St.

Mary’s University
School of Postgraduate Studies, School of Business
Final Exam for the course “Business Research Methods” (MBA 541)
Full Name: ______________________________ ID No: __________________
Date of Exam: 30/01/2021
Time allowed: 4:30 Hrs (2:00 pm-6:30 pm)
Total marks (40%)

GENERAL INSTRUCTION:
• Write your name and ID No on the space provided above
• Make sure that the exam has two parts and six main questions.
• Provide your answer on the space provided.
• Save the file name of your answer sheet with your full name and ID. No. E.g., Ephrem
Habtegebriel-SGS/0039/2012B
• Send your answer sheet in word format only.
• Direct copy from books, articles or other materials without paraphrasing will
disqualify your results.
• Any attempt to cheat or getting identical answer sheets will disqualify your results.

PART I: SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS (10 points):

1. As a matter of fact, a researcher is expected to review related studies before deciding on his/her
research title. Briefly define literature review and discuss the objective, and significance of
literature reviews. (3 points)
Answer:
Literature Review it is a critical evaluation of materials that has already been published in line
with the study considered. The significance is it will determine what has already been written on
a topic, identify previous approaches to the topic, it will provide us with new ideas and approaches.
The main objective of the review of literature is to find out the variables that can be chosen for a
study, to identify gaps, contradictions, and correlations in research. The literature review also
offers us supporting evidence to back our research findings

2. Briefly explain the difference between exploratory, descriptive and exploratory research types. (3
points)
Answer:
Exploratory research

Exploratory research are those researches that are conducted to understand a problem, study them
thoroughly, and understand the problem. The outcome of the research need not necessarily yield

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 a result as the research is conducted only to understand the problem and not identify the solution.
Thus, the result of these research works are inconclusive in most cases.
Example: Improving the total number of dishes on the menu for a hotel but not sure of the
customers opinions.

Descriptive research

Descriptive research are those researches that are conducted to describe the characteristics of the
event/phenomena/subjects/population, etc. that is being studied. This type of research focuses on
the ‘what’ instead of ‘why’ of the research subject.

Example: A research on the origin of the rules of a strategy for a war. The study focuses on what
are the strategies through the drawings and quotes, instead of focusing on why they were made.

Explanatory research

Explanatory research are those researches that are conducted on the subjects, topics and problems
that are not well researched earlier. This research focuses on explaining the aspects of a study or
investigation in a well detailed manner.

Example: The role of improvement in customer satisfaction through customer chat portal for an
online shopping website/platform.

Correlation research

Correlation research are those researches that focuses on choosing two variables and
understanding the same and establishing a relation between them to identify their influence on any
system. By this way the influence of the relation between variables on a study is identified.

Example: People who are tall have larger foot size while people who are short have small foot
size.

3. Briefly discuss at least four factors that should be taken into consideration by a researcher
while selecting an appropriate method for data collection. (2 points)
Answer:
Cost: when in doubt, the more inside and out the strategy the more cash it costs. Likewise,
doing your own essential research tends to be costlier than utilizing auxiliary sources.

Availability: It is one of the mainstays for data collection.

Data security: it includes to the defensive computerized protection measures.

Ease of use: Usability is the usability and learnability of a human-made question

Nature of data collected: Much of the information gathered by etymologists is proposed for
phonetic portrayal of generally little-known dialects.

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4. Briefly discuss with examples the types of measurement scales. Moreover, discuss the difference
between reliability and validity of the measurement scales. (2 points)
Answer:
Measurement Scales:
Nominal Scale: used for only classification or identification e.g Gender, Marital status
Ordinal Scale: used for ranking/ ordering e.g: opinion, preference
Interval Scale: used for to show the distance or magnitude b/n ranks or orders. E.g: temperature 0
degree centigrade doesn’t mean no temperature
Ratio Scale: representing absolute quantities e.g: employee income
Validity is the extent to which the research instrument measures, what it is intended to measure.
(accuracy of the measurement)
Reliability is the degree to which scale gives consistent results on repeated measurements

PART II: CASE ANALYSIS

Case #1 (22 points)
5. In today’s highly competitive business environment, competitive advantage is highly related to
possessing a committed and skilled workforce. Organizational commitment, which is the
employee’s long-term relationship and intention to stay in the workplace with a devoted effort to
reach the goals and objectives of the organization, is said to be influenced by different
organizational factors. This study is, therefore, aimed to test the effect of reward system,
empowerment, recognition, and information sharing on organizational commitment in Awash
Wines S.C. The researcher has gathered data via questionnaire from 205 respondents selected
randomly on a proportional basis from top, middle and low managerial levels. Try to give answer
to the following questions by using the underneath statistical tables generated via SPSS (Statistical
Package for Social Sciences)

Model Summaryb
Model R R Square Adjusted R Std. Error of the
Square estimate
1 .878 .812 .801 .791

a. Predictors: (Constant), fair reward, empowerment, recognition, information sharing, managerial support
b. Dependent Variable: Organizational commitment

