Q1. Ahmed's interest was cricket. When he finished university, he wanted to work in a management job. He wanted to do his research project on some aspect of general management and social sciences, preferably for a sports goods manufacturer but had no research idea. He asked five friends, all taking business education degrees, to help him brainstorm the problem. You are requested to use the following problem-solving techniques to generate and refine the research idea in this business scenario.

a)The technique of Brainstorming

b)The Delphi technique

Q2.

Research topic: COVID-19 and Education Revolution: An Innovative Perspective

a)Write down two objectives on the given research topic.

b)Write the research design in considering the above research topic.

c)Describe briefly the relevant paradigm used in conducting the research.

d)You are required to develop a theoretical framework and design a research strategy to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on higher education in Pakistan.

Q3.

a)Which items load onto which factors? Can you name them based on the items that load onto them?

Rotated Factor Matrix

Factor

Items

1

2

3

4

5

The appearance of the physical facility

.695

-.054

.153

.119

.193

Communication material

.823

-.012

.096

.045

-.002

Ability to perform the promised services

.052

.193

.718

.210

-.023

Willingness to help customers

.270

-.013

.052

.232

.586

Knowledge and courtesy of employees

.018

.769

-.046

.187

.005

Ability to convey trust and confidence

-.028

.678

.035

.024

.090

Caring

.172

.160

.215

.604

.155

Ability to accurately accomplish

.174

.009

.640

.107

.127

Provide prompt services

.170

-.210

.188

-.044

.720

Individual attention to customer

.249

.093

.200

.638

.298

Extraction Method: Principal Axis Factoring.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

b)You are required to interpret the given output.

Variables

Cronbach's Alpha

Discriminant validity

CSR

Trust

Organizational

performance

Employee wellbeing

CSR

0.891

0.779

Trust

0.809

0.705

0.749

Organizational

performance

0.836

0.810

0.683

0.778

Employee wellbeing

0.952

0.645

0.560

0.598

0.823

Q4.

a)Write the estimated regression equation from the coefficient output and interpret the results.

Regression Output

Model

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standardized Coefficients

t

Sig.

B

Std. Error

Beta

(Constant)

.085

.089

.954

.341

Environment

.354

.041

.342

8.613

.000

Brand Diversity

-.024

.049

-.020

-.481

.631

Entertainment

.401

.044

.368

9.079

.000

Location

.291

.043

.272

6.832

.000

Dependent Variable: Consumer Loyalty

b)Based on the following output tables, write all the panel data regression models. Which is a better model, FEM or REM? Justify your answer.

Table A:

Dependent Variable: PAYOUT_RATIO

Method: Panel Least Squares

Variable

Coefficient

Std. Error

t-Statistic

Prob.

FOREIGN_DIRECTORS

158.8968

14.70223

10.80766

0.0000

FEMALE_DIRECTORS

-4.463537

36.09961

-0.123645

0.9023

C

3.143324

5.364327

0.585968

0.5618

Effects Specification

Cross-section fixed (dummy variables)

R-squared

0.876583

Mean dependent var

38.31686

Adjusted R-squared

0.840284

S.D. dependent var

59.89422

S.E. of regression

23.93641

Akaike info criterion

9.397265

Sum squared resid

19480.36

Schwarz criterion

9.838894

Log-likelihood

-200.4385

Hannan-Quinn criter.

9.561900

F-statistic

24.14892

Durbin-Watson stat

2.351257

Prob(F-statistic)

0.000000

Table B:

Dependent Variable: PAYOUT_RATIO

Method: Panel EGLS (Cross-section random effects)

Variable

Coefficient

Std. Error

t-Statistic

Prob.

FOREIGN_DIRECTORS

149.4722

13.70889

10.90330

0.0000

FEMALE_DIRECTORS

17.75043

33.50407

0.529799

0.5990

C

3.114584

11.32865

0.274930

0.7847

Effects Specification

S.D.

Rho

Cross-section random

30.12334

0.6130

Idiosyncratic random

23.93641

0.3870

Weighted Statistics

R-squared

0.749393

Mean dependent var

12.83031

Adjusted R-squared

0.737459

S.D. dependent var

47.65187

S.E. of regression

24.41623

Sum squared resid

25038.40

F-statistic

62.79640

Durbin-Watson stat

1.869314

Prob(F-statistic)

0.000000

Table C:

Correlated Random Effects - Hausman Test

Test cross-section random effects

Test Summary

Chi-Sq. Statistic

Chi-Sq. d.f.

Prob.

Cross-section random

3.700706

2

0.1572