BUSI600: Forum 1 – Making Research Decisions
Liberty University
Dr. Charles Williams
January 16, 2014
Making Research Decisions
Research is a systematic inquiry aimed at providing information to solve managerial problems. (Cooper and Schindler, 2014, p. 22) The discussion question refers to Toyota’s major problem with unexplained acceleration in some of its top 2010 models. As a result they had to close down production and stop selling multiple models. The question asks what type of research Toyota possibly conducted in order to come to this conclusion.
Based on the reading in the chapter Toyota probably conducted research to find the how and why of the problem. This type of research is called applied research. Applied research is done to try and solve the problem. The problem-solving nature of applied research means it is conducted to reveal answers to specific questions related to action, performance or policy needs. (Cooper and Schindler, 2014, p. 15). Toyota was trying to find out what was making the acceleration happen. Was it human error or mechanical? They were trying to find out how to keep it from happening again.
They likely conducted reporting, descriptive, explanatory and predictive studies. Reporting studies is a summary of the data aimed at achieving an in-depth understanding of the problem. This type of study usually requires little assumption or conclusion drawing. With descriptive studies the outcome is to answer the questions of who, what, when, where and possibly how. However it does not answer the question of why an event has occurred. The explanatory study attempts to explain the reason for the event. A predictive study is a study that attempts to explain how the event occurred and predict when it might occur again.
Toyota probably conducted surveys with long standing customers to get feedback from them. They contacted plant managers, and dealership service...