Poph8315 Research Design And Methods Assessment Answers

Research problem

What was the problem the research set out to address? What was the research objective/questions/hypothesis (es)?

Literature review:

 What themes are synthesized in the literature? What areas in the literature were critiqued? What contribution to knowledge is this research claiming to make?

Research Design

What are the variables/concepts under study? What measures were used to investigate the variables? How was the method employed? What were the results? What kinds of statistics were used? (If any) Note any unfamiliar terms used: What areas have been identified for future researchers?

Part A:

Answer:

Part A

Article 1:

Exploring The Drivers Of Interorganizational Relationship Magnitude

Every organization has to maintain and develop the relationships with suppliers and the customers because these are the most important external stakeholders of the company. Each relationship has different structure and magnitude. This is the article that discusses about the factors that affect the various levels of magnitude of the relationship. This study has been conducted in order to provide the understanding to the managers about the magnitude of the relationship so that it can be maintained effectively. The major objective of the research is to define and describe the contextual driver that affects the magnitude of the relationships. As far as the literature review of the article is considered, it has been analysed that the relationship magnitude is the intensity of strength and closeness of the relationship. Qualitative research method has been used in order to conduct the research because qualitative research allows the researchers to analyse the different aspects of the relationship. Content analysis is the specific method that has been used. 14 depth interviews were conducted from the 3 industries. As results of the interviews, it has been analysed that there are different factors that affect the different level of magnitude of the relationships. There are several driving factors such as history, external influences, capabilities, performance etc. that affect the magnitudes of the relationships. Analysing the whole research, it has been analysed that the whole research is conducted with qualitative method which is strength as well as the limitation for the research. This is because the qualitative methods are not that much realisable but these methods have the ability to consider many aspects of the topic (Golicic and Mentzer, 2005).

Article 2:

A New Model Of Scheduling In Manufacturing: Tasks, Roles, And Monitoring 

It is the article that is based on the study of important of scheduling. Scheduling is the process that is considered as the fundamental and the very important part of different business processes. Various types of scheduling are studied earlier but the main focus of this article is production scheduling. A production schedule has been defined as the set of activities that has been conducted in order to produce products. Scheduling is done in order to prioritize the activities that need to be conducted so that proper flow of work can be maintained. This research has been conducted so that a new model of scheduling can be generated that can be used by the manufacturing units of the companies. It has been analysed that in scheduling of the activities, different schedulers provide different types of behaviour but it is difficult to generalize the scheduling model as situations are one of the biggest factors that can alter the scheduling method used. Observation based method has-been used to observe the behaviour of the schedulers. The model that has been presented here is related to roles, tasks and monitoring. Future research needs to be conducted in order to find out the utilization of the newly developed method in existing and new products scheduling or manufacturing process (Jackson, Wilson and MacCarthy, 2004).

Article 3: 

Human Factors Influencing Fire Safety Measures

Fire is the cause of many accidents and may cause fatal results by affecting the life directly or indirectly. The direct effect of fire can be seen by the damaged material, buildings, loss of household goods etc. the indirect effect of fire can be unemployment, loss of production, loss of exports etc. Thus, it is required to make fire safety measures. This is the practice that focuses on some of such measures that are being implemented at the local universities of Malaysia along with the involvement of humans in maintaining and improving the fire safety management in the residential and universities of Malaysia. Inspection was done through questionnaires and survey in order to conduct the research. It has been analysed that two types of data collection method were sued. The first method that has been used for collecting data is by the audit reports and the other one is the survey through questionnaire. Sampling method that has been used in the research was non probability random sampling. The data after collected has been analysed by Likert’s scale. Four blocks were selected in order to conduct the research from which two were occupied by the females and two were occupied by the males. It has been analysed and concluded from the research that the occupant need to be knowledgeable about the safety measures available. It is required to judge the perception of the occupants regarding the safety measures and it is also conclude that there is requirement of improving the safety measures with the shared involvement of humans and management of residential colleges and universities in Malaysia (Subramaniam, 2004).

Article 4:

Purchasing And supply Chain Management 

It has been analysed that Air force is facing some of the issues in order to provide support to the war fighters. This is the article that discusses about the transformation that has been made in logistics in order to improve the process. It is required to have success in transformation and for this various stakeholders are involved. Some of those stakeholders are leaders, managers from logistics department, workforce etc. the shared contribution of all these stakeholders is required to make successful transformation. PSCM and DMT team have been working for this process and thus all the transformation has been communicated to the logistic communities so that they can be aware of the changes made and to make them understand that these changes are for the benefits of Air Force. This sustained transformation has the vision of eLog 21. Air Force leaders are committed to bring these sustained changes and try to maintain the changes for long so that they can avail the benefit of the transformation (Leatham, 2003). 

Part B:

Article 1:

Exploring The Deivers Of Interorganizational Relationship Magnitude

As far as the study is concerned, it has been analysed that the strength of the research is the qualitative method approach that has been used to conduct the whole study. This approach helped the researcher to analyse the concepts associated with the research topic and to give rich interpretation about the concept. It has been analysed that qualitative approach of research helps in determining the various sides of the topic and this provide better theoretical results. This can also be considered as the limitation of the research. This is because although the qualitative approach gives a better theoretical results but relying only on theories is not that much reliable. Another major limitation or the weakness of this study is that it has included only single aspect of relationship that is between the company and the manufacturer and customers. There are other relationships as well as such between the manufacturer and the suppliers and the distributors which are not include. The generalized results have been provided in the research for all types of research. The method such as interviews has been used for conducting the research. It helps the researcher to have the knowledge about the perception of the people along with their feelings. This is the extended research and the conclusion and the results of this research can be used for future consideration as well. Other possible method that can be used to conduct this research is survey or observation (Golicic and Mentzer, 2005).

