JIGJIGA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT
MBA PROGRAM
Course: Business Research Methodology

Individual assignment

Submitted By: Keyd Muhumed Mahamed - ID No: GSW/0213/14

Submitted To: Dr. Tazebachew (Ph.D.)

Date: August 2022

1. What is a research report and discuss its components?

A research report is a well-crafted document that outlines the processes, data,
and findings of a systematic investigation. It is an important document that
serves as a first-hand account of the research process, and it is typically
considered an objective and accurate source of information.

In many ways, a research report can be considered as a summary of the

research process that clearly highlights findings, recommendations, and other
important details. Reading a well-written research report should provide you
with all the information you need about the core areas of the research process.

The details of a research report may change with the purpose of research but
the main components of a report will remain constant. The research approach
of the market researcher also influences the style of writing reports. Here are
the main components of a productive research report:

1) Research Report Summary: The entire objectives along with the overview

of research are to be included in a summary which is a couple of
paragraphs in length. All the multiple components of the research are
explained in brief under the report summary. It should be interesting
enough to capture all the key elements of the report.
2) Research Introduction: There always is a primary goal that the researcher
is trying to achieve through a report. In the introduction section, he/she
can cover answers related to this goal and establish a thesis which will be
included to strive and answer it in detail
3) Research Methodology: This is the most important section of the report
where all the important information lies. The readers can gain data for the
topic along with analyzing the quality of provided content and the
research can also be approved by other market researchers
4) Research Results: A short description of the results along with calculations
conducted to achieve the goal will form this section of results. Usually,
the exposition after data analysis is carried out in the discussion part of
the report.
5) Research Discussion: The results are discussed in extreme detail in this
section along with a comparative analysis of reports that could probably
exist in the same domain.
6) Research References and Conclusion: Conclude all the research findings
along with mentioning each and every author, article or any content piece
from where references were taken.
2. Differentiate data analysis from data interpretation.
 Data Analysis

It is based on computation of various percentages, coefficients, etc., by

applying various well defined statistical formulae.

Data analysis is described “as the process of bringing order, structure, and
meaning” to the collected data. The data analysis aims to unearth patterns or
regularities by observing, exploring, organizing, transforming, and modeling the
collected data.

It is a methodical approach to apply statistical techniques for describing,

exhibiting, and evaluating the data. It helps in driving meaningful insights, form
conclusions, and support the decisions making process. This process of
ordering, summarizing data is also to get answers to questions to test if the
hypothesis holds. Exploratory data analysis is a huge part of data analysis. It is
to understand and discover the relationships between the variables present
within the data.

There are five types of data analysis:

Descriptive Analysis
Diagnostic Analysis
Predictive Analysis
Prescriptive Analysis
Cognitive Analysis

1. Descriptive Analysis: What has happened?

Descriptive Analysis, as the name says, describes the data. The foundation
step simply looks at the past data and tells what has happened in the past. It
captures and summarizes the past using measures of central tendency,
measures of dispersion, visualizing using dashboards. This analysis helps
understand how the data is present and does not make any predictions or
answers why something has happened. It is useful for generating reports,
tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), sales leads, and revenue reports.

2. Diagnostic Analysis: Why has it happened?

After identifying what has happened, the next logical step in the process is to
find the answer to why something has happened. Diagnostic analysis helps dig
further by creating detailed, informative, dynamic, and interactive dashboards
to answer that. It separates the root cause of the problem and identifies the
source of the patterns. It is also useful in anomaly detection. And the factors
that affect the business. It can be applied to determine which factors led to
improvement in sales.

3. Predictive Analysis: What is likely to happen?

After detecting the root cause of the problem and understanding the causal
relationship between the variables, one would want to know if the event is
likely to happen again? Predictive analysis is all about that. It predicts the
likelihood of an event, forecasting any measurable amount, risk assessment,
and segmenting customers into groups. Since it forecasts the occurrence of an
event, it employs probability. Along with the previous summarized and root
cause analysis, the models use statistics and machine learning algorithms for
predicting future outcomes.

