1.

Research in Business
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. What business research is and how it differs from decision support systems and business
intelligence systems.
2. The trends affecting business research and the emerging hierarchy of research-based
decision makers.
3. The different types of research studies used in business.
4. The distinction between good business research and that which falls short of professional
quality.
5. The nature of the research process.
2. Ethics in Business Research
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. What issues are covered in research ethics.
2. The goal of "no harm" for all research activities and what constitutes "no harm" for
participant, researcher, and research sponsor.
3. The differing ethical dilemmas and responsibilities of researchers, sponsors, and research
assistants.
4. The role of ethical codes of conduct in professional associations.
3. Thinking Like a Researcher
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The terminology used by professional researchers employing scientific thinking.
2. What you need to formulate a solid research hypothesis.
3. The need for sound reasoning to enhance business research results.

4. The Research Process: An Overview

After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. Research is decision- and dilemma-centered.
2. The clarified research question is the result of careful exploration and analysis and sets
the direction for the research project.
3. How value assessments and budgeting influence the process for proposing research and,
ultimately, research design.
4. What is included in research design, data collection, data analysis, and reporting.
5. Research process problems to avoid.
5. Clarifying the Research Question through Secondary Data and Exploration
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The purposes and process of exploratory research.
2. Two types and three levels of management decision-related secondary sources.
3. Five types of external information and the five critical factors for evaluating the value of
a source and its content.
4. The process of using exploratory research to understand the management dilemma and
work through the stages of analysis necessary to formulate the research question (and,
ultimately, investigative questions and measurement questions).
5. What is involved in internal data mining and how internal data-mining techniques differ
from literature searches.
6. Research Design: An Overview
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The basic stages of research design.
2. The major descriptors of research design.
3. The major types of research designs.
4. The relationships that exist between variables in research design and the steps for
evaluating those relationships.

7. Qualitative Research
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. How qualitative methods differ from quantitative methods.
2. The controversy surrounding qualitative research.
3. The types of decisions that use qualitative methods.
4. The variety of qualitative research methods.
8. Observation Studies
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. When observation studies are most useful.
2. The distinctions between monitoring nonbehavioral and behavioral activities.
3. The strengths of the observation approach in research design.
4. The weaknesses of the observation approach in research design.
5. The three perspectives from which the observerparticipant relationship may be viewed
in observation studies.
6. The various designs of observation studies.
9. Experiments
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The uses for experimentation.
2. The advantages and disadvantages of the experimental method.
3. The seven steps of a well-planned experiment.
4. Internal and external validity with experimental research designs.
5. The three types of experimental designs and the variations of each.
10. Surveys
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The process for selecting the appropriate and optimal communication approach.
2. What factors affect participation in communication studies.
3. The major sources of error in communication studies and how to minimize them.
4. The major advantages and disadvantages of the three communication approaches.
5. Why an organization might outsource a communication study.

11. Measurement
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The distinction between measuring objects, properties, and indicants of properties.
2. The similarities and differences between the four scale types used in measurement and
when each is used.
3. The four major sources of measurement error.
4. The criteria for evaluating good measurement.
12. Measurement Scales
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The nature of attitudes and their relationship to behavior.
2. The critical decisions involved in selecting an appropriate measurement scale.
3. The characteristics and use of rating, ranking, sorting, and other preference scales.
13. Questionnaires and Instruments
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The link forged between the management dilemma and the communication instrument by
the management-research question hierarchy.
2. The influence of the communication method on instrument design.
3. The three general classes of information and what each contributes to the instrument.
4. The influence of question content, question wording, response strategy, and preliminary
analysis planning on question construction.
5. Each of the numerous question design issues influencing instrument quality, reliability,
and validity.
6. Sources for measurement questions.
7. The importance of pretesting questions and instruments.

14. Sampling
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The two premises on which sampling theory is based.
2. The characteristics of accuracy and precision for measuring sample validity.
3. The five questions that must be answered to develop a sampling plan.
4. The two categories of sampling techniques and the variety of sampling techniques within
each category.
5. The various sampling techniques and when each is used.
15. Data Preparation and Description
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The importance of editing the collected raw data to detect errors and omissions.
2. How coding is used to assign numbers and other symbols to answers and to categorize
responses.
3. The use of content analysis to interpret and summarize open questions.
4. Problems with and solutions for "don't know" responses and missing data.
5. The options for data entry and manipulation.
16. Exploring, Displaying, and Examining Data
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. That exploratory data analysis techniques provide insights and data diagnostics by
emphasizing visual representations of the data.
2. How cross-tabulation is used to examine relationships involving categorical variables,
serves as a framework for later statistical testing, and makes table-based analysis using
one or more control variables an efficient tool for data visualization and decision making.

17. Hypothesis Testing

After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. The nature and logic of hypothesis testing.
2. What a statistically significant difference is.
3. The six-step hypothesis testing procedure.
4. The differences between parametric and nonparametric tests and when to use each.
5. The factors that influence the selection of an appropriate test of statistical significance.
6. How to interpret the various test statistics.
18. Measures of Association
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. How correlation analysis may be applied to study relationships between two or more
variables.
2. The uses, requirements, and interpretation of the product moment correlation coefficient.
3. How predictions are made with regression analysis using the method of least squares to
minimize errors in drawing a line of best fit.
4. How to test regression models for linearity and whether the equation is effective in fitting
the data.
5. The nonparametric measures of association and the alternatives they offer when key
assumptions and requirements for parametric techniques cannot be met.

19. Multivariate Analysis: An Overview

After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. How to classify and select multivariate techniques.
2. How multiple regression predicts a metric dependent variable from a set of metric
independent variables.
3. How discriminant analysis classifies people or objects into categorical groups using
several metric predictors.
4. How multivariate analysis of variance assesses the relationship between two or more
metric dependent variables and independent classificatory variables.
5. How structural equation modeling explains causality among constructs that cannot be
directly measured.
6. How conjoint analysis assists researchers to discover the most important attributes and
levels of desirable features.
7. How principal components analysis extracts uncorrelated factors from an initial set of
variables and how (exploratory) factor analysis reduces the number of variables to
discover underlying constructs.
8. How cluster analysis techniques identify homogenous groups of objects or people using a
set of variables to compare their attributes and/or characteristics.
9. How perceptions of products or services are revealed numerically and geometrically by
multidimensional scaling.
20. Presenting Insights and Findings: Written Reports
After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. That a quality presentation of research findings can have an inordinate effect on a reader's
or a listener's perceptions of a study's quality.
2. The contents, types, lengths, and technical specifications of research reports.
3. That the writer of a research report should be guided by questions of purpose, readership,
circumstances/limitations, and use.
4. That while some statistical data may be incorporated in the text, most statistics should be
placed in tables, charts, or graphs.

21. Presenting Insights and Findings: Oral Presentations

After reading this chapter, you should understand . . .
1. How the oral research presentation differs from and is similar to traditional public
speaking.
2. Why historical rhetorical theory has practical influence on business presentation skills in
the 21st century.
3. How to plan for the research presentation.
4. The frameworks and patterns of organizing a presentation.
5. The uses and differences between the types of materials designed to support your points.
6. How proficiency in research presentations requires designing good visuals and knowing
how use them effectively.
7. The importance of delivery to getting and holding the audience's attention.
8. Why practice is an essential ingredient to success and how to do it; and, what needs to be
assembled and checked to be certain that arrangements for the occasion and venue are
ready.