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Semester II Terminal Examinations (Class of 2007)

IBS557 Business Research Methods

Part A

Q. During a focus group discussion, the moderator specifically mentioned that the views andopinions of every participant will be treated respectfully and be considered in the up-comingresearch. This code of conduct of the moderator reflects

a. Assurance

b. Guarantee

c. Friendliness

d. Politeness

e. Ethics

Q. -------- is very essential before the study of the status of slum-dwellers in a remote place atBhubaneshwar.

a. Data collection

b. Regression Analysis

c. Pilot test

d. Ramsey Test

e. Probability test

Q. A research is done to

a. Assess theories

b. Probe into the history of an event

c. Do clinical experiments

d. Critically evaluate the concepts used

e. Answer queries or expand the realm of knowledge

Q. Which study explores the relationship between salary of the employee and his/her jobperformance?

a. Descriptive study

b. Causal study

c. Cross-Sectional study

d. Experimental study

e. Time series study.

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Q. Data on money supply collected from the Handbook of Statistics of Indian Economy, RBI forresearch, is known as

a. Primary Data

b. Secondary Data

c. Cross-Sectional Data

d. Ordinal Data

e. Only (a) and (c) above.

Q. Semantic differential scale is used for

a. Coding data

b. Forecasting demand

c. Representing categories

d. Noting demographic data like, gender, age-group and marital status

e. Assessing attitudinal and behavioral measurements

Q. In a personal interview special emphasis should be paid to

a. Psychographic profile of the respondent

b. Demographic profile of the respondent

c. Responses and comments of the respondent

d. Indifferent attitude displayed by the respondent

e. Abusive language used by the respondent

Q. A questionnaire method of data collection does not gathera. Secondary data

b. Primary data

c. Psychographic data

d. Demographic data

e. Attitude data

Q. The following enlists the components of the Service Record of an employee. Which of thefollowing is not a categorical data?

a. Name

b. Joining date

c. Date of birth

d. Designation

e. Years of service

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Q. A students mark sheet includes the registration number (R) and the marks in all the subjects (M).R and M are respectively instances of

a. Interval Scale and Nominal Scale

b. Nominal Scale and Ratio Scale

c. Ratio Scale and Interval Scale

d. Nominal Scale and Interval Scale

e. Ratio Scale and Nominal Scale

Q. The categorization of information on gender into male and female pertains to

a. Nominal data

b. Ordinal data

c. Interval data

d. Ratio Data

e. Only (b) and (d) above.

Q. When numbers are used exclusively, the code is ____________

a. Alphanumeric.

b. Numeric

c. Semi-Numeric

d. Only (a) and (b) above.

e. All (a), and (c) above.

Q. Projective technique is a data collection method fora. Qualitative data

b. Rating data

c. Numerical data

d. Ratio scale data

e. Sales data

Q. The list of chapters in a research report is called the

a. Index

b. Contents

c. Reference

d. Chapter scheme

e. Salient points in the research

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Q. A Likert scale has

a. Ranking data

b. Uni-polar label end

c. Comparative scalingd. Rating information

e. Categorical information

Q. Which of the following option(s) one will put while preparing the question in order to know themartial status of the respondent?

a. Married

b. Widow(er)

c. Divorced

d. Separated.

e. All (a) (b), (c) and (d) above.

Q. Which analysis measures the what aspect of a message?

a. Factor analysis

b. Content analysis

c. Regression analysis

d. Cointegration analysis

e. Cluster analysis

Q. Constant Sum is a ________ method.a. Validating

b. Computing

c. Non-comparative

d. Scaling

e. Editing

Q. From the Business section of a newspaper, the stock market data (the closing value of index) ofsome companies were noted down. This is

a. Primary data in Interval scale form

b. Secondary data in Interval scale form

c. Primary data in Ratio scale form

d. Secondary data in Ratio scale form

e. Secondary data in Nominal scale form

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Q. Y=a+b1X1+b2X2+ e. In this function, b1 & b2 are known as

a. Constants.

b. Variables.

