Question 1. As a part of their customer-service program, United Airlines wanted to select 10 passengers from today's 9 A.M. Chicago-Tampa flight to be interviewed regarding airport facilities, service, and amenities in the waiting area. Each passenger was given a number on check in, starting with 001 and ending with 250.
a. Describe how you would take a systematic sample of 10 passengers.
b. Describe how you would take a cluster sample of 10 passengers.
c. Describe how you would take a random sample of 10 passengers.
d. Which of the 3 sampling methods would yield the best sample for this application?
Question 2. You are the administrative assistant for a division chief in a large holding company that owns several hotels and theme parks. You and the division chief have just come from the CEO's office, where you were informed that the guest complaints related to housekeeping and employee attitude are increasing. Your on-site managers have mentioned some tension among the workers but have not considered it unusual. The CEO and your division chief instruct you to investigate. Suggest at least three different types of research that might be appropriate in this situation. Which research type do you think would ultimately yield the best data for this study?
Question 3. Below are some terms commonly found in a management setting that may be of interest for a business research project. Are they concepts or constructs? Provide an operational definition for each. Your operational definitions have to tell how you would MEASURE the concept/construct for Dependent Variables (DV) and how you would define the variable for Independent Variables (IV):
a First-line supervisor (IV)
b Employee morale (DV)
c Assembly line (IV)
d Overdue account (DV)
Question 4. Confronted by low productivity, the president of Oaks Inc. asks a research company to study job satisfaction in the corporation. What are some of the important reasons that this research project may fail to make an adequate contribution to the solution of management problems? Why would hiring an external company be a good idea in this situation? Why would hiring an external company be a bad idea in this situation?
Question 5. Based on sales figures over the previous six months, your boss notices that sales of beef products are declining in your chain's restaurants. As beef entree sales decline, so do profits. Fearing beef sales have declined due to several newspaper stories reporting E. coli contamination discovered at area grocery stores, he suggests a survey of area restaurants to see if the situation is pervasive. What do you think of this research suggestion? How could you improve on your boss' formulation of the research question?