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 ANOVA
Sum of
Model Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 24.590 3 8.197 16.009 .000a
Residual 35.328 69 .512
Total 59.918 72
Predictors: (Constant), fair reward, empowerment, recognition, information sharing,
managerial support

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized

Coefficients Coefficients T Sig
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 1.604 .136 .634 .000
Fair reward .334 .017 .219 19.818 . 012
Empowerment .008 .026 .020 .298 .634
Recognition .417 .086 .335 4.849 .000
Information sharing .001 .005 .021 .315 .420
Managerial support .447 .071 .404 6.292 .000

Please give answer to the following questions based on the above case.

a) Suggest an appropriate research title for the above study (2 points)

Answer:

the effect of reward system, empowerment, recognition, and information sharing on organizational
commitment in Awash Wines S.C

b) What is research design? What is the appropriate research design for the above study? (2 points)

Answer:

Research design is a plan, structure and strategy of investigation conceived as to obtain answers to
research questions or problems. It constitutes the blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis of
data.

The appropriate research design for the above study will be Quantitative Research design.

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 c) Draw a research model that shows the relationship between the variables (3 points)

Answer:

linear regression model

First, the F statistic tests whether the model as a whole predicts the dependent variable. Second, the
regression coefficients measure the strength and direction of the relationships. Third, for each of
these regression coefficients, there is a significance score, which measures the likelihood that the
relationship revealed in the coefficients can be attributed to random chance. Finally, the R-square
statistic measures the model’s overall predictive power and the extent to which the variables in
the model explain the variation in the dependent variable

Yˆ = A + B (X)

Y= Predicted value of Y (Dependent Variable)

A= Y axis the intercept (The constant)
B= Predicted increase of Y for 1 unit increase in X (The slope or coefficient)
X= Multiply value of X (Independent Variable)

d) Write down research hypotheses (relational hypotheses) for the above study. Please write only
alternative hypotheses. (5 points)

Answer:

H1: there is significant

e) What are the basic assumptions you should check before analyzing the regression table? (2 points)

Answer:

f) In the above case, what is the appropriate sampling technique? (2 points)

Answer:

Probability sampling design (simple random sampling)

g) Briefly define R2 or coefficient of determination. Moreover, interpret the result of the above R2 and the
regression table (4 points)

Answer:

The R-square statistic measures the regression model’s usefulness in predicting outcomes

– indicating how much of the dependent variable’s variation is due to its relationship with the

independent variable(s)

81.2 % of the variation Organizational commitment can be explained by variation in

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R2 explains the percentage of variance in the dependent variable that can be explained by the
explanatory variable. Higher the R2, better is the model. R2 = 0.812 means that the explanatory
variables can predict 81.2% of the total variance in the dependent variable.

h) Write the multiple regression equation and state which of the independent variables caused significant
effect on organizational commitment. (2 points)

Answer:

Yˆ = A + B1(X1) + B2(X2) + B3(X3) + B4(X4)

Yˆ = Predicted Value of the dependent variable

A = Constant
B1 = Slope of Variable 1 X1 = Chosen value of Variable 1
B2 = Slope of Variable 2 X2 = Chosen value of Variable 2
B3 = Slope of Variable 3 X3 = Chosen value of Variable 3
B4 = Slope of Variable 4 X4 = Chosen value of Variable 4

Case #2: (8 points)

6. Suppose you want to investigate if there is a statistically mean difference between athletes and
non-athletes in terms of mile time on a sample of 492 respondents. You are expected to test
whether the sample means for mile time among athletes and non-athletes in the sample are
statistically different or not. You can use an independent Samples t Test to compare the mean
mile time for athletes and non-athletes.

H0: µnon-athlete - µathlete = 0 ("the difference of the means is equal to zero")

H1: µnon-athlete - µathlete ≠ 0 ("the difference of the means is not equal to zero")

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Thus, based on the above statistical tables:

a) Discuss the basic assumptions of independent samples t-test. (2 points)

Answer:

Assumption of Independence: you need two independent, categorical groups that represent your
independent variable.

independent sample t-test we are comparing the two group means

b) Try to test the hypothesis and interpret the results showing all the necessary steps (6 points)

Answer:

Steps for Significance Testing

Set alpha; α (p level; β).

State hypotheses, Null and Alternative.

Calculate the test statistic (sample value).

1. Calculate the difference between the two observations on each pair,

making sure you distinguish between positive and negative differences.

2. Calculate the mean difference, .

3. Calculate the standard deviation of the differences, and use this to calculate the
standard error of the mean difference,

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4. Calculate the t-statistic, which is given by

Under the null hypothesis, this statistic follows a t-distribution with n − 1 degrees of freedom.

Find the critical value of the statistic.

State the decision rule.

State the conclusion.