c. Coefficients.d. Dummy variables

e. Proxy variables

Q. The question, Do you like and appreciate the name Indian for our airlines? is a question of______ type

a. Double-barreled

b. Fixed-alternative

c. Open-ended

d. Offending

e. Probing

Q. Hypothesis testing does not comprise of

a. Alternative hypothesis

b. Null hypothesis

c. Critical value of the test statistic

d. Calculated (observed) value of the test statistic

e. Qualitative data

Q. The situation where two or more of the independent variables are highly correlated is known asa. Autocorrelation

b. Multicollinearity

c. Heteroscedasticity

d. Specification Bias

e. Variance

Q. Effect as in a cause-effect relationship is the

a. Independent variable

b. Predictor variable

c. Explanatory variable

d. Dependent variable

e. Variable that can not be used in a Regression analysis

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Q. The linear combination of X i s namely D = a1 X1 + a2 X2 + .. + a n X n is used in aDiscriminant Analysis. The symbols D and the X i s are the

a. Discriminant score and effect variables

b. Discriminant equation and independent variables

c. Discriminant function and dependent variables

d. Discriminant score and dependant variables

e. Discriminant score and independent variables

Q. In a Regression analysis, R2

= 0.286. One may conclude that the Regression model

a. Is superficial

b. Can not be improved

c. Is a poor model

d. Is non-mathematical

e. Should have been essentially non-linear

Q. Which statistical analysis studies the relationship between or among groups?

a. Regression Analysis

b. Discriminant analysis

c. Factor analysis

d. Multiple regression analysis

e. Cluster analysis

Q. Factor analysis is basically donea. To add new factors to the factor matrix

b. To correlate some uncorrelated variables

c. To delete some of the of the factors obtained in the factor matrix

d. To reduce the number of original variables to a smaller number of factors

e. To improve the interpretation of the correlation matrix

Q. Organisations have different work cultures, employee profiles and policies. Grouping theseorganisations on similarity or dissimilarity measures of these attributes is done using

a. Discriminant analysis

b. Regression analysis

c. Cluster analysis

d. Factor analysis

e. correlation

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Q. The correlation coefficient between two variables is 0.0862. One may conclude that between thetwo variables

a. There is no association

b. Explanatory power is extremely poor

c. There is spurious correlation

d. There must be a non-linear association

e. The strength of linear association is poor

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Part B

Problems, Conceptual Understanding, Analytical Ability and Situational Analysis

1. A major social organisation provides one of the most comprehensive emergency medicalservices in a city.Operating in a multiple hospital system with twenty mobile medical units, theservice goal is to respond to medical emergencies with utmost efficiency. The proprietor of thisorganisation wants to introduce this noble service in other cities and especially in villages.

She sets herself two goals (1) assess the extent of use of this mobile medical service in thecity it is presently operating in and (2) know if the present medical facilities she is offering isadequate or not.

a. For goal (1) she has designed a set of questions for the citizens. State six questions, oneof each of following types - probing, free-response, multiple choice, double-barreled, ratingand ranking, that will help her to assess this usage.

b. Whom should she select as respondents to attain goal (2)?

c. Should she take recourse to personal interviews or a focus group discussion involving the

respondents she has selected for goal (2)? Justify your answer.

(6 + 1 + 3 = 10 marks)

Suggested Answer:

a. probing Can you suggest ways in which this mobile medical service may be furtherimproved?

free-response What do you feel about the extent of use of the mobile medical service inthis city?

multiple choice if you were to choose among a first aid unit, a para-medic unit and anintensive care unit, which would you recommend to be included in this mobile medicalservice?

double-barreled - Is the mobile medical service in this city efficient in its work and dedicatedto the service?

rating rate each of the following on the given agreement scale:

Strongly disagree Strongly agree

There must alwaysbe a cardiac surgeonin the mobilemedical service.

The mobile medicalservice must alwayshave life-saving

drugs well-stocked.

ranking rank each of the following, from 1 to 4 (1- most preferred, 4 - least preferred)

there should be 4 mobile medical units running for 24 hours



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For goal 2 she should select doctors, para-medics and nurses.

She should initially do a focus group discussion involving the respondents and later dosome personal interviews with the doctors.

An FGD will help to

Identify special requirements

Reveal hidden

1. critical requirements

2. needs, wants, preferences

3. perceptions, opinions

Generate new ideas

Discover new requirements of patients and patient-families

Understand sudden changes

Get some suggestions for improving the medical facilities

A personal interview will help in - getting deeper insights into and know more intricately about thepoints thus emerged from the FGD.