4.Prescriptive Analysis: How to make it happen?

The prescriptive analysis is result-oriented. It collaborates the learnings from

the what, why has happened with what is likely to happen to help with what
measures to maximize the primary business metrics. It prescribes the best
course of action, strategies. The prescriptive analysis is not predicting one
individual standalone event but a collection of future events using simulation
and optimization. It is heavily applied in the financial, social media, marketing,
and transportation domains. Its uses are varied from recommending products
or movies to suggesting which strategies to use to reap maximum returns and
minimize risk.

5. Cognitive Analysis: Mimicking the human brain to carry out tasks

This advanced type of analysis aims to mimic a human brain to perform tasks
like a human does. It combines technologies such as artificial intelligence,
semantics, machine learning, and deep learning algorithms. It learns and even
generates data using the already available data and retrieves features and
hidden patterns. Real-time data cognitive analysis is heavily employed in image
classification and segmentation, detection of objects, machine translations,
virtual assistants, and chatbots.
  Data Interpretation
Once the data has been analyzed, the next progressive step is to interpret the
data.

Data interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to the processed and

analyzed data. It enables us to make informed and meaningful conclusions,
implications, infer the significance between the relationships of variables and
explain the patterns in the data.

Explaining numerical data points and categorical data points would require
different methods; hence, the different nature of data demands different data
interpretation techniques.

There are two primary techniques available to understand and interpret the data.
1. Quantitative, and
2. Qualitative
Quantitative Methods
The quantitative data interpretation technique is applicable for the measurable
or numerical type of data. The numerical data is of two types:

 Discrete: countable, finite quantities. Eg: the number of ice-creams

 Continuous: not countable.  Eg: height, weight, time, speed, humidity,
temperature
The numerical data is relatively easier to analyze using the statistical modeling
methods, including central tendency and dispersion measures. These can be
visually depicted via charts such as bar graphs, pie-chart, line graphs, line
charts. Tables are also used in representing complex information dissecting
into categories.

There are two most commonly used quantitative data analysis methods are:

 Descriptive Statistics: this field of statistics focuses on describing the

data, its features. It comprises of two categories: measures of central
tendency (mean, median, mode, and measures of dispersion or
variability, which tell how much spread is there in the data or the data
varies.
 Inferential Statistics: this branch of statistics generalizes or infers
how the larger data is, its features based on the sample taken from
this larger data.
Qualitative Methods
Qualitative methods are implemented to analyze the textual and the
descriptive data called the categorical data. Text data is usually unstructured.
The qualitative data is subdivided further based on their characteristics:

 Nominal: The attributes have no ranking or order. Eg: Region, Gender,

Classes in school
 Ordinal: The attributes are ranked or ordered in a sequence. Eg:
Grades
 Binary: It has only two categories. Either yes or no, Class 1 or 0.
Unlike numerical data, categorical data cannot be directly analyzed as the data
here is non-statistical, and also, the machines understand only the language of
the numbers.

So, the text data is first coded and converted into numerical data. There are
different coding approaches available based on the requirement. The text data
is categorized into labels to be used for modeling and interpretation.
For a detailed comparison between the two methods of data interpretation,
refer to this blog on How to Understand the Quantitative and Qualitative Data
in Your Business.

3. Compare and contrast descriptive, correlation and

regressions statistical application in research.
Descriptive

Descriptive statistics describe characteristics of a population or sample. Thus,

calculating a mean and a standard deviation to “describe” or profile a sample is
a commonly applied descriptive statistical approach. Inferential statistics
investigate samples to draw conclusions about entire populations. If a mean is
computed and then compared to some preconceived standard, then inferential
statistics are being implemented.
descriptive statistics, which describe basic characteristics and summarize the
data in a straightforward and understandable manner. Another type of
statistics, inferential statistics, is used to make inferences or to project from a
sample to an entire population. For example, when a firm test-markets a new
product in Peoria and Fort Worth, it is not only concerned about how
customers in these two cities feel, but they want to make an inference from
these sample markets to predict what will happen throughout the United
States.
Correlation

