HI6008 Business Research-Quantitative Research

It is crucial to understand the advantages of outsourcing and it is also true that the function of outsourcing can save a lot of money since that just not the only factor to actually do it. There are many organizations that usually discover at the time of outsourcing mania when it actually became popular, that too much of it can be a mistake as well (Gupta et al., 2014). The impact of flat economy have caused many organizations into big amount of layoffs and at the same time, it is important to outsource operations that are actually better to kept it in-house.  But when done in right manner, outsourcing can be very beneficial. Following is the detailed discussion: -

1. Save capital based costs: the process of cost cutting is not the only factors that are strong enough for outsourcing. However, it is an important factor and the function of outsourcing usually converts the fixed based cost into variable.  And it further releases capital in order to have investment in other places for the businesses and also permit to completely ignore large amount of expenditures during the early time (Gielnik et al., 2017).
2. Rise in level of efficiency: organization that perform everything on their own have higher base for research, growth, distribution expenses and marketing. Everything should be well pass on to the consumers (Gielnik et al, 2017). As an outsider, the cost structure and economies of scale can provide the company with some significance of competitive advantage.
3. Reduction in labor cost: the process of hiring and training the staff for small projects that are short term by nature can be a costly process and the temporary employees that don’t always have to live to the expectations of the people.  The function of outsourcing also helps in focusing the human resources where one needs it the most.
4. Starting the new project rapidly: a good outsourcing company has the right resources in order to initiate a project. Therefore, in order to handle the same project performed in house might consist of take a lot of time to hire right kind of people, provide the right support and train them adequately (Lawrence and Weber, 2014).

Justification 

The outsourcing function is an emerging strategic move or trend among many small businesses. This strategy was previously taken usually by small or large size companies. (Akbari et al., 2016) The report will review in detail about the academic based journal literature. In alignment of the mission with small business consider it as a pertinent issue that must be considered with supervision offered by the owners as well as the managers in small businesses (Hair, 2015).

Primary research questions

1. What is significance of outsourcing for small businesses?

Secondary research questions

1. How to start the outsourcing business for small businesses?
2. What are opportunities for outsourcing businesses?
3. What are the disadvantages of outsourcing?
4. Why small businesses should outsource their operations?

Research design and methodology

Qualitative research

The concept of qualitative research is mainly based on exploratory research. It can be utilized to gain clarity on so many basic factors, views and motivations. It helps in providing some important insights on the issues or assistance to create ideas for quantitative research. The concept of qualitative research is utilized to expose different kind of trends in views and also different aspects of issues (Pearce, 2014).  The qualitative research used in the report will be collected through questionnaire that will have both open ended along with close ended questions.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is also utilized to quantify the issues by diverse ways in creating numerical data that can change into used data. It can be used to also quantify the behavior, views, attitudes and other discussed elements or variables (Abdolmohammadi et al., 2017). In the report the quantitative methodology is done with the help of well structure interviews and will also be conducted from similar number of respondents through telephonic or face to face interaction (Hirschheim and Dibbern, 2014).

Sample size

After recognizing the population, it is also crucial for the number of researcher to clearly draw the sample from the current population. The sample is based on representing the population being studied and this is why, the finding of the questions can be studied on the basis of study population (Pearce, 2014). The research will focus on number of small businesses of the locality and the outsourcing operations.

Sampling

The research will be based on the pilot study which will be carried just before the main study to decide the overall effectiveness of collection of the data tool right before the survey (Gerbl et al., 2016).

Variable 

There are numbers of variables in the research that can be classified as independent as well as dependent variables. The dependent variables are those an element in which researcher is interested in and independent one usually impacts the dependent variables (Gerbl et al., 2015).

Data collection 

The questionnaire will be formed and sent to organization through email as well as it will also be delivered by hand (Akbari et al., 2016). More and more participants will be asked to fill the questionnaire and also give interviews that can be entered in excel sheet later as well as edited.

Data analysis

All the interpretations of the results will be presented in the form of tables, charts as well as graphs. In addition there are multi-linear regression based model that will be used to actually find out the overall effectiveness of finance based reporting for number of small businesses (Gerbl et al., 2015).

