Chapter 6 Flashcards
what is a research project?
temporary and sytematically inquiry for obtaining new information.
- involves: obtaining data, analyzing relevant information, developing insight, and conclusions and reports.
What is a business research project
temporary and systematic inquiry for obtaining new information for a business purpose
Research conducted by or for financial service companies is generally termed Business research. define this
AKA Applied research
research investigation for a practical business application, usually with a connection to a profit motive.
What is pure research?
aka basic research
research designed to solve theoretical problems, with no contemplated application to business purposes.
When would companies generally prefer to undertake research individually?
when their goal is to
- discover a basis for an innovation advantage over a competitor
- protect an existing trade secret
- understand conditions limited to their own company.
who tents to led collaborative research projects in the financial service industry?
consultants
reinsurance companies
professional associations
industry associations.
What is a benchmaking study?
sometimes called an intercompany expense study is a comparison study of expenses and other measures of operational performance for several companies.
- support quality management and process management goals.
What is a mortality study?
study of the longetivity and ages at death of large groups of people
what is a salary survey?
type of comparison study in which employers share their compensation data with an external researcher, who accumulates and analyzes the data.
When would a company first contemplate a business research project?
shortly after the company recognizes an opportunity, challenge, or any situation requiring a business decision.
After identifying a management problem, the research staff in a financial services company would conduct exploratory research in an effort to identify readily available evidence applicable to the management problem. Define this
a type of research that involves collecting background information to refine the statement of the research purpose reviewing the existing literature on the topic, understanding the need for further research steps, and finding reports discussing a situation similar to the current management problem.
What is literature review?
important part of exploratory research.
its an acitvity focused on identifying, reading, and absorbing the content of published research studies, company information, industry reports, or other written sources that form a basis for a proposed research project.
wha is data mining?
refers to a task of extrating useful information from existing large data collections by means of deloying sophisticated software algorithms to identify sig patterns in those large data collections.
what is a research framework AKA: conceptial framework, conceptual model, or conceptual system?
an explanation- even a justification- of the reason for a research project.
= proposes relationship between variables of the study and ideally places the research in the context of an established field of inquiry.
define research proposal and research objective
proposal: document that present an outline of a proposed research project focused on meeting a specific research objective. the objective, is a breif statement of the intended outcomes of a research project.
what is a research plan and design?
a detailed report expressing the working methods and strategies a research team will use for the undertaking an authorized research project and fulfilling the projects specified research objectives.
what are research activities in a business research project
the work activities associated with collecting, editing, and analyzing data and information, as well as interpreting research results in terms of their intended business application.
where can researchers obtain data from?
internal comapny database or warehouse external data bases or warehouses, survey instruments originaly written records or artifacts interviews direct obervation direct measurements other sources
What is Data editing
process applied for detecting and correcting inconsistencies errors, and omissions in a collection of data.
what is Data analysis?
process of applying a variety of analytical techniques to collect data and using the results of the analysis to formulate recommendations concerning the research objective.
what is a research report?
a written document that communicates the significance of a research project at the end of the project.
What contents are included in a research report?
- executive summary
- literature review
- research method
- key findings
- research limitations
- research conclusions and recommendations
- references
define executive summary
concise overview of the entire research project, expressed in a business language.
- long
- mentions every element in the research report
what are research methods?
the chosen approach to the primary activities of research execution: collecting, editing, and analyzing data, and the developing research conclusion.
what is Data visualization?
refers to using graphics that convey such a deeper intuitive understanding of data.
define the term accuracy
general term for the closeness fo a model to the system it represents, the closeness of a measured quantity ot its true value or the closeness of a projected outcome ot the actual outcome.
Define the term precision
refers to the exactness of a measure or other distinction
Define Validity in reference to a quantitative model or an experiment
is a quality of relevance, significance, accuracy, and precisions. A model or results is valid if it is both accurate and precise.