The correlation (r) tells you the strength of the relationship between two
variables.  The value of r has a range of -1 to 1 (0 indicates no relationship). 
Values of r closer to -1 or 1 indicate a stronger relationship and values closer
to 0 indicate a weaker relationship.  The coefficient is affected by a variety of
factors, so it's always best to also plot your two variables as a scatterplot.
The most popular technique for indicating the relationship of one variable to
another is correlation. A correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of
covariation, or association between two
variables. Covariance is the extent to which a change in one variable
corresponds systematically to
a change in another. Correlation can be thought of as a standardized
covariance.
When correlations estimate relationships between continuous variables, the
Pearson product moment correlation is appropriate. The correlation
coefficient, r, ranges from –1.0 to 1.0.
If the value of r equals 1.0, a perfect positive relationship exists. Perhaps the
two variables
are one and the same! If the value of r equals –1.0, a perfect negative
relationship exists. The
implication is that one variable is a mirror image of the other. As one goes up,
the other goes
down in proportion and vice versa. No correlation is indicated if r equals 0. A
correlation
coefficient indicates both the magnitude of the linear relationship and the
direction of that
relationship. For example, if we find that r –0.92, we know we have a very
strong inverse
relationship—that is, the greater the value measured by variable X, the lower
the value measured by variable Y.
Regression

Regression is a statistical method that tries to uncover the association

between variables.  There are assumptions that must be met before running a
regression and it's very important to understand how to properly interpret a
regression equation.  There are methods for how to find which predictors are
best such as the bootstrap method, and there are others who will choose
predictors based on theory.  
Regression analysis is a powerful statistical method that allows you to examine
the relationship between two or more variables of interest. 
While there are many types of regression analysis, at their core they all
examine the influence of one or more independent variables on a dependent
variable
Regression analysis is another technique for measuring the linear association
between a dependent and an independent variable. Although simple regression
and correlation are mathematically equivalent in most respects, regression is a
dependence technique where correlation is an
interdependence technique. A dependence technique makes a distinction
between dependent and
independent variables. An interdependence technique does not make this
distinction and simply is
concerned with how variables relate to one another.
Thus, with simple regression, a dependent (or criterion) variable, Y, is linked to
an independent (or predictor) variable, X. Regression analysis attempts to
predict the values of a continuous,
interval-scaled dependent variable from specific values of the independent
variable.
4. What are the formats/contents of research report?
Briefly discuss each of them?
Contents of Research Report

The researcher must keep in mind that his research report must contain following
aspects:

1. Purpose of study
2. Significance of his study or statement of the problem
3. Review of literature
4. Methodology
5. Interpretation of data
6. Conclusions and suggestions
7. Bibliography
8. Appendices

These can be discussed in detail as under:

(1) Purpose of study:
Research is one direction-oriented study. He should discuss the problem of his
study. He must give background of the problem. He must lay down his
hypothesis of the study. Hypothesis is the statement indicating the nature of
the problem. He should be able to collect data, analyze it and prove the
hypothesis. The importance of the problem for the advancement of knowledge
or removed of some evil may also be explained. He must use review of
literature or the data from secondary source for explaining the statement of
the problems.
(2) Significance of study:

Research is re-search and hence the researcher may highlight the earlier
research in new manner or establish new theory. He must refer earlier
research work and distinguish his own research from earlier work. He must
explain how his research is different and how his research topic is different and
how his research topic is important. In a statement of his problem, he must be
able to explain in brief the historical account of the topic and way in which he
can make and attempt. In his study to conduct the research on his topic.
(3) Review of Literature:

Research is a continuous process. He cannot avoid earlier research work. He

must start with earlier work. He should note down all such research work,
published in books, journals or unpublished thesis. He will get guidelines for his
research from taking a review of literature. He should collect information in
respect of earlier research work. He should enlist them in the given below:

