the country.

A. true
B. false

Wish you all the best of success.

Dr. Ashraf Elsafty


Statement is true as this bank manager would Sekaran, U., & Bougie,
correlate these two variables (interest rate and R. (2010). Research
deposit pattern) by observing deposit in several Methods for Business:
account types as interest change. This has been done A Skill Building
with no expermental activity in a normal bank Approach, 5th Edition.
routine. This is explained clearly in Research Chichester, United
Methods For Business 5th Edition Book page 134 Kingdom: Wiley.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie,


R. (2010). Research
Statement is falase, in this case the unit of analysis in
individual based on customers. This is explained Methods for Business:
A Skill Building
clearly in Research Methods For Business 5th Edition Approach, 5th Edition.
Book page 137 & 138.
Chichester, United
Kingdom: Wiley.

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