Porcentaje de deforestación en las AP por cada CAR

More women than men were favorably inclined toward the proposal (almost 2:1). Parents with two or more preschool children overwhelmingly desired this; employees who did not belong to this category were opposed to the idea. Employees over 50 years of age and those below 25 did not seem to favor this scheme. However, women between 25 and 45 (a total of 45 women) seemed to desire it the most.

The mean on the preference scale indicated for the child care facility by all employees is rather low (1.5 on a 5-point scale), but the dispersion is rather high, the standard deviation being 1.98. This indicates that there are some who indicate a strong liking for the proposed project, while some are totally against it.

The average preference indicated by women between the ages of 30 and 45 with children is the highest (4.75 on a 5-point scale) with very little disper- sion (the standard deviation for this group of 42 women was .38). This is the group that desires the on-site facility the most.

Introductory descriptive narratives in some research reports, as you might have noticed, are drawn from government statistical publications such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, census, and the like, from which data are culled for presenta- tion, as and when appropriate.

Hypotheses Testing

Studies that engage in hypotheses testing usually explain the nature of certain relationships, or establish the differences among groups or the independence of two or more factors in a situation. Examples of such studies are given below. Hypothesis testing is undertaken to explain the variance in the dependent vari- able or to predict organizational outcomes.

Example 6.5 A marketing manager wants to know if the sales of the company will increase if

he doubles the advertising dollars. Here, the manager would like to know the nature of the relationship that can be established between advertising and sales by testing the hypothesis: If advertising is increased, then sales will also go up.

Example 6.6 Given people‘s tensions on the subject of purchase of guns in these days of crime

in cities big and small, a marketing researcher might be interested in predicting the factors that would significantly account for the variance in people‘s decision to purchase guns. Here, the researcher would have theorized the factors that would influence people‘s decision to possess guns (through literature search and interviews) and then test the hypothesis that four specific variables will signifi- cantly account for the variance in people‘s intention to buy a gun. Here again, the researcher is interested in understanding and accounting for the variance in the dependent variable—gun purchase—through hypothesis testing.

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Example 6.7 The testing of a hypothesis such as: More men than women are whistleblowers,

establishes the difference between two groups—men and women—in regard to their whistle-blowing behavior.

Example 6.8 The independence between two variables that are qualitative in nature can also

be established through hypothesis testing. Consider the hypothesis: Working the

night shift (as opposed to the day shift) is related to whether or not one is married.

A chi-square test of independence will easily provide the answer to this question. As may be seen, in hypotheses testing the researcher goes beyond mere description of the variables in a situation to an understanding of the relationships among factors of interest.

Case Study Analysis

As discussed in Chapter 2, case studies involve in-depth, contextual analyses of matters relating to similar situations in other organizations. We noted earlier that case studies, as a problem-solving technique, are not frequently resorted to in organizations because finding the same type of problem in another comparable setting is difficult due to the reluctance of the companies to reveal their prob- lems. Case studies that are qualitative in nature are, however, useful in applying solutions to current problems based on past problem-solving experiences. They are also useful in understanding certain phenomena, and generating further the- ories for empirical testing.

Review of the Purpose of the Study

It is not difficult to see that in exploratory studies, the researcher is basically interested in exploring the situational factors so as to get a grip on the charac- teristics of the phenomena of interest. Also, pilot studies on a small scale, by interviewing individuals or gathering information from a limited number of occurrences, are not uncommon in exploratory research.

Descriptive studies are undertaken when the characteristics or the phenomena to be tapped in a situation are known to exist, and one wants to be able to describe them better by offering a profile of the factors. Hypothesis testing offers an enhanced understanding of the relationship that exists among variables. It could also establish cause-and-effect relationships, as we will see in the next chapter. Hypothesis testing can be done with both qualitative and quantitative data. Case studies are generally qualitative in nature and are sometimes used as a tool in managerial decision making.

Methodological rigor increases as we move progressively from an exploratory study to a hypothesis-testing study, and with this, the costs of research also increase. As we will see in later chapters in this book, increases in sample size, multiple methods of data collection, development of sophisticated measuring instruments, and the like, add to research costs, though they contribute more to testability, accuracy, precision, and generalizability.