MARTIN NORTON FACIAL MASKS CORPORATION (MNFMC)

As the General Manager (GM) of MNFMC, James Don was greatly keen to know about the peoples habit or conviction to wear facial masks in the wake of H2N2 bird flu pandemic. The spread of H2N2 virus has caused lots of panic in various sections of communities generally, although the level of seriousness in taking precautions very much depend on peoples knowledge, attitude and mindset in taking the various steps voluntarily. The various steps that are expected of people when facing such health devastating pandemic include. Among the step are: (i) seeking additional knowledge on the spread of the disease, (ii) seeking advice or counseling on various precautionary measures, (iii) seek knowledge on cost implications in adopting a particular preventive effort (although no guarantee) on a recurring or continuous basis, and (iv) the availability of products and services for purchase/procure and consumption.

Being the GM of an organization in the healthcare industry, James Don has the implied ethical responsibility to educate the society and promote the usage of surgical masks as one of the preventive measures. By doing so not only will MNFMC be able to show its concern for the well-being of public health, and have a better presence in the market, it will also be able to increase its surgical mask sales.

James Don was of the opinion that he needed to understand how the different factors would be important to the purchase of surgical masks and then do the appropriate plan to market them to increase revenues in the immediate future.

[Note: the facial mask is rendered ineffective after one day of usage]

Question 2

James Don have appointed you as the Marketing Research Executive for further investigation into the problems he is facing. You are required to:

(a) Evaluate with a research framework by identifying the Independent variables IV and The Dependent variable DV. .

(b) Provide ONE assumption and ONE limitation that the researcher would face in this research work.

(c) Develop four alternate hypotheses for testing the relationship between the independent

variables and the dependent variable.