A company manager is facing declining sales but doesn’t know why. Which type of research design would you recommend to address this problem?

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The scenario presents a manager facing declining sales and lacking understanding of the underlying causes, which calls for initial, broad inquiry rather than precise measurement at this stage.
Option 1: exploratory research. This approach is used to gain familiarity with a problem, generate hypotheses, and identify variables or factors that may explain the sales decline. It is appropriate when the issue is not well understood and you need to explore possibilities before committing to more structured research.
Option 2: descriptive research. Descriptive research aims to describe characteristics or functions of a population or phenomenon, such as measuring current sales levels, customer demographics, or purchase frequencies. While useful for detailing what is happening, it doesn’t inherently uncover the underlying reasons or hypotheses about the decline.
Option 3: causal research. Causal (experimental) research tests hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships, often by manipulating variables and controlling for confounds. This requires a fairly well-defined theory of causation and usually a controlled setting; it’s more appropriate after exploratory work suggests specific factors to test.
Option 4: secondary research. Secondary research involves analyzing existing data from sources like reports, articles, or databases. While cost-effective and informative, it may not directly reveal the unique, underlying drivers of the company’s sales decline without new data collection tailored to the problem.
In summary, exploratory research is best suited for an initial investigation to uncover possible drivers and guide subsequent, more focused studies, whereas the other types either describe, test causality, or rely on pre-existing data without first clarifying the issues.

MKTG1047 Chapter 1

A company manager is facing declining sales but doesn’t know why. Which type of research design would you recommend to address this problem?

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