1. Author/researcher
2. Title of research /Name of book
3. Publisher
4. Year of publication
5. Objectives of his study
6. Conclusion/suggestions

Then he can compare this information with his study to show separate identity
of his study. He must be honest to point out similarities and differences of his
study from earlier research work.
(4) Methodology:

It is related to collection of data. There are two sources for collecting data;
primary and secondary. Primary data is original and collected in field work,
either through questionnaire interviews. The secondary data relied on library
work. Such primary data are collected by sampling method. The procedure for
selecting the sample must be mentioned. The methodology must give various
aspects of the problem that are studied for valid generalization about the
phenomena. The scales of measurement must be explained along with
different concepts used in the study.
While conducting a research based on field work, the procedural things like
definition of universe, preparation of source list must be given. We use case
study method, historical research etc. He must make it clear as to which
method is used in his research work. When questionnaire is prepared, a copy
of it must be given in appendix.
(5) Interpretation of data:

Mainly the data collected from primary source need to be interpreted in

systematic manner. The tabulation must be completed to draw conclusions. All
the questions are not useful for report writing. One has to select them or club
them according to hypothesis or objectives of study.

(6) Conclusions/suggestions:

Data analysis forms the crux of the research problem. The information
collected in field work is useful to draw conclusions of study. In relation with
the objectives of study the analysis of data may lead the researcher to pin
point his suggestions. This is the most important part of study. The conclusions
must be based on logical and statistical reasoning. The report should contain
not only the generalization of inference but also the basis on which the
inferences are drawn. All sorts of proofs, numerical and logical, must be given
in support of any theory that has been advanced. He should point out the
limitations of his study.

(7) Bibliography:

The list of references must be arranged in alphabetical order and be presented

in appendix. The books should be given in first section and articles are in
second section and research projects in the third. The pattern of bibliography
is considered convenient and satisfactory from the point of view of reader.

(8) Appendices:
The general information in tabular form which is not directly used in the
analysis of data, but which is useful to understand the background of study can
be given in appendix.

5. What are the significance of report writing?

Significance Of Report Writing: Research report is considered a major
component of the research study for the research task remains incomplete till
the report has been presented and/or written. As a matter of fact, even the
most brilliant hypothesis, highly well designed and conducted research study,
and the most striking generalizations and findings are of little value unless they
are effectively communicated to others. The purpose of research is not well
served unless the findings are made known to others. Research results must
invariably enter the general store of knowledge. All this explains the
significance of.

Report writing is an important communication medium in organizations. The

most crucial findings might have come out through a research report. Report is
common to academics and managers also. Reports are used for comprehensive
and application-oriented learning in academics. In organizations, reports are
used for the basis of decision making. The importance of report writing can be
discussed as under.

Through research reports, a manager or an executive can quickly get an idea of

a current scenario which improves his information base for making sound
decisions affecting future operations of the company or enterprise. The
research report acts as a means of communication of various research findings
to the interested parties, organizations, and general public.

Good report writing play, a significant role of conveying unknown facts about
the phenomenon to the concerned parties. This may provide new insights and
new opportunities to the people. Research report plays a key role in making
effective decisions in marketing, production, banking, materials, human
resource development and government also. Good report writing is used for
economic planning and optimum utilization of resources for the development
of a nation.

Report writing facilitates the validation of generalization. A research report is a

product of research. As earlier said that report writing provides useful
information in arriving at rational decisions that may reform the business and
society. The findings, conclusions, suggestions, and recommendations are
useful to academicians, scholars, and policymakers. Report writing provides
reference material for further research in the same or similar areas of research
to the concerned parties.

While preparing a research report, a researcher should take some proper

precautions. Report writing should be simple, lucid, and systematic. Report
writing should be written speedily without interrupting the continuity of
thought. The report writing should sustain the interest of readers.

