There are TWO (2) questions in this section. Read the following case-study carefully and answer ALL questions.

A few researchers in the Department of Research and Development at Premier College are conducting a study on factors in determining customers satisfaction of telecommunication industries in Klang Valley. The population of 500 were identified and individuals who make use of telecommunication facilities are eligible to participate in the study. The following details were obtained from various literature reviews of both local and international sources.

Literature Review

The mobile telecommunication sectors in Malaysia are very much competitive and this trend is increasing and improving (Aslam, 2020). The subscribers currently have various alternatives to choose according to their convenience. Therefore, to maintain the leading position in the market, mobile operators must identify the factors related to customers satisfaction. Many researchers are paying greater attention to customers satisfaction for reasons such as increased competition and enhanced quality (Richfield & Johnson, 2019). Academic literatures suggest that customers satisfaction is a function of the discrepancy between customer’s prior expectation and his or her perception regarding the purchase (Davis, 2022). From the perspective of customers satisfaction, based on a study conducted by Hikmah (2020), he reported a positive relationship between service quality and repurchase intentions (which led to customer satisfaction). Porter (2018) further justified that service quality plays a significant role in determining the level of customers satisfaction. Furthermore, trust is another concept which gained considerable attention in marketing research as it has shown to positively affect customers satisfaction (Emran, 2021). According to Doney and Cannon (2020), trust can be built by a capability process which means that the trustor estimates the ability of the trustee to fulfill his promises. Consequently, numerous studies indicated strong relationships between a level of switching costs and customers satisfaction in services (Sandra, 2020, Wong, 2019 and Anderson, 2017). Switching cost is defined as the cost involved in changing from one service provider to another and in many markets, consumers face non-negligible costs of switching between different brands of products or services (Devan, 2017). The results of the study conducted among university students indicated that the higher the level of switching cost, the higher the level of customers satisfaction and loyalty (Regan and Hasbullah, 2020). Therefore, the researchers are interested to include in their study the independent variables and dependent variable as have been mentioned/discussed in the literature review.

Based on the above case-study, answer all the following questions:

QUESTION 1

1. Identify TWO (2) research objectives and TWO (2) research questions.

2. Formulate TWO (2) hypotheses to predict on the relationships between variables.

3. Write a problem statement in relation to the above study.

4. Briefly discuss a suitable method for data collection. 

QUESTION 2

Draw a theoretical/conceptual framework of the study which includes THREE (3) independent variables, ONE (1) dependent variable and ONE (1) moderating variable (relevant to the study) and label them accordingly.