CLA 1 Paper - Business Research Methodology

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BUSINESS RESEARCH PROPOSAL GUIDELINES

The goal of business research is to solve problems within an organization.

Below are the guidelines for the proposal. Please be certain to follow the guidelines carefully.

PLEASE NOTE; All written work must be in the correct APA 7 th

edition

format. Use the provided template.

• Never identify a specific person, business, company, corporation, or city by name.

• Do not refer to yourself in the first person (I, my, etc.), except in the last section (#7)

• The paper should be written in the future tense, except the last section

• For this paper, you may use the term “data” as a singular or

plural term. Proofread your paper carefully for spelling and

grammatical errors, use APA 7th edition formatting.

Format: (an abbreviated example is at the end of this document)

1. Statement of Purpose:

Write a brief statement about the purpose of your research study. Think in terms of

why your company needs this research. You also need to support this statement with

why it needs to be done.

Ex. The purpose of this study is to determine customer satisfaction with current

Widgets. Determining customer satisfaction with the current Widgets will guide

changes in Widget design and production.

2. Description of the Problem:

Identify and describe the problem that you have observed in the literature.

Your observations must be supported by citations. Be specific and thorough

in your description. Add data to support your assertions (i.e.: number of

wickets that are defective, etc.). Include 2 - 3 research questions that will be

used to guide your study.

Ex. Widget sales have decreased by 10% per year between 2015 – 2019

(Jones, 2020). Along with decreased sales, there has been an increase in

Widget repairs and returns at a rate of 5% per year during this same period

(Smith, 2019). Other, corporations began producing Widget like products and

are increasing their sales base (Harrison & Sanchez, 2018). Research

questions that will be used to investigate this problem are:

1. Is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and decreased sales

between 2015 and 2019?

H0 There is no correlation between customer satisfaction and decreased

sales between 2015 and 2019.

H1 There is a correlation between customer satisfaction and decreased

sales between 2015 and 2019.

2. Is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and increased Widget

repairs and returns between 2015 and 2019?

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H0 There is no correlation between customer satisfaction and increased

Widget repairs and returns between 2015 and 2019.

H1 There is a correlation between customer satisfaction and increased

Widget repairs and returns between 2015 and 2019.

This is an abbreviated description as an example. Your description

should be longer and more detailed.

3. Mini-Literature Review:

Summarize peer reviewed sources that pertain to the problem that you will

study. For each resource, you must describe how the research is relevant to your

study (including specific ideas you might be taking from that research and

incorporating into your own research design). You must use at least 6

different resources for the literature review. You are stating what the

literature says about the subject.

Things to consider for this example: What does the literature say about

decreases in sales, increases in repairs and returns. What does the literature

say about their impact on customer satisfaction? What does the literature say

about Widget production?

4. Description of your Project - Procedures:

*This section is longest and should be typed with the following subsection headings:

Setting: Describe the organization (demographics etc.) where the research

will take place. Describe the specific department, area or site that is affected.

Ex. This study will take place at XYZ corporation. It will be restricted to the

Widget development department.

Participants: Describe the participants targeted for the study (sample size,

demographics, how they will be chosen); this includes information regarding any

comparison group if that is part of the study. Remember, do not identify the site

or any individuals by name. Participants (exact number, gender, age/department,

how they will be selected)

Ex. All participants will be past customers of the XYZ corporation. Only

customers that have purchased at least 1 Widget between 2013 and 2019 will be

invited to participate in this study. Widgets may only be purchased by adults

between the ages of 18 – 65. There is no gender, race or religious criteria

associated with this study. XYZ corporation has 132,645 customers that

purchased Widgets between 2013 and 2019 (Harrison & Boyd, 2020).

Instruments: Describe the measures used to collect your data. Specify if

each instrument will be designed by you (the researcher) or have been

designed by another person/company. If it was researcher-designed, describe

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the process you will use to develop the instrument. Provide citations to

support why you are using the questions you chose. Copies of the actual

instrument(s) must be included in the appendix.

Chronology: This is where you present a delineation of the precise time

frame for implementing the project as well as collecting/analyzing all

data. Should be a step by step account of how you will recruit participant

and implement the instrument. Provide a copy of a simple Gantt chart in

the appendix.