Article 2:

A New Model Of Scheduling In Manufacturin: Tasks,Roles, And Monitoring

It is the article that deals with development of the scheduling model. It has been analysed from the research article that set of techniques has been used in the research in order to find out the data related to development of scheduling model. This is the major strength of the article various techniques helps in developing accurate model. The techniques that have been used in the research were direct observation, retrospective decision probe, structured and semi structured interviews. Task analysis, verbal protocols and attributes analysis. It has been analysed that there were four industries on which the research has been done. Including so many data collection and analysis techniques helps development of efficient data and also helps in collecting the data with different thinking and perspective. As far as the other side has been observed, taking so many techniques in order to collect and bays the data may confuse he researcher. It has been analysed that only four industries have been selected to conduct the research, thus, it cannot be implied on every industry. The biggest limitation that has been observed in the research is that it has been counted only on the production scheduling and not on others. This aspect of the research limits its usefulness for further research. Further research needs to be conducted to find out the utilization of the model generated. As far as the recommended method of research it’s considered, it has been analysed that more manufacturing industries can be considered in order to collect the data. This result in better utilization of the model generated (Jackson, Wilson and MacCarthy, 2004).

Article 3:

Human Factors Influencing Fire Safety Measures 

It is the article that is based on analysing the fire safety measures at the residential colleges of Malaysia. It has been analysed that the research conducted in this paper is very much helpful in analysing the measures and the scope of improvements in the same. It has been analysed that fire safety audit is the technique that is divided into five section that made the research easier. This is one of the strength of this research and shows the intelligence of the researcher. The audit method is used to find out the current measures of the safety conditions in the universities so that the scope of improvements can be analysed. Another method that also acts as the strength for the research is to conduct the survey in ale as well as female blocks so as to determine the perceptions and knowledge of the people regarding the safety measures. Questionnaire survey method has also been used in the research so that every aspect of the research can be covered. The major limitation that has been observed in the article or the research is its sampling method. The sampling method that has been used is non-probability sampling and thus the sample of the research lacks the precision that is required for the accuracy of the results. The other methods of sampling such as probability sampling or cluster sampling would have been used in order to make the data more precise. This would have resulted in better and accurate results (Subramaniam, 2004).

Article 4: 

Purchasing and Supply Chain Management

Purchasing and Supply Chain Management is the particle that discuses about the improvements in the logistics that helps the Air force people. It has been analysed that it is the very descriptive form of research and thus provide the full information about the transformation of the logistics. The description that has been given tin the article is beneficial to understand each and every concept of sustainment transformation in logistics but this is also not very much reliable because there is no data analysed by nay of the method or the tools of analysis of data collection.  It is just the learning article that provides the information about the roles of leaders and managers as well as their contribution in the transformation process. It has been analysed from the research that the supply chain management and logistics are very much related in Air Force and it needs to be improved. There should be some qualitative research involved in order to find out the exact issues in the logistics and the supply chain management (Leatham, 2003). 

Part C:

Supply chain management is the process that is very important these days to attain competitive advantage and enhance the organizational performance especially in the production and manufacturing companies. Following is the methodology that has been used in order to analyse the impact of supply chain management on the performance of the organization.

Sampling method:

Stratified sampling is the method that can be used in the order to determine the sample that would be used to conduct the study (Mackey and Gass,  2015). In this type of sampling, four industries have been selected. From each of the industries, the logistics managers group has been formed and the members from each group have been selected. Their sample size of the study would be 50 managers.

Data collection method: After selecting the sample, it is required to select the data collection methods. In order to collect the data various methods can be used (Miller, Birch, Mauthner and Jessop, 2012). One of the important methods is interviews of the selected respondents. It is analysed that interview is the second method that will be used because before interviews, it is required to conduct the email questionnaire survey. In this method a questionnaire has been sent to all the respondents or the sample. The people who will respond will be interviewed in order to make the research more theoretical and descriptive (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault, 2015). Questionnaire is the form of data collection method that allows the researchers to ask the respondents any type of questions thus it includes all the aspects of the research. Interview will strengthen the data collection on the research because the interviews will be conducted only with the managers who have found to be intelligent enough and knowledgeable enough about the supply chain management and their link with the organizational performance. This judgement can be made by the answers of the questionnaire filled by the manager.

It is required to make the data reliable and thus it is required to use one more method that auditing of the supply chain reports of the companies or the industries. This is required to be done so that the data that has been collected from the mangers can be matched with the audit data and the results of the research would be more accurate in nature (Smith, 2015). Auditing is the major source of collecting the data in order to verify the answers of the managers. This enhance reliability and the accuracy in the data and hence in the conclusion as well.

References:

Golicic, S.L. and Mentzer, J.T., 2005. Exploring the drivers of interorganizational relationship magnitude. Journal of Business Logistics, 26(2), pp.47-71.

Jackson, S., Wilson, J.R. and MacCarthy, B.L., 2004. A new model of scheduling in manufacturing: Tasks, roles, and monitoring. Human factors, 46(3), pp.533-550.

Leatham, M., 2003. eLog21-Purchasing and Supply Chain Management. Air Force Journal of Logistics, 27(4), p.42.

Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.

Miller, T., Birch, M., Mauthner, M. and Jessop, J. eds., 2012. Ethics in qualitative research. Sage.

Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.

Subramaniam, C., 2004. Human factors influencing fire safety measures. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 13(2), pp.110-116.

Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.