6. Discus the Steps in Writing Report.

STEPS IN WRITING REPORT

Research reports are the product of slow, painstaking, accurate inductive work.
The usual steps involved in writing report are:

(a) logical analysis of the subject-matter;

(b) preparation of the final outline;
(c) preparation of the rough draft;
(d) rewriting and polishing;
(c) preparation of the final bibliography; and
(f) writing the final draft.
Though all these steps are self explanatory, yet a brief mention of each one of
these will be appropriate for better understanding

Logical analysis of the subject matter: It is the first step which is primarily
concerned with the development of a subject. There are two ways in
which to develop a subject (a) logically and (b) chronologically. The
logical development is made on the basis of mental connections and
associations between the one thing and another by means of analysis.
Logical treatment often consists in developing the material from the
simple possible to the most complex structures. Chronological
development is based on a connection or sequence in time or
occurrence. The directions for doing or making something usually follow
the chronological order
Preparation of the final outline: It is the next step in writing the research
report “Outlines are the framework upon which long written works are
constructed. They are an aid to the logical organisation of the material
and a reminder of the points to be stressed in the report.”3
Preparation of the rough draft: This follows the logical analysis of the
subject and the preparation of the final outline. Such a step is of utmost
importance for the researcher now sits to write down what he has done
in the context of his research study. He will write down the procedure
adopted by him in collecting the material for his study along with various
limitations faced by him, the technique of analysis adopted by him, the
broad findings and generalizations and the various suggestions he wants
to offer regarding the problem concerned.
Rewriting and polishing of the rough draft: This step happens to be most
difficult part of all formal writing. Usually this step requires more time
than the writing of the rough draft. The careful revision makes the
difference between a mediocre and a good piece of writing. While
rewriting and polishing, one should check the report for weaknesses in
logical development or presentation. The researcher should also “see
whether or not the material, as it is presented, has unity and cohesion;
does the report stand upright and firm and exhibit a definite pattern, like
a marble arch? Or does it resemble an old wall of moldering cement and
loose brick.”4 In addition the researcher should give due attention to the
fact that in his rough draft he has
Preparation of the final bibliography: Next in order comes the task of the
preparation of the final bibliography. The bibliography, which is generally
appended to the research report, is a list of books
in some way pertinent to the research which has been done. It should
contain all those works which the researcher has consulted. The
bibliography should be arranged alphabetically and may be divided into
two parts; the first part may contain the names of books and pamphlets,
and the second part may contain the names of magazine and newspaper
articles. Generally, this pattern of bibliography is considered convenient
 and satisfactory from the point of view of reader, though it is not the
only way of presenting bibliography. The entries in bibliography should
be made adopting the following order:
For books and pamphlets the order may be as under:

1. Name of author, last name first.

2. Title, underlined to indicate italics.
3. Place, publisher, and date of publication.
4. Number of volumes.
Example

Kothari, C.R., Quantitative Techniques, New Delhi, Vikas Publishing

House Pvt. Ltd., 1978.
For magazines and newspapers the order may be as under:

1. Name of the author, last name first.

2. Title of article, in quotation marks.
3. Name of periodical, underlined to indicate italics.
4. The volume or volume and number.
5. The date of the issue.
6. The pagination.
Example

Robert V. Roosa, “Coping with Short-term International Money Flows”,

The Banker, London, September, 1971, p. 995.
The above examples are just the samples for bibliography entries and
may be used, but one should also remember that they are not the only
acceptable forms. The only thing important is that, whatever method
one selects, it must remain consistent.
Writing the final draft: This constitutes the last step. The final draft should be
written in a concise and objective style and in simple language, avoiding vague
expressions such as “it seems”, “there may be”, and the like ones. While writing
the final draft, the researcher must avoid abstract terminology and technical
jargon. Illustrations and examples based on common experiences must be
incorporated in the final draft as they happen to be most effective in
communicating the research findings to others. A research report should not
be dull, but must enthuse people and maintain interest and must show
originality. It must be remembered that every report should be an attempt to
solve some intellectual problem and must contribute to the solution of a
problem and must add to the knowledge of both the researcher and the reade