Q1 What Purpose Does Exploratory Research Serve List And Exp

Q1 What Purpose Does Exploratory Research Serve List And Explain Thr

What purpose does exploratory research serve? List and explain three situations in which exploratory research would be a good choice.

Exploratory research is a type of research conducted to clarify ambiguous problems and gather preliminary insights. It is particularly useful when the researcher has limited understanding of the problem or when the problem is not precisely defined. The primary purpose of exploratory research is to explore a phenomenon, gather qualitative data, and identify potential variables or hypotheses for further study.

Three situations where exploratory research is especially appropriate include:

1. Introducing a new product or service: When a company launches a new product, exploratory research can help understand customer preferences, attitudes, and unmet needs, which can guide subsequent research and development strategies. For instance, qualitative interviews or focus groups can reveal consumers' impressions and expectations about the new offering.
2. Understanding a problem in its early stages: If a business encounters an ambiguous issue, such as declining customer satisfaction, exploratory research can help uncover underlying causes. Through open-ended questions and observational methods, businesses can gain insights that inform potential solutions.
3. Generating ideas for further research: When a researcher seeks to develop hypotheses or identify variables for a quantitative study, exploratory research provides foundational understanding. For example, conducting informal surveys or in-depth interviews can generate hypotheses about consumer behavior patterns.

Q2. Nabisco has introduced a new brand of cookies and wants to know how many of their customers purchase their cookies more than once. What type of research should they use?

Nabisco should use descriptive research, specifically a survey-based quantitative study focused on purchase frequency analysis. This type of research involves collecting data directly from customers about their purchasing habits, including how often they buy the new cookie brand. By analyzing transactional data or conducting customer surveys, Nabisco can determine the proportion of customers who purchase the cookies multiple times. This approach provides measurable insights into customer behavior, helping the company assess repeat purchase rates and customer loyalty.

Q3. In what situation would a continuous panel be more suitable than a discontinuous panel? In what situation would a discontinuous panel be more suitable than a continuous panel?

A continuous panel is more suitable when a researcher aims to track consumer behavior or attitudes over an extended period, allowing for the observation of changes and trends at the individual level. For example, a company studying brand loyalty across several years would benefit from continuous panels that record the same consumers' responses over time, enabling a detailed analysis of behavioral shifts.

Conversely, a discontinuous panel is better suited when the goal is to obtain a representative snapshot of consumer preferences at specific points in time without the need for long-term tracking. For instance, a market researcher conducting a one-time survey to understand current consumer attitudes toward a new product would prefer a discontinuous panel, which offers diverse cross-sectional data without the commitment of repeated measurements.

Q4. Give an example of an if-then statement. Why might using causal research enhance the accuracy of your findings?

An example of an if-then statement is: If> a company increases advertising expenditure, then> sales will increase. This statement indicates a causal relationship between advertising and sales.

Using causal research enhances the accuracy of findings because it aims to identify cause-and-effect relationships rather than mere associations. By employing experimental designs, such as controlled experiments or randomized controlled trials, researchers can systematically manipulate independent variables (e.g., advertising budget) and observe the resulting changes in dependent variables (e.g., sales). This method reduces confounding factors and improves confidence that observed effects are genuinely due to the manipulated variables, leading to more reliable and actionable insights.

References

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• Krueger, R. A., & Casey, M. A. (2019). Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Sage Publications.
• Hair, J. F., Wolfinbarger, M., Money, A. H., Samouel, P., & Page, M. J. (2022). Essentials of Business Research Methods. Routledge.
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