Syllabus Research Methodology, Summer, 2013, School of Management, Kathmandu University. Lecture Hours: Sunday 11:30-01:00PM, Thursday 2:00-4:00PM.

At Room 301, KUSOM building. Faculty Office: Room 505. Please feel free to drop by for discussions related to the lecture contents anytime. You can also email me at biswo@kusom.edu.np for any course related questions. Textbook: Research Methods for Business: A Skill building Approach, by Uma Sekaran. Basic Econometrics, by Damodar Gujarati, 2003 Grading : Grade will be based on your performance on homeworks, midterm exam, final exam, and a research project. There will be four homeworks. Students may discuss homework problems with their friends, but the final answer should be their own. The key dates to remember regarding homeworks, research paper, midterm and final exams are as follows: June 9th -1st homework posted. June 23: 2nd homework posted, 1st homework due. July 7th -2nd homework due. 3rd homework posted. July 14th - Preliminary Research Proposal due. July 19th 3rd homework is due. Jully 21nd Midterm Examination. 4th homework posted. August 4th 4th homework due. Research paper will be due on the same day the final exam is scheduled. Final grade will be based on the following: Homework: 20% Midterm: 20% Final:25% Research Paper: 30%

(5% is for students attendance, and progress made over the semester.) A Note on Research Paper:You will need to form a group of four students and select a topic of your groups interest before July 14 th. Please discuss the content of the proposed research with me before you submit it. The research in general needs to have a sharp question, and you must be trying to answer that particular question by forming a hypothesis and testing it using the data that will be available within short period. I am also open to descriptive research, as long as you are providing new insights about some management practices. Some possible questions that you may want to address should look like following. (a) How are remittance and bank profits related? Do the branches that operate in the areas that have sent more laborers to foreign countries profit more than the branches that operate from the region that send less laborers? (b) Does remittance positively contributes to the growth of enrollments in private school? (c) How does a Sherpa manage Mt Everest climbing expeditions? Is his management strategy different from a bank CEOs management strategy? (d) Nepals community forest management and water management are considered model for the world. They both involve managing scarce resources. Are there any lessons for mom-and-pop shops from these community managed systems? Are their management strategies closer to corporate worlds than mom-and-pop trading world? (e) How is Nepali movie industry managed? An actor said in the past that the usual viewers of Nepali movies have gone abroad, and hence the market has shrunk. However, the number of Nepali movies made annually seems to be increasing. Consider one possible factor that you think positively affects movie making and test your hypothesis. (f) Does demand for soap (or any other hygienic product) increase with the increase in the income of the population? (g) Does the rise in temperature causes an increase in vegetable price in Kalimati? If so, what is your prediction of impact of climate change on households food budget? (h) On average, by what percentage essential commodities price increase when one Nepal bandh is announced? (i) Do labor unions help increase profitability of firms? I encourage you to dig deeper into Nepali hinterland, and find interesting management, economic lessons. Nepal is going through interesting times. There

is a rise in poultry farming, tourism, aviation industries, telecommunication and pharmaceutical industries. There are also success stories from community based actions as evidenced by community radio stations, and community forestry. There are other interesting questions, such as the relationship between rise in land transactions and demand for luxury goods (such as cars or Swiss watches), load shedding and demand for power saving light bulbs or inverters, road access and migration and so on. As you begin to think about these issues, you will realize that you are living in an interesting time. Try to look at these stories, and find different factors that drive their growth, dynamics or perceived success. Your research must involve a question, and you must use available datasets to answer the question. If you plan to use your own data (by surveying or interviewing people personally) then you must convince me that you can do so within a short period of time.