- Research Designs Chapter 3 Complete Test Bank

Chapter 03 - Research designs

Test Bank

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 03 Question 01

01) A research design provides a framework for the collection and analysis of data.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 02

02) Which of the following is not a criterion for the evaluation of business research?

a. Validity

b. Reliability

c. Quality

d. Replication

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 03

03) Which of following best describes “ecological validity”?

a. The extent to which findings can be generalised beyond the specific research context

b. The extent to which social scientific findings are applicable in everyday social settings

c. The extent to which research has been conducted rigorously

d. The extent to which adequate precautions have been taken against inherent bias

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 03 Question 04

04) An independent variable is understood as having a causal influence on dependent variables.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 03 Question 05

05) In a classic experimental design, the experimental, or treatment group does not receive the treatment while the control group does.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 06

06) Which of the following is not a threat to external validity and generalisation?

1. Interaction of selection and treatment. This threat raises the question: to what social and psychological groups can a finding be generalized? Can it be generalized to a wide variety of individuals who might be differentiated by gender, ethnicity, social class, and personality? For instance, many influential studies of leadership, conducted on samples comprising a majority of men, appear not to treat gender as a significant variable (Wilson 1995). It is possible that the findings of these studies simply reflect the characteristics of the predominantly male samples and therefore cannot provide a theory of effective leadership that is generalizable across both men and women.
2. Interaction of setting and treatment. This threat relates to the issue of how confident we can be that the results of a study can be applied to other settings. For example, in Research in focus 3.4, Agerström and Rooth conducted their study in Sweden, a society which consistently ranks highly in global equality indexes which measure attitudes towards discrimination, and which has directive legislation to protect employees against discriminatory workplace policy and practice on the grounds of gender and race. As a result, the setting may have been unusual by comparison with the wider world and may have had an influence on the experimental participants’ behaviours.
3. Interaction of history and treatment. This raises the question of whether or not the findings can be generalized to the past and to the future. The original Aston studies (Research in focus 3.5), for example, were conducted in the early 1960s. How confident can we be that these findings would apply today?
4. Interaction effects of pre-testing. As a result of being pretested, subjects in an experiment may become sensitized to the experimental treatment. Consequently, the findings may not be generalizable to groups that have not been pre-tested and, of course, in the real world, people are rarely tested in this way. The findings may, therefore, be partly determined by the experimental treatment as such and partly by how pretest sensitization has influenced the way in which subjects respond to the treatment. This may have occurred in Nielsen et al.’s research (Research in focus 3.8).
5. Reactive effects of experimental arrangements. People are frequently, if not invariably, aware that they are participating in an experiment. Their awareness may influence how they respond to the experimental treatment and therefore affect the generalizability of the findings. This was a major finding of the Hawthorne studies (Research in focus 3.7).

a. Interaction effects of pre-testing

b. Interaction of setting and treatment

c. Interaction of researcher and environment

d. Relative effects of experimental arrangements

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 03 Question 07

07) Quasi-experiments fulfil all the internal validity requirements for academic research.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 08

08) Which of the following two characteristics are associated with cross-sectional design research? Please select all that apply.

• More than one case. Researchers employing a cross- sectional design are interested in variation. That variation can be in respect of people, organizations, nation states, or whatever. Variation can be established only when more than one case is being examined. Usually, researchers employing this design will select a lot more than two cases for a variety of reasons: they are more likely to encounter variation in all the variables in which they are interested; they can make finer distinctions between cases; and the requirements of sampling procedure are likely to necessitate larger numbers (see Chapter 8).
• At a single point in time. In cross-sectional research design, data on the variables of interest are collected more or less simultaneously; when an individual completes a questionnaire, which may contain fifty or more.

a. More than one case

b. Data that is only quantitative in nature

c. At a single point in time

d. Data that is only qualitative in nature

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 03 Question 09

09) The longitudinal design represents a distinct form of research design that is typically used to map change in business and management research.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 10

10) Which of the following is not considered to be a case?

• a single organization, such as Pettigrew’s (1985; see Research in focus 3.16) research at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), Joanne Martin’s (1992) study of organizational culture at ‘OzCo’, a high-technology industry company based in California, or Born’s (2004) study of managerialism in the BBC;
• a single location, such as a factory, production site, or office building—for example, Pollert’s (1981; see Research in focus 19.12) research in a tobacco factory, Linstead’s (1985) study of humour in a bakery, or Milk- man’s (1997) investigation of an automobile assembly plant (see Chapter 20);
• a person, as in Marshall’s (1995; see Key concept 17.5) study of women managers, where each woman constitutes a separate case—such studies are characterized as using the life history or biographical approach; or
• a single event, such as the NASA space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 (Vaughan 1990; see Chapter 23) or the events surrounding a pipeline accident in Canada (Gephart 1993; see Research in focus 23.4).

a. A single organisation

b. A single location

c. A single event

d. A single factor

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 11

11) Which of the following is not a case study type identified by Yin (2003)?

• The critical case. Here the researcher has a clearly specified hypothesis, and a case is chosen on the grounds that it will allow a better understanding of the circumstances in which the hypothesis will and will not hold.
• The unique case. The unique or extreme case is, as Yin observes, a common focus in clinical studies.
• The revelatory case. The basis for the revelatory case exists ‘when an investigator has an opportunity to observe and analyse a phenomenon previously inac- cessible to scienti c investigation’ (Yin 1984: 44). While the idea of the revelatory case is interesting, it seems unnecessary to restrict it solely to situations in which something has not previously been studied. Much qualitative case study research that is carried out with a predominantly inductive approach to theory treats single case studies as broadly ‘revelatory’.
• The representative or typical case. This type seeks to explore a case that exempli es an everyday situation or form of organization.
• The longitudinal case. This type of case is concerned with how a situation changes over time.

a. The critical case

b. The evaluative case

c. The unique case

d. The longitudinal case

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 03 Question 12

12) Case study research is restricted to the study of a single case.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 13

13) Comparative design focuses upon studying what?

a. Using identical methods on two or more similar cases

b. Using different methods two or more contrasting cases

c. Using different methods on two or more similar cases

d. Using identical methods on two or more contrasting cases

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 14

14) Which of the following two aspects does Usunier (1998) distinguish between in terms of cultural research? Please select all that apply.

• cross-cultural approaches—which compare national management systems and local business customs in various countries; and

• intercultural approaches—which focus on the study of interaction between people and organizations with different national/cultural backgrounds.

a. Intercultural research

b. Intersectional research

c. Cross-cultural research

d. Sociocultural research

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 15

15) Which of the following is not considered a primary unit of measurement and analysis?

• individuals: this would include studies that focus on specific kinds of individuals such as managers or shopfloor employees;

• groups: this would include research that considered certain types of groupings—for example, human resources departments or boards of directors;

• organizations: in addition to studies that focused on companies, this would include surveys, such as WERS (see Research in focus 3.14), that treat the workplace as the principal unit of analysis;

• societies: the main focus of this kind of analysis would be on the national, political, social, environmental, and economic contexts in which business organizations are located.

a. Individuals

b. Ethnicities

c. Organisations

d. Societies