2. Dairy-Tess, a large and very popular ice cream company, with more than four hundred retailoutlets throughout our country, was keen on expanding its customer base. The objective was toidentify potential consumer segments that could generate additional sales. It was decided that aprimary research should be conducted - to get a clear demographic profile of this consumersand also get an assessment of their life style and attitude towards consumption of ice cream.

a. Design a questionnaire (with adequate psychographic and demographic questions, usingproper measuring and scaling techniques) that will help you to fulfill the task.

b. Mention one error that a field-worker doing this primary research must essentially avoid?c. Explain the meaning of the following with respect to experimental designs.

EG: R O1 X O2

CG: R O3 O4

EG: R X O5

CG: R O6

(6 + 1 + 3 = 10 marks)

Suggested Answer:

a. Questionnaire (with adequate psychographic and demographic questions, using propermeasuring and scaling techniques) that will help you to fulfill the task.

QUESTIONNAIRE NO.______

Sir / Madam,

WE SEEK YOUR VALUED OPINION ON SOME ASPECTS OF CONSUMPTION OF ICE CREAM WE THANKYOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION AND ASSURE YOU COMPLETE CONFIDENTIALITY OF ALL THE

INFORMATION YOU WILL SO KINDLY SHARE WITH US .

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IN EACH OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS PLEASE MARK THE ALTERNATIVE(S) THAT APPLY TO YOU:

1. I GET TO KNOW ABOUT ICE CREAM BRANDS FROM

TELEVISION NEWSPAPERS MAGAZINES BILL BOARDS SUPER MARKETS

MALLS

2. MY BRAND OF ICE CREAM IS / ARE DECIDED BY

CHILDREN SPOUSE RELATIVES FRIENDS

COLLEAGUES STORE PERSONNEL

3. I WOULD LIKE TO MY ICE CREAM FROM

LOCAL GROCER SUPERMARKET ICE CREAM PARLOURS

COMPANY OUTLET VENDORS

The following table lists the different reasons for buying an ice cream.

Please grade the importance of each as per your opinion on the given scale of 1 to 7.

(1 I certainly do not believe this, 7 I definitely support this)

4. Ice cream is a spontaneous purchase 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5. I like to have ice creams while partying withfriends

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

6. Ice creams give a feeling of happier times 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

7. I associate ice creams with eating out 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8. I would always make it a point to store icecreams as a ready-to-eat dessert at home

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

9. Ice cream is a much superior dessert ascompared to other traditional ones

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

10. Ice cream is a dessert associated with upperstrata society

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11. I would contemplate a lot before purchasing icecreams

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Personal Information

12. Gender Female (1) Male (2)

13. Marital status Married (1) Unmarried (2) Widow / Widower (3) Separated

/ Divorced (4)14. Occupation Home maker (1) Service Private (2) Service army, navy, air

force (3)

Service public other than above (4) Self-employed (5) Retired (6) Student (7)

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14. Age_____(years)

15. Householdsize ____

16. No. of children (below 18 yearsof age) in the family ___

17. Family income permonth (Rs.) ___________

Thank you

Sincerely yours,

__________________Date: ________________

b. Errors that a field-worker doing this primary research must essentially avoid:

altering the language of the question that is written in the questionnaire

recording only a part of the responses

in case of the absence or unavailability of the correct respondent, convenientlychoosing a respondent to replace the actual one

answering data on behalf of the respondent

c. Text book Page 153, Solomon four group designs

3. Gillette conducted a comprehensive research on customer satisfaction of its shaving products,mainly razors. A large amount of data was from a variety of respondents were collected andanalysed, leading to several results The following is a part of one such result.

Rotated Component Matrix

Component

1 2 3 4

The Gillette company gives quality products -.145 .851 .125 -.321

I hardly ever scratch myself while using Gillette razors -.708 .097 .518 .076

I would never shift to any other brand of shaving products ever .389 -.053 .209 .852

Gillette razors may be costly, but they last for weeks -.092 -.039 .960 .124

The brand name Gillette itself is enough for me -.008 .916 -.127 .210

Shaving with Gillette gives me a smooth feeling .972 -.034 .020 .141

Gillette razors are soft on my skin .972 -.034 .020 .141

a. If you were to do a secondary research on the usage of Gillette razors in other countries,what would be your source of information?

b. What Statistical technique has the above result emerged from?

c. What do you understand by Rotated Component Matrix?

d. Write a brief report on the result displayed above.

