Research and Analysis for Management
MGMT 6272
Instructor:
Dennis E. Clayson Dept. of Marketing
University of Northern Iowa
1-319-273-6015 Cedar Falls, Iowa 50614-0126
USA
On-line: www:cba.uni.edu/clayson/mba
Goals:
This class is designed to provide an understanding and practical application of information. The nature of business research and decision making utilizing research methods, quantitative analysis, and information theory will be discussed. The first part of the class is very philosophical; the second part is very practical.
Resources:
Review Program: The class will utilize a learning program from the Harvard Business School called “Quantitative Methods: An Online Introduction Course.” Each student must complete the assignment. Your progress will be graded by an on-line exam. That exam is worth 10% of your total grade. The instructor will be able to see your work as you go through the exercise. Each student must complete this course before midnight of the deadline outlined with the course (March 14). There is a cost involved and you must register and pay the fee. It is very important you go through this exercise so you will be better prepared for the class.
Follow these instructions:
How to get to the Harvard Program:
Go to:
https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/access/47609697 after Feb. 22.
When you first visit the site, you must complete a short registration process, which asks you to supply your name and email address and to create user names and passwords. The course will cost you about $75.
If you experience technical difficulty, please contact Tech Help:
1-800-810-8858 or 1-617-783-7700 or . Their business hours are 8am-6pm ET, Monday-Friday.
Text: Clayson, Marketing Research: A Pragmatic Guide, 3rd Ed. Erudition Books.
The text can be downloaded from the class website. It is free.
Applications:
1. Group Project: You are required to complete a group project for a real company or business. You will work in groups of 4 to 5 (depending upon the size of class and other factors). Your project must have the following components: 1) a company or business; 2) a problem to be solved; 3) project prospectus; 4) a literature review (or information) relevant to the problem and business; 5) the creation of a survey to investigation the problem; 6) a description of the data that would need to be gathered; 7) how the data should be analyzed; 8) recommendation to solve problem; 9) a presentation to the class; and 10) a formal written report. All members of the research group will receive the same grade on the project. Your presentation will be evaluated by the class. That evaluation can change the group grade by not more than a half grade point.
Prospectus: March 15
Presentation: March 20
Report: March 28 Submit to
2. Learning Activity: Write a paper of five pages with at least five references about the problems that other people have had with questionnaires when doing research. Use what you have learned to create a questionnaire that will predict whether a person will be a regular customer of a new business. Try it out with at least 10 people. Get their reaction, and then rewrite your questionnaire. Submit the research paper with the two copies of your questionnaire along with an explanation of why your questionnaire would be successful if it was actually used in a research project.
Due: March 17
4. Class Projects: There will be short homework assignments to bring to class.
Due: During meetings and next meeting
For Saturday and Sunday (3/12 and 3/13), Work with three other class members and bring to class a discussion on one of the following topics:
a) Is there global warming and is it caused by human activity?
b) Will there be an economic recession in the next year?
c) Do student evaluations of teaching actually measure how good a teacher is?
d) Should the US dollar continue to be used as the world’s reserve currency?
e) What is the best hotel in Hong Kong?
You can pick any of these topics. Find five sources that back one side of the question and five sources that back another side. Evaluate each source. Is it accurate? Is it believable? Are there any problems with the source? If so, what are they? Is each source “good” information?
The purpose of this exercise is to evaluate the information you find and then come to a conclusion based on your evaluation of the sources.
5. Final Exam
Due: March 24 Submit to
Learning Activities:
1. Results of Harvard Quant final ___10_____%
2. Learning Activities One ___10_____%
3. Application Assignments ___10 ____%
4. Group project
Prospectus ___10_____%
In-class presentations ___10_____%
Report submitted ___20_____%
5. Final Exam ___30_____%
Total ____100___ %
Schedule:
March 12 Introduction to Measurement.
The scientific method
13 Scaling and Observation
What is information?
Measurement without numbers
Interviews, Focus groups
Concept of scales and scaling
Constructs: Observation
15 Introduction to questionnaire design.
Why a question is not always a question
Types of questions
Pitfalls and mistakes
17 What should a questionnaire look like?
Formatting… Sequencing
How inputting and analyzing data determines what a
questionnaire looks like
March 19 Intro to Analysis
Sampling, Data Gathering
Sample Size
Hypothesis Testing
Why a person need not fear statistics?
What are statistics?
The universal pattern
The six statistics that will answer 90% of your questions.
20 Practical applied statistics.
Chi-Square and Z-tests
t-tests
Correlation and Regression
Presentations
24 Final exam due to Dr. Clayson
29 Final report due to Dr. Clayson
(Read the text for topics discussed in class.)