1. Some years back, a task force was formed among executives of seven regional transportation agencies in the Northern India. The mission of the task force was to investigate the feasibility and desirability of adopting electronic toll collection (ETC) for the inter-regional roadways of the area. ETC is accomplished by providing commuters with small receiver (tags) that emits a turned radio signal. Receivers placed on toll booths are able to receive the radio signals and identify the commuter associated with the particular signal. Commuters establish ETC account that are debited for each use of a toll road ir facility, thus eliminating the need for the reduce traffic jams at toll plazas by allowing the tag holders to pass through at moderate speed.

At the time Northern India agencies were studying the service; ETC was already being used successfully in Texas. Even though several of the agencies have individually considered implementation ETC, they recognised that independent adoption would fail far short of the potential benefits achievable with an integrated interregional system.

The task force was more interested in identifying the ideal configuration of service attributes for each agency’s commuters, and determining how similar or different these configurations might be across agencies. The task force identified a lengthy list of attributes that was ultimately culled to seven questions.

1. How many accounts are necessary and what statement will be received?

2. How and where one pay for EZ pass?

3. What lanes are available for use and how they are controlled?

4. Is the tags transferable to other vehicles?

5. What is the price of the tag and possible service charge?

6. What is the price of the toll with an EZ Pass tag?

7. What are the other possible uses if the EZ pass tag (airport parking, gasoline purchased)?

From the business researcher’s perspective, it also seemed important to assess commuters demand for the service. However, the task force was not convinced that it needed a projection of demand. Because it was committed to implementing ETC regardless of initial commuter acceptance. The task force considered its principal role to be investigating commuter’s preference for how the service should be configured ideally.

Evaluate the problem definition (defining the problem). Has the problem been defined adequately? If not modify the problem definition with identifying the management issues and then research issues.

2. The administrators of Parent's Pride, one of the city's largest chain of pre-nursery Schools, are concerned with the attitude parents have towards the various aspects of the school and whether they would recommend the school to their friends and colleagues. They have authorized the undertaking of a marketing research study to gather this information and have directed that it cover the following areas - all the functions with which the parents and the child come into contact (such as admissions, school infrastructure, teachers' attitude, meals, fee structure, parent-teacher interaction, hygienic conditions and so on).

Identify the research design for the given situation also identify the information needs. Justify your answer.

3. The diet drink manufacturer in the study finds that young women are more health conscious and are looking at low calorie options. Thus, any communication on advertisement for the product has to emphasize the health aspect. The purchase probability is also influenced by their education level and the nature of their profession. Other factors such as available brands, celebrity endorsement and dieticians recommendations also have an impact on them.

a. Identify your research problem and hypotheses.

b. Identify and classify the variable under study.

4. A visitor to Kerala found a peculiar patter of inheritance. His initial inquiry and interview with locals enlightened him that the Nair community of the state had a peculiar inheritance pattern. Women and their children inherited the family wealth and the men got a single share for himself which was often forfeited. Women stayed back in their homestead and it was the men who moved to the new household after their respective marriages; though only temporarily – as he visited his sister and kids back ion his homestead regularly and managed the family wealth on their behalf while his wife and children were cared for by his brother in law. This he hypothesized was a matrilineal and matriarchal pattern of inheritance rarely seen across the world. However, the visitor was not satisfied with the explanation of the few people he talked to (very small size) and proceeded to confirm this peculiar finding. He developed a questionnaire and distributed to select village with population from different casts and religion. And the analysis confirmed his initial findings and hypothesis (through the interviews) that this indeed was a peculiar practice of the ‘Nair’ community and restricted to them.

a. Delineate and deductive and induction portion of the research.

b. What are the ontological and epistemological perspective of the research in this case.