SM 895 Management Research Methods

 Consulting hours

Course objectives

Course contents

Course schedule

Course material

Course readings

Delivery mode

Distribution of marks

Important dates

Notes (Must read)

Consulting hours: TO BE DECIDED

Course objectives: This course is designed for MBA candidates. This is also open to doctoral candidates. After doing this course students are expected to undertake management research projects in the world of work. Students are introduced to the most common research methods that include surveys, quasi-experiments and case studies. In addition, students are expected to conceptualize a complete research design, analytical methods, and carry out the process of research and produce a concise report.

Course Contents: Problem conceptualization and definition. Hypothesis formulation. Selection of Research Methods, Flexible Systems Methodology for preparing research design. Scaling, sampling methods, Questionnaire design, validation and pre-testing. Interview design, Case study, Field experiments, Quasi experiments. Qualitative research methods. Statistical techniques and implementation of research plan using statistical packages.

Course schedule

Week

Topic

Readings

1

Introduction to research methods; nature of causation; research design

Babbie (Chapters 1, 2, 3)

2

Conceptualization, operationalization and measurement

Babbie (Chapters 4, 5, 6)

3

Experiments

Babbie (Chapter 8)

4

Experiments

Babbie (Chapter 8)

5

Survey research

Babbie (Chapter 9)

6

Field research

Babbie (Chapter 10)

7

Alternative research approaches (modeling and qualitative research)

My handouts

8

Field exercise 1

Students will have to carry out a complete research study for these two exercises. I will guide these studies. We will, collectively, design a research that fits the problem (which I will provide). We will develop a research model, operationalize that model, collect data, analyze those data and, finally, prepare a report.

 
9

Field exercise 1 (continued)

 
10

Field exercise 1 (continued)

 
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Field exercise 1 (continued)

 
12

Field exercise 2

 
13

Field exercise 2 (continued)

 
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Field exercise 2 (continued)

 
15

Field exercise 2 (continued)

 

Course materials: The course materials consist of handouts that will be available for students to photocopy.

 

Click here to my slides for the course

 

Some useful sights are

 http://methods.fullerton.edu/

http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/tutorial/TUTORIAL.HTM

http://www.nwmissouri.edu/nwcourses/martin/general/METHODS/

http://www.gsm.uci.edu/~joelwest/Methods/index.html

 

Course readings

  1. Babbie, E.. (1998) The practice of social research, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth (required)

Delivery mode: The course will be taught in a lecture mode once a week with associated field exercises. There will be two field exercises. These will be group-exercises. There will be a mid-term and final examination. These examinations will consist of both objective type questions and questions that require some computation and elaboration. There will be the regular unannounced quizzes.

 

Distribution of marks

Mid-term exam

15

Final exam

15

Field exercise 1

30

Field exercise 2

30

Quizzes / assignments

10

Total

100

 

Important dates

Mid-term

TO BE DECIDED

 

Final

TO BE DECIDED

 

Field exercise 1

TO BE DECIDED

 

Field exercise 2

TO BE DECIDED

 

 

 Note

  1. Make-up examinations are ruled pout except in the case sanctioned by the departmental research committee (DRC)
  2. A minimum class attendance of 75% is an institute requirement. So please schedule your activities such that attendance does not suffer.
  3. No hand-written project submissions will be accepted. You have to submit your assignments to my internet account. Email attachments are fine.
  4. I expect all of you to buy the prescribed books.

 

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