List the 9 steps for designing a research proposal that can

List the 9 steps for designing a research proposal that can be used to address the following decision problem: “Should the Marriott Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reduce the quality of its towels and bedding in order to improve the profitability of the hotel’s operations?” Provide a one or two sentence description of each step.

Solution

The nine steps for designing a research proposal that can be used to address the decision problem by Marriott hotel in Pittsburgh are:

1. Purpose of the research- The first step of making the research is to understand the purpose behind doing it. Here in this case the purpose is increasing the profitability by decreasing the quality and hence the production cost.

2. Study of the research- a detailed study has to be made on the quality being provided at present and how it is putting an impact on the customer behaviour and cost returns.

- understanding target customers- for reducing the quality of the product the main focus has to be made on the customers tastes, lifestyle, behaviour and demand. As it is a part of service industry, any risk taken on the level of customer satisfaction needs a deep study of the reaction expected from the customers with the change.

4. Sample designing, technique and data collection- a proper designed sample has to be made which will be appropriate for showing the standard of the quality with change, the technique for the process has to be predefined and the method of data collection needs to be applied for collecting the information on which the research will be based.

5. Research instruments- certain research instruments can bd used to make the research simplified and give clear results. These instruments can be questionnare, checklist, interview, records, survey approach and experimental approach.

6. Potential managerial benefits- the benefits attained at the managerial level from the research study have to be considered also.

7. Cost structure of the project- one of the most essential step by is evaluating the cost of the product with the quality that is being provided and the cost that will be incurred in reducing the quality. This margin will then identify the profit margin.

8. Profile of the researcher and company- if the research is given to a company or professional researcher to be done, a detailed study has to be done on their profile so as to be sure of the work quality they deliver.

9. Dummy tables of the results projected- the results from the research could be more than one, each giving a different result. Dummy tables need to be formed which will predict the figures of cost profit and help to evaluate the best decision that can be taken based on it.