(1 + 1 + 3 + 5 = 10 marks)

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Suggested Answer:

a. Source for a secondary research on the usage of Gillette razors in other countries internet,web sites relating to the Gillette Company.

b. Statistical technique Factor analysis

c. Rotated Component Matrix:

This is matrix of correlation coefficients between individual factors and each originalvariable.

The basic reason for rotating factors is to improve the interpretation of the factorsobtained through unrotated methods.

Rotation is simply a mathematical procedure, which allows new axes to be chosen sothat the positions of the points can be described as simply as possible - so thatloadings of some variables are maximised and the loadings of others are minimised.

d. Report on the result of Rotated Component Matrix

Component

1 2 3 4

The Gillette company gives quality products -.145 .851 .125 -.321

I hardly ever scratch myself while using Gillette razors -.708 .097 .518 .076

I would never shift to any other brand of shaving productsever

.389 -.053 .209 .852

Gillette razors may be costly, but they last for weeks -.092 -.039 .960 .124

The brand name Gillette itself is enough for me -.008 .916 -.127 .210

Shaving with Gillette gives me a smooth feeling .972 -.034 .020 .141

Gillette razors are soft on my skin .972 -.034 .020 .141

Naming the Components

Component 1 Component 2 Component 3 Component 4

I hardly ever scratchmyself while usingGillette razors,

Shaving with Gillettegives me a smooth

feeling,Gillette razors are softon my skin

The Gillette Companygives quality products,

The brand nameGillette itself is enoughfor me

Gillette razors may becostly, but they last forweeks

I would never shift toany other brand ofshaving products ever

Satisfaction Brand that speaks ofquality

Value for money Brand loyalty

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Customers put first priority to satisfaction while selecting their brand of shavingaccessories.

Then follow Brand that speaks of quality, Value for money and Brand loyalty indecreasing order of importance in the selection and purchasing procedure.

4. If you have to make a sales forecast on a new type of product which is yet to be launched, whattype of forecasting method you would apply and why? Describe the method in detail.

(2 + 2 + 6 = 10 marks)

Suggested Answer:

Qualitative method.

Due to absence of historical data quantitative techniques like time series analysis or causalmethods like regression analysis is not possible.

Description of Delphi or Nominal Group Technique is expected from the students

5. Give two points of difference for each of the following pairs:

a. Comparative scaling and non-comparative scaling,

b. Focus group discussion and in-depth interview,

c. Regression analysis and Discriminant analysis.

(4 + 3 + 3 = 10 marks)

Suggested Answer:

Give two points of difference for each of the following pairs:

Comparative scaling and non-comparative scaling,

Focus group discussion and in-depth interview,

Regression analysis and Discriminant analysis.

Give two points of difference for each of the following pairs:

a. Comparative scaling and non-comparative scaling

Com arative scales

Pairedcomparison ConstantsumRankorder

Q-sort and otherprocedures

Noncomparativescales

Continuousrating

Itemised

rating

Likert Semanticdifferential

Stapel

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Comparative scales

deals with direct comparison of objects or individuals

data collected is interpreted in relative terms

data have only ordinal or rank characteristics

Non comparative scales

respondents are asked to rate each variable separately

a supporting scale with numbers or grades is provided to facilitate the answering bythe respondent

b. Focus group discussion and in-depth interview - Text book pages 27, 101

c. Regression analysis and Discriminant analysis

Regression analysis dependent variable interval scale or ratio scale in nature

independent variables interval scale or ratio scale or categorical in nature

Categorical variables are represented in the analysis using Dummy variables

Discriminant analysis dependent variable categorical in nature

independent variables interval scale or ratio scale in nature

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Part C

Case Analysis / Applied Theory

6. Read the case and answer the following questions:

The customer is our mission

Centurion Bank is a large international bank that prides itself on achieving healthy profits everyyear. The shareholders are obviously very happy. It operates in several countries across theglobe and has a phenomenally large number of customers. Of late, the bank has found that, thegrowth in the number of new customers has not improved as expected and has sometimes alsoremained stagnated.

