Session 2 Group Homework for CBA Batch 3

Hi all,

This homework covers sessions 1,2 and 3, i.e. problem formulation, construct assessment through qualitative research, and questionnaire design for primary data collection.

Group HW:

Consider the following Business problem.

A firm is planning to build a smartphone app that offers location-based services.

The app will collect details about deals, discounts etc from stores on one side and lets inform subscribers about these deals when they are within one cell tower range (roughly a km) of the business establishments where these deals are being offered.

The firm is targeting people below age 35 in the middle and upper-middle class in metropolitan India. The firm however wants to know what about the target segment's app usage habits in general. What types of apps do people use? Why? How many have used apps to transact business online (e.g., pay for orders placed) etc?

Your tasks will be to (1). conduct some exploratory/ qualitative research to find out what constructs underlie people's app based propensities and behaviors. Think of running a small focus group, or conducting a few in-depth interviews with knowledgeable people. (2). Formulate the problem in terms of a D.P. and a few R.O.s that correspond to it. (3). Design a questionnaire centered around measuring the constructs of interest you have identified. Read parts 1,2 and 3 in the HW below.

HW Part 1: Problem Formulation

• Q.1.1. Write a decision problem (D.P.) to describe the business problem of interest.
• Q.1.2. Write a few research objectives (R.O.s) to address this D.P. (pls use format specified for R.O. in class slides).

HW Part 2: Construct Analysis

• Q.2.1. Conduct some exploratory/ qualitative research to find out what constructs underlie people's app based propensities and behaviors. FOr example, you could run a small focus group discussion, or conduct a few in-depth interviews with knowledgeable people.
• Q.2.2. List a few major constructs you find from your data collected in Q.2.1. that are of business interest.
• Q.2.3. Pick any one construct you have listed in Q.2.2. and break it down into a few aspects. Ask yourself what motives, means and opportunities drive the behavior associated with construct.
• Q.2.4. Make a table with 2 columns. In the first column, write the names of the aspects you came up with. In the second column, corresponding to each aspect, write a Likert statement that you might use in a Survey Questionnaire to measure that aspect.

HW Part 3: Web-Survey Programming

• Q.3.1. Build a web survey using any free online websurvey tool of your choice. E.g., surveymonkey.com or zoomerang.com offer free websurvey services.
• Alternately, you can try Qualtrics, the ISB subscribed survey software. Instructions for how to setup a qualtrics account using your ISB email have been uploaded on LMS
• Ensure your questionnaire is "complete" i.e. has an introduction, a section for the psychographic Likerts, a demographic section, and some gateway questions and SKIP logic.

Session 2 HW submission format:

• Use a plain white blank PPT.
• On the title slide, write your group name and the names + ISB students IDs of all group members.
• Give your homework an informative title.
• For slide headers, use format "HW Part 1: [Slide content description]" and so on.
• Pls mention clearly the Question numbers you are solving in the slide body. Use fresh slides for each new article
• Use a blank slide to separate HW Part 2 from HW Part 1.
• Provide a working link for your websurvey on a fresh slide titled "HW part 3".
• It is advisable to run a pre-test. Perhaps take the survey a few times to ensure clarity, readability, working SKIP logic etc is in place.
• Save the slide deck as session2HW_yourgropup.ppt and put in in the dropbox on LMS before the deadline.

HW submission deadline: midnight of 10-December-2015. That's it from me. Any Qs etc., let Atreyee or me know. Feel free to use the comments section to this post for any Q&A or discussions.

Sudhir