DISCUSSION You are a senior consultant brought in to support a mid-sized organization facing a critical business decision (e.g., declining customer retention, rising operational costs, underperforming

WEEK 4 TO DO

INCLUDE THIS REFERENCE

Bordens, K. S. (2021). Research Design and Methods: A Process Approach: 2025 Release. McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781264169634

DISCUSSION

You are a senior consultant brought in to support a mid-sized organization facing a critical business decision (e.g., declining customer retention, rising operational costs, underperforming product lines, or low employee engagement). As part of your consultancy, you are required to propose a quantitative research plan to investigate the issue and guide decision-making.

Write a 500-600 word post that addresses the following:

1. Define the Business Problem: Identify a real-world organizational challenge (based on your experience, observation, or current industry trends). Clearly state the problem and justify why it needs to be investigated quantitatively.

2. Quantitative Research Design: Describe the research objective, propose an appropriate hypothesis, and outline a quantitative research method (e.g., survey, experiment, secondary data analysis). Justify your choice based on its alignment with the problem.

3. Scientific Method Application: Demonstrate how you would apply the scientific method to conduct this study—from identifying the problem to forming a hypothesis, collecting and analyzing data, and interpreting results.

4. Differentiating Approaches: Briefly contrast why a quantitative approach is more appropriate for this situation compared to qualitative or mixed-methods approaches.

To earn full credit, you must post at least 500-600 words and cite two outside scholarly resources and your textbook (at least three sources) 

ASSIGNMENT

You are presented with a real or hypothetical business case involving a critical organizational challenge such as:

• A drop in employee morale and performance after a corporate merger

• A customer backlash against a new pricing strategy

• Supply chain inefficiencies affecting delivery performance

• High turnover among newly recruited mid-level managers

• Negative online reviews impacting brand trust

(You may choose one of the scenarios above or identify a relevant case from your own professional experience or public domain.)

Write a case analysis (2000–3000 words) that demonstrates how both quantitative and qualitative research methods could be used to understand and address the issue in the case.

Structure of the Assignment:

1. Case Description (200–300 words):

• Briefly describe the organization, the challenge it is facing, and why it is significant.

• Include relevant business context (e.g., industry trends, organizational structure, market conditions).

2. Application of Quantitative Methods (300–400 words):

• Identify what quantitative data could be collected to understand or solve the problem.

• Discuss how the data would be collected (e.g., surveys, KPIs, customer ratings, performance metrics).

• Suggest which statistical techniques (e.g., correlation, trend analysis, regression) might be useful and why.

• Explain what kind of insights or patterns could be revealed through quantitative analysis.

3. Application of Qualitative Methods (300–400 words):

• Identify what qualitative information would add value to understanding the case.

• Describe how it would be collected (e.g., interviews, focus groups, document reviews).

• Discuss what kind of rich, contextual insights qualitative methods could provide that numbers alone cannot.

• Highlight any specific stakeholder perspectives (e.g., employees, customers, managers) that would be important.

4. Integrated Reflection (200–300 words):

• Discuss how the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches would provide a more complete understanding of the problem.

• Reflect on potential challenges or limitations in using both methods in real business settings.

• Conclude with how the integrated findings might influence strategic decisions.

Evaluation Criteria:

• Relevance and clarity of the case description

• Appropriateness and depth in explaining quantitative and qualitative methods

• Ability to connect research methods with actionable business insights

• Critical reflection on method integration

• Writing clarity, structure, APA citations (if applicable), and originality