Data Collection: What qualitative and/or quantitative data will you collect to

determine your project’s impact? How will you collect it? Describe any

instrument(s) you will use to collect the data such as surveys, interview

questions, etc. Draft copies of the researcher-designed instruments must be

attached to this proposal as appendices. In the body of the paper, refer to where

these items can be found in the appendix.

1. Is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and decreased sales

between 2015 and 2019?

To investigate this question the researcher will use a 15-question survey

(see appendix B) to collect data on past customer satisfaction, purchases,

use of Widgets. The survey will be issued to customers that purchased

Widgets between 2013 and 2019 assuming that a decrease in sales may be

due to possible impacts in customer satisfaction during the study year as a

result of previous purchases (Johnson, 2016). Surveys will be created

using SurveyMonkey and will be issued using customer email. The survey

will be available for 12 weeks and customers will receive email reminders

every other week throughout the survey period. Once customers have

completed the survey the data will automatically be emailed to the

researcher. At the end of the 12-week period the researcher will gather all

data and enter it into SPSS for data analysis. There are 132,645 possible

participants for this study. Therefore 1,326 must respond for the study to

be considered valid.

2. Is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and increased Widget

repairs and returns between 2015 and 2019?

To investigate this question the researcher will use a 15-question survey

(see Appendix B) to collect data on customer repairs, returns and,

satisfaction of service. The survey will be issued to customers that

purchased Widgets between 2013 and 2019 assuming that a decrease in

sales may be due to possible impacts in customer satisfaction during the

study year as a result of previous purchases (Johnson, 2016). Surveys will

be created using SurveyMonkey and will be issued using customer email.

The survey will be available for 12 weeks and customers will receive email

reminders every other week throughout the survey period. Once customers

have completed the survey the data will automatically be emailed to the

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researcher. At the end of the 12-week period the researcher will gather all

data and enter it into SPSS for data analysis. There are 132,645 possible

participants for this study. Therefore 1,326 must respond for the study to

be considered valid.

Analysis: This is where you describe the quantitative and/or qualitative

measures you will use to analyze the data you collected. This section must be

organized by research question. (Restate research question #1 and then describe

how you will analyze the data for that question.

1. Is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and decreased sales

between 2015 and 2019?

This question will investigate customer use, satisfaction, and Widget

purchases and seeks to determine a correlation. The independent variable

is customer satisfaction and the dependent variable is sales. A Pearson

Correlation will be used to determine the correlation between customer

satisfaction and sales. Results will be determined through the acceptance

or rejection of the null hypothesis using the resulting p-value. If p< .05 the

null hypothesis will be rejected, and the alternate hypothesis will be

accepted. It will be assumed that there is a correlation between customer

satisfaction and decreased sales. If p> .05 then the null hypothesis will be

accepted, and the alternative hypothesis will be accepted. It will be

assumed that there is no correlation between customer satisfaction and

decreased sales.

2. Is there a correlation between customer satisfaction and increased Widget

repairs and returns between 2015 and 2019?

This question will investigate customer repairs, returns and satisfaction

and seeks to determine a correlation. The independent variable is

customer satisfaction and the dependent variables are service and returns.

An ANOVA will be used to determine the correlation between customer

satisfaction and service and returns. Results will be determined through

the acceptance or rejection of the null hypothesis using the resulting p-

value. If p< .05 the null hypothesis will be rejected, and the alternative

hypothesis will be accepted. It will be assumed that there is a correlation

between customer satisfaction and decreased sales. If p> .05 then the null

hypothesis will be accepted, and the alternative hypothesis will be

rejected. It will be assumed that there is no correlation between customer

satisfaction and decreased sales.

Again, this is an example. Your analysis may require more detail.

3. References

Cite all literature in the body of the paper (with parentheticals) and on the

reference page using APA (American Psychological Association) format.

4. Appendixes

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The appendix should include copies of your data collection instruments and

Gantt Chart. If you are using an instrument that is already pre-made, you must

cite it in the instruments section and include it in the references. Provide a

narrative description of the instrument in the instrument section above.

5. Final Comments

In this section only, you may refer to yourself in the first person.

This is where you take a step back and reflect on the process of designing

research. What did you like about it? What was challenging? How can you

use the skills you have learned?