Define Reliability in reference to a quantitative model, measuring instrument, or an experiment
refers to dependability of the model, measuring instrument, or experiement in that it gives the same results on repeated trials.
define a theroy in terms of business research
its a set of interrelated concepts, definitions, and propositions that together may explain or predit the outcomes or uknonwn information.
Define a proposition
is a statement describing relationships among variables and formulated so that it may be verified or refuted.
Is a proposition more specific than a theory or a hypothesis?
a theory
Define a hypothesis?
a type proposition or tentative statement describing relationships among variables and structured to support empirical testing.
What is a research hypothesis?
a proposed explanation for a given set of observations
What is empirical testing?
refers to applying the scientific method to prove the statement true or false.
True or False, a hypothesis maybe a relational, descriptive or explanatory.
True
Name 3 kinds of hypothesis
1) relational hypothesis
2) descriptive hypothesis
3) explanatory hypothesis
describe relation hypothesis
a tentative statement describing a relationship between variables
describe a descriptive hypothesis
tentative statement about the existance, size, form, or distribution of some variable
Describe a explanatory hypothesis
a tentative statement describing a relationship between variables in which one independent variable has a specified observable effect on a dependent variable
What is a model?
a representation of a system and is constructed to permit researches to study the system
What is a veriable in a research and modeling?
a characteristic, quality or property being studied.
What is an independent variable in a research model?
term that represents a force determining the value of the dependent variable.
- usually represented by “X”
What is a dependent variable in terms of research models?
term representing the outcomes a researcher wishes to estimate.
determined by the action of the dependent variable.
- “y”
what is a moderating variable?
a research model is a type of independent variable that, in addition to a main independent variable, has a secondary influence on a dependent variable.
What is an intervening variable?
a research model is a factor that cannot be measured directly, it presence and effects can be inferred from observation of independent and moderating variables.
What is an extraneous variable
describes a randome effect or another effect which should be excluded from considertation in research
what is a control variable?
a variable introduced to help interpret the relationship between other variables. A control variable is constant. It remains unchanged.
What is Deductive reasoning?
is process of reaching the only conclusion possible from a given set of supporting facts.
- associated with quantitative research
- mathematics
What is inductive reasoning
the process of drawing a conclusion on the basis of a collection of facts. inductive reasoning permits reaching a conclusion in the absence of logical proof.
- associated with qualitative research
What is Qualitative research
desgined to apply inductive reasoning to interpret and find new meaning in verbal informaiton, potentially along with numerical information and then to generate verbal descriptions of phenomena associated with a specific research project
- must ashere to a formal, systematic approach to research.
What is Quantitative research?
research designed to examine exclusively numerical information and generate numerical information about the characterisics of a phenomenon under analysis
.
- employing numberical approaches and deductive reasoning to analyse, summerize, and project information about population characteristics.
What is exploratory research
research with the purpose of exploring available data and information.
What is an experiemental research
research having an objective of proving a statement such as a research hypothesis.
What do you call the research purpose is to prove a hypothesis,
the research approach is experimental, and the empirical analytical techniques employed are based on deductive reasoning and quantittative analysis.
What is correlation research
research designed to demonstrate a relationship between variables.
What happens to correlation research when the prupose of the research is to identify trents or relationships
IT meploys quatitative analytical techniques such as regression analysis, cycle analysis and trend analysis
What is decision science?
an approach to analyzing complex decision-making problems using mostly qunatitartive techniques to identify mathematically preferred or optimal solutions.
What is a decision model
a type of decision analysis tool that describes all elements of a decision in a manner which helps a decision maker evaluate and compare several potential courses of action,
What are the two observed key tendencies that can mislead users of decision moderls?
- they tend to forget or ignore the impact of any simplifying assumptions used in constructing the model
- when quantifying risk, model users tend to exclude consideration of real and massive risks that exceed any level within recent experience.
define predictive analytics
refers to automated data analysis for predictive modeling in business applications.
