- Writing Up Business Research Full Test Bank Chapter 7

Chapter 07 - Writing up business research

Test Bank

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 01

01) Rhetoric is concerned with the ways in which attempts to convince or persuade an audience are formulated in language.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 02

02) Academic papers, whether qualitative or quantitative, are evaluated according to similar conventions

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 03

03) The sooner you start to write, the sooner you will gain clarity

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 07 Question 04

04) Your main source of feedback during a dissertation is likely to come from whom?

a. Peers

b. Family members

c. Friends

d. Supervisor

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 07 Question 05

05) Which of the following can be a problem when writing journal articles?

In an attempt to make the tacit rules of journal publishing explicit, Daft (1995) draws on his own experiences of writing articles for journals. He lists 11 common problems based on analysis of research submitted to journals that took a deductive approach to theory. Common problems are:

• No theory: this involves a lack of explanation of the relationships among variables—‘without a theory, there is nothing to pull the study together, nothing to justify why the variables should be studied’ (1995: 167).

• Concepts and operationalization not in alignment: this problem occurs when the research design does not reflect the variables under study, sometimes because of differences in level of analysis. An example of this might involve using fluctuations in the number of employees in an organization as a measure of organizational change.

• Insufficient definition—theory: this occurs when authors do not explain what their concepts mean, since enacting a definition is often a part of theory development.

• Insufficient rationale—design: this problem arises when manuscripts fail to explain the procedures or methods used in the study, such as sample size or response rates, in sufficient detail.

• Macrostructure—organization and flow: this refers to whether or not the various parts of the paper, such as theory section, methods, and conclusions, fit together into a coherent whole. Problems arise when manuscripts contain measures in the results section that are not referred to in the theory section or when conclusions are reached that are not related to the paper’s research questions.

• Amateur style and tone: indications of amateurism, according to Daft (1995: 170), include ‘frequent use of underlining or exclamation marks’; exaggerating the importance of the research topic in order to make the case for publication; or tearing down the work of others to justify the author’s own study rather than showing how the author’s study builds on previous work.

• Inadequate research design: this involves the inappropriate use of methods that cannot address the research question posed by the study, such as the use of an undergraduate student sample to analyse the selection of business strategies by corporate executives, as undergraduate students have little or no experience of strategy selection. These issues often constitute a fatal problem which cannot be put right after the study has been conducted.

• Overengineering: sometimes authors concentrate so much on the methodology that it becomes an end in itself, at the expense of making a theoretical contribution.

• Conclusions not in alignment: this problem involves manuscripts where conclusions are too short or lack sufficient interpretation of the findings, as well as manuscripts which generalize far beyond the data; ‘the important thing is to use the conclusion section to fully develop the theoretical contribution and to point out the new understanding from the study’ (1995: 173).

a. No theory

b. Amateur style and tone

c. Insufficient definition – theory

d. All of the above

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 06

06) Writing up your research is a matter of reporting your findings and drawing your conclusions, it isn’t necessary to be persuasive in how you write.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 07

07) Dissertation supervisors should be expected to respond to your drafts immediately, after all you are a paying customer and they are the service provider.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 07 Question 08

08) Which of the following would not be a section of a quantitative research article?

1. Title and abstract
2. Introduction
3. Theory and hypotheses
4. Data and methods
5. Discussion and conclusion

a. Theory and hypotheses

b. Reflexive evaluation

c. Data and methods

d. Discussion and conclusion

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 09

09) In quantitative research, research questions take the form of propositions

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 07 Question 10

10) In a scientific research report, an empiricist repertoire serves to:

a. confuse the reader with long and technical words.

b. demonstrate the researcher’s reflexivity about their role in the research process.

c. give the impression that the results were objective and logically inevitable.

d. provide a confessional tale of what went wrong in the procedure.

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 11

11) The structure of qualitative and quantitative research is remarkably similar generally.

a. True

1. Introduction
2. Theoretical background
3. Methods
4. Findings
5. Discussion
6. Conclusion

What is immediately striking about the structure is that it is not dissimilar to that of Marquis and Bird’s (2018) article. Nor should this be all that surprising. After all, a structure that runs

“Introduction 🡪 Literature review 🡪 Research design/methods 🡪 Results 🡪 Discussion 🡪 Conclusions”

is not obviously associated with one research strategy rather than the other.

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 07 Question 12

12) What best characterises the term reflexivity?

a. Where the researcher thinks deeply about the knowledge generation process and the taken-for-granted assumptions

b. Where the researcher disagrees with their informants

c. Where the researcher displays greater flexibility with informants in terms of how the fieldwork will be conducted

d. Where the researcher becomes disenchanted with the research project and opts to choose a different topic

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 07 Question 13

13) A reflexive business researcher will be inclined to write about:

a. The effects that their values, biases and theoretical leanings might have had upon the data collection and analysis.

b. The way in which their findings are objectively truthful and valid.

c. The way in which their findings unfolded naturally and inevitably through logical deduction.

d. The unproblematic and straightforward procedures of designing research, building a rapport with participants and interpreting the findings.

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 14

14) Reflexivity is closely linked to the concept of postmodernism

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 07 Question 15

15) Most business practitioners find business research engaging and easy to understand.

a. True

b. False