The researcher is investigating how a women's boutique business differs from similar small businesses in its area in terms of computer technology use, sales volume, profit margin, and staff training. The purpose is descriptive - to profile and describe relevant aspects of these variables for the boutique. The type of investigation is causal, to develop relationships between the variables. The researcher will take a moderate interference approach, creating controlled groups with different levels of staff training and computer implementation to observe their effects. The setting will be a field experiment comparing sales departments with and without new computer technology. Data will be collected longitudinally before and after the experiment. Groups will be the unit of analysis to compare results between conditions.

1. Below are three scenarios. Indicate how the researcher should
proceed in each case;
That is, determine the following, giving reasons:
a. The purpose of the study
b. The type of investigation
c. The extent of researcher investigation
d. The study setting
e. The time horizon for the study
f. The unit of analysis
Scenario 1
Ms Joyce Lynn, the owner of a small business( a women’s dress boutique), has invited a
consultant to tell her how her business is different from similar small businesses within a 60-
mile radius with respect to use of the most modern computer technology, sales volume, profit
margin, and staff training.
a. The purpose of the study:
Basically there are two types of purpose of the study
1. Exploratory study study:
It is that we have knowledge about anything but not enough knowledge.
2. Descriptive study:
A descriptive study in undertaken in order to ascertain and be able to describe the characteristics
of the variable of interest in situation.
The goal of the descriptive study is to offer a profile or to describe relevant aspects of the phenomena of
interest to the researcher from an individual, organizational, industry-oriented, or other perspective
In this situation we choose the descriptive study because it offers a profile of relevant aspects of the
phenomenon of interest, organization, industry oriented and other prospective. Research on given topics
like effect staff training, sales volume profit margin and computer technology on the differentiation
business strategy is already conducted.
b. Type of investigation:
Here we choose the causal type of investigation because we want to develop cause and affect
relationship among different variables like: modern computer technology, sales volume,
profit margin, and staff training.
c. The extent of researcher interference:
There are three types of researcher interference.
Minimal interference:

2. In this type researcher’s interference is minimum it is conducted in natural environment.
Moderate interference
In this type there is influence of researcher interference but up to certain limit.
This is done in controlled environment.
Excessive interference:
In this type there is so much influence of researcher. It is conducted in totally controlled
environment.
In this scenario we will take moderate interference. We want to watch the effect of employee
training on sales volume. For this reason we will take three groups. In one situation there are
UN trained employees and management. In another group untrained employee and trained
management. In another group both employee and management are trained.
We come to see that in first group there was no changing that is why sales volume also not
affected it remained same. In second group management was trained but employees were
untrained. Its result was change but there was not so much change on the sales volume and
profit margin. It was controlled environment. In the third situation it was totally controlled
environment that is why it affected the profit margin with a great extent.
d. The study setting:
We are choosing the field experiment as a study setting. Now the researcher wants to
determine cause and affect relationship.
For this purpose we will take two groups of sales department and will see how the
computer technology will affect the profit margin.
In first group we implemented the computer technology and in the second group there
remained manual work with little use of computer technology.
After experiment we come to know that the group in which we implemented computer
technology their production was increased that resulted in increased profit margin. In the
second group there was manual work with little use of modern technology that is why there
was no change in the production therefore there was no change in profit margin.
e. The time horizon for the study:
In this study we use the longitudinal time horizon. We took data two times that
is before the research and after the research.
f. The unit of analysis:
We took group as unit of analysis. We compare the differences of results in different
groups.