Conclusion

In the end, the report provides information for various small business practitioners and people who help in business people and the organization with an overview of causal and practitioners based literature associated with outsourcing operations and all the important research based theories and methods applicable for the trend. The general literature in research is enough to conclude and help small business entrepreneurs that the academic literature actually offers in depth concepts of all relevant data to execute successful small business outsourcing (Ojala et al., 2014). While bridging the difference the gap that exists between the two distinct areas of data, the report will help in understanding the concept of outsourcing.

Reliability and validity

The entrepreneur of small business actually moves in the direction of gaining clarity on the potential viability and overall importance of outsourcing many non-central business functions. It is also crucial that the concept gain all the clarity on the positive side along with negative factors as well as guidelines important for many strategic decisions (Ojala et al., 2014).

Limitations of the research

There are many kinds of sources in data that will be utilized to gain more confidence along with research results, usually some information is taken is not very collaborative by nature. Therefore, there can also be a possibility based on discrepancy of outcomes (Ojala et al., 2014). Because some of the respondents will be out to reach and send the questionnaire to organizations, there is a possibility of bias in term of the ability to write, read and also use varied internet services.

Reference

Abdolmohammadi, M.J., DeSimone, S.M., Hsieh, T.S. and Wang, Z., 2017. Factors associated with internal audit function involvement with XBRL implementation in public companies: An international study. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 25, pp.45-56.

Akbari, M. and Hopkins, J., 2016. The changing business landscape in Iran: establishing outsourcing best practices. Operations and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 9(3), pp.184-197.

Asatiani, A., Apte, U., Penttinen, E., Ro?nkko?, M. and Saarinen, T., 2014, January. Outsourcing of disaggregated services in cloud-based enterprise information systems. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 1268-1277). IEEE.

Brown, C., Sturgeon, T. and Lane, J., 2014. Using a business function framework to examine outsourcing and offshoring by US organizations.

Gerbl, M., Gerbl, M., McIvor, R., McIvor, R., Humphreys, P. and Humphreys, P., 2016. Making the business process outsourcing decision: why distance matters. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 36(9), pp.1037-1064.

Gerbl, M., McIvor, R., Loane, S. and Humphreys, P., 2015. A multi-theory approach to understanding the business process outsourcing decision. Journal of World Business, 50(3), pp.505-518.

Gielnik, M.M., Zacher, H. and Schmitt, A., 2017. How small business managers’ age and focus on opportunities affect business growth: a mediated moderation growth model. Journal of Small Business Management, 55(3), pp.460-483.

Gielnik, M.M., Zacher, H. and Schmitt, A., 2017. How small business managers’ age and focus on opportunities affect business growth: a mediated moderation growth model. Journal of Small Business Management, 55(3), pp.460-483.

Gupta, A., Carroll, J., Gatti, P. and Greiner, E., 2014. The Perceived Risks of IT Outsourcing: An Exploratory Comparison of Large MNC & SME’s. Oxford Journal: An International Journal of Business & Economics, 2(1).

Hair, J.F., 2015. Essentials of business research methods. ME Sharpe.

Hirschheim, R. and Dibbern, J., 2014. Information technology outsourcing: towards sustainable business value. In Information Systems Outsourcing (pp. 1-19). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

KATO, A., 2016. The Function and Resilience of Clan Networks in Industrial Districts: Case Study of the Dies and Molds Industry in East Osaka Area. Organizational Science, 48(5), pp.1-15.

Lawrence, A.T. and Weber, J., 2014. Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

McIvor, R., 2016. An analysis of the application of process improvement techniques in business process outsourcing. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 33(3), pp.321-343.

Ojala, H., Niskanen, M., Collis, J. and Pajunen, K., 2014. Audit quality and decision-making in small companies. Managerial Auditing Journal, 29(9), pp.800-817.

Pearce, J.A., 2014. Why domestic outsourcing is leading America's reemergence in global manufacturing. Business Horizons, 57(1), pp.27-36.