- selects quantitative processes an applies thos quantitative processes to business data to create decision-support information.
what is business intelligence in terms of business research context?
refers to using automation for discovering decision support information for business purposes.
what is business analytics?
a domain of automated research for business intelligence that typically involves using software for data mining, stratistical analysis, predictive modeling, business process moderling, and predictive analytics.
Which is broader, bsyiness analytis or predictive analysitics?
business analytuics
what are expert systems?
software packages that perform tasks otherwise performed by human subject-matter experts.
- has a knowledge base, decisions rules, analytical routines, and access to a database
ie: classifies data by sorting it into distinctive sets.
True or False an automated underwriting system is a type of expert system?
True. For insurance underwriting, it uses an expert knowledge base, decision rules, and a company database to make automated underwriting decisions.
Why do companies use predicitve analytics?
- lowering operating costs or improve quality
- select cross-selling and matching service levels in a tiered-service program
- detect fraudulent activities such as ID theft, insurance claim fraud, financial reporting fraud.
trigger and time the delivery - identify effective compbination of product versions, marketing material, communication channels, and timing for a sales propect
- obtain decision-support information for use in market segmentation, and also about customers/
Two contrasting defects in analysis of information are random errors and bias. What is random error?
Two contrasting defects in analysis of information are random errors and bias. What is Bias?
an error with a consistent direction
what do you call an error due to bias?
systemic erros.
What two broad categories of bias can affect business research and decision support information for financial services companies?
cognitive bias and statitical bias
in business research, do quanlitative or quantitative approaches have a greater risk exposure to effects of cognitive bias?
qualitative approaches
what is statistical bias?
a consistent or systemic error arising from a flaw in the research design.
what is sampling bias?
this is presents in sampling techniques because it is more likely to include some memebers of the tatget population than others
Can you correct for the presence of statistical bias?
Yes.
What is measurement bias?
refers to a systemetic erro arising from data collection methods..
What are some examples of measurement biases?
- instrument bias
- insensitive measure bias
- expectation bias
- memory bias
- attention bias
What is cultural bias?
consistent cognitive erro consisting of a tendency to interpreet and report evidence in terms of the observer’s culture.
- important to consider when entering a new market.
What is attention bias?
a consistent error in research outcomes which arises because individuals who know they are being studied then to perform better because of the attention to their performances
What is social acceptance bias?
a consistent cognitive error consistent of a tendency for individuals to make socially acceptable statements, even though they may feel or think something else which they perceive as social unacceptable.
What is acquiescence bias?
a consistent erro in survey data arising from the tendency of interviewees to agree with the questioner.
What is optimism ias?
a consistent cognitive error consisting of a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful or hopeful view of future outcomes
- negative past outcomes are justified by unrealistic expectations
What is Denial?
a conssitent cognitive error consisting of a tendensy to ignore the existence of unpleasant facts.
What is expectation bias?
known as confirmation bias, is a consistent cognitive error consisting of a tendency to overemphasize evidence that supports research hypothesis.
What is reference bias?
a survey design error that consists of a tendency for the sequence of topics, questions and activities to bias answers.
What is publication bias?
a consistent cognitive error consisting of a tendenct to overemphasize research evidence that has been published widely as opposed to results that received limitied distribution
what is sponser bias?
is a consistent error in observation that occurs when a study participant knowns the identity of the research sponser and is thys mmotiveated to report responses in a biased manner
What is intervention bias?
a systematic error in the implementation of research arising from differences in the application of research methodologies wihtin a research study
What is a volunteer bias?
a consistent error in sample construction that occurs because people who volunteer to participate in a study differ from population memebers who do not volunetter?
What is a nonrespondent bias?
known as a participation bias, a consistent error in sample construction that skew research results when
What is notation bias?
a consistent cognitive error arising from cultural bias and is based on a failure to examine assumptoins embedded in the deisgn of mathematical notation
What is memory bias?
consistent cognitive error constituting a tendency to either recall or forgot information. Memory bias affects what individuals report memebering