Discussion among the members of the management led to the conclusion that Centurion wasfinding it hard to compete with other large banks, especially its toughest competitor, The Bank ofLondon. A research was conducted to study the differences between these two banks withrespect to customer satisfaction. A two group Discrimiant analysis (customer satisfaction ofCenturion Bank versus The Bank of London) was done, the partial result of which is shown

below.

Summary of Canonical Discriminant Functions

Function Eigenvalue % of Variance Cumulative % Canonical Correlation

1 .259 100.0 100.0 .454

Structure Matrix

Function 1

Promptness in customer service .609

Resolve problems quickly .330

Extra facilities like e-banking and phone banking .133

Warm attitude of bank personnel -.022

Easiness in paper work .018

Questions:

a. How good is the discriminating power displayed by the Discrimiant analysis?

b. Which independent variable contributes most to difference between the two banks? Givereasons for your answer.

c. If you were to do a stratified random sampling for assessing customer satisfaction of thetwo banks, what are the different strata that you would use?

d. Mention any two limitations of this research.

(3 + 2 + 3 + 2 = 10 marks)

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Suggested Answer:

a. Canonical Correlation = 0.454.

In a two group Discriminant analysis, Wilks Lambda = 1- (canonical correlation)2, 0< < 1

Here, Wilks Lambda = 1- (canonical correlation)2

= 1 (0.454)2

= 0.703884

Large values of (0.703884) indicate that group means do not seem to differ.

Thus the discriminating power displayed by the Discrimiant analysis is not good.

As this seems to be quite low, we may conclude that the discriminating power displayed bythe Discrimiant analysis is not strong.

b. Structure matrix displays the simple correlation coefficients between individual predictorvariables and the Discriminat scores.

The variable Promptness in customer service has the maximum correlation coefficient(0.609)

Hence, this variable contributes most to difference between the two banks.

c. The different strata would be based on profession, age, marital status, gender.

d. Limitations may be:

The research may be fragmentary in nature and thus pose difficulties to have anoverall and focused perspective for assessing customer satisfaction of the bank(s).

Suggestions and recommendations given by the research may turn out to be tooexpensive for implementation.by the bank.

Attitude is a latent variable. Measuring it is difficult. This research may deal with someambiguous and unfathomable altitudinal variables related to customer satisfaction.

7. Read the case and answer the following questions:

A solution for all your problems

A renowned consulting company wanted to determine if loyalty of its employees was related tothe years of service in the company, salary and the designation of the person. It was alsodesired to structure a mathematical model for loyalty based on this finding. Loyalty wasmeasured on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 being the least loyal and 7 the most).

The relevant information was collected from the data base of the company. Surprisingly it wasfound that the data on years of service were entered in the database in order of magnitude -from the longest tenure in service to the least. The individual employees were also ranked asfirst, second, third, so on and so forth according to their respective service-tenure.

Questions:

a. What technique would you suggest for structuring the mathematical model? Justify youranswer.

b. How would you judge the goodness of your mathematical model?

c. Mention the dependent and explanatory variables in this study?

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d. What are the different scales of measurement used for different variables that areconsidered here?

(2 + 1 + 3 + 4 = 10 marks)

Suggested Answer:

a. Multiple Regression analysis, as it is used:

for estimating and developing a statistical relationship between two types of variables dependent and independent

when the purpose is to determine what independent variable(s) contribute to theexplanation of the dependent variable and to what degree

for the purpose of predicting the values of the dependent variable for some givenvalues of the independent variable(s)

b. The goodness of the mathematical model is judged by Coefficient of multiple determination,R

2,

which is the proportion of the total variation in Y, which is accounted for by theregression model (that is, the independent variables Xs).

0 R2 1

As a thumb rule, R2 0.65 the model is a good one.

c. Dependent variable - loyalty of employees

Explanatory variables (1) years of service in the company, (2) salary, (3) designation

d. loyalty of employees - loyalty was measured on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 being the least loyaland 7 the most).

- ratio scaleyears of service in the company years of service were entered in the database in orderof magnitude - from the longest tenure in service to the least ordinal scale

salary Rupees - ratio scale

designation categories nominal scale

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