11–16
11–17
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
Critical-Thinking Questions
1. Generate a hypothetical situation relevant to your field in which a business research
2. What are three to five subtopics for your hypothetical research problem (Question 1)?
3. Which of the following are secondary research sources and which are primary? Why?
4. Assume that you’ve been given the task of writing the report on the topic you generated
in Questions 1 and 2. What kinds of Internet research could you do to gather relevant
information? What search terms would you use? (LO4, LO5)
5. Find an article on the Internet that gives advice about conducting some aspect of
business operations (e.g., improving teamwork, managing employees, communicating
6. Explore a business-related topic on Twitter or LinkedIn. What kinds of information can
you find that might help solve a business problem? (LO7)
7. Which databases or other resources would be good sources of information for each of the
following subjects? (LO8)
a. A certain company’s market share
b. Whether or not a company is being sued
c. Trends in a certain industry
e. The job outlook in a certain industry
This one can span several sections of Exhibit 11-19. ABI/Inform Complete and
f. Recent trends in business-related technology
g. The potential world market for a certain product
h. Government regulations for incorporating your business
See the resources under “How do I find data provided by the U.S. government?”
i. The qualifications of a new CEO of a company
11–19
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
j. The negotiation style used in a certain culture
8. Explain the difference between quantitative and qualitative research, and describe a
sample situation in which each would be appropriate. (LO9-LO13)
9. Explain the difference between random sampling and convenience sampling. Give an
example of when each type of sampling would be feasible and appropriate. (LO9)
10. Explain the difference between closed-ended and open-ended survey questions. (LO10)
11. Point out the problems in the following sample survey questions. (LO10)
b. (First question in a phone survey) Which Democratic candidate do you favor,
c. Do you consider the ideal pay plan to be one based on straight commission or
straight salary?
d. What kind of gasoline did you purchase last time?
e. How much did you pay for clothing in the past 12 months?
12. What is scaling? What is the difference between rating and ranking? (LO10)
13. Define observation as a research technique and give an example of a business problem
that might warrant observational research. (LO11)
11–20
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
14. Define experiment as a research technique and give an example of an experiment a
company might conduct. (LO12)
15. Why does the controlled before-after design give more helpful information than the
before-after design? (LO12)
16. When would you use a focus group or personal interview to gather information? What
are the advantages and disadvantages of each? (LO13)
17. What are the basic ethical guidelines for conducting business research? Why are such
guidelines important? (LO14)
18. Jim’s boss asked him to investigate why sales for the last quarter were low. Jim
interviewed one of the sales managers about the problem, and she complained that the
new people didn’t know how to sell. Jim then wrote a report in which he identified the
new people’s deficient skills as the problem and recommended that more training be
provided for them. What errors in interpretation do you see in Jim’s report? (LO15)
19. You are writing a report on the progress of your local cable company’s efforts to
increase the sales of five of its products through different advertising media: print and
online newspapers and magazines, television, radio, email, and social media. Plan the
headings for this report and explain why you’d organize the information this way.
(LO16)
20. In what ways can the format of the table of contents ease readers’ comprehension of a
report? Find an example of a helpfully formatted table of contents and explain what
makes it effective. (LO17)
21. Explain the difference between personal and impersonal writing. Which is “better”?
(LO18)
22. Explain the difference between the present-time viewpoint and the past-time viewpoint.
Is it incorrect to have different tenses in the same report? Give examples to make your
point. (LO18)
23. Evaluate this statement: “Reports are written for people who want them, so you don’t
have to be concerned about holding their interest.” (LO18)
11–22
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
24. Evaluate this statement: “Collaborative reports are always better than reports written
by an individual because they use many minds rather than one.” (LO19)
Collaborative reports have the potential to be better than reports prepared by an individual, but
It might be interesting to explore with a class the factors (contingencies) that are needed for
successful collaboration. The following items can be used for starters:
25. “Disagreements in groups are counterproductive and should be avoided.” Discuss.
(LO19)
Discourteous disagreements or those based on pure stubbornness are indeed
counterproductive. But too much agreement during the report-writing process is
11–23
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
Skills-Building Exercises
1. For each of the following report situations, write a clear problem statement and list what
factors could or should be explored. (LO1, LO2)
a. A manufacturer of breakfast cereals wants to attract a new demographic of
customers.
Problem Statement: What are the characteristics of the consumers of Breakfast Cereal
Company X?
Factors:
Age Race
b. The manufacturer of a toothpaste wants a bigger share of the toothpaste market.
Problem Statement: How does Toothpaste X compare with its competitors?
Factors:
c. A company wants to give its stockholders a summary of its operations for the past
calendar year.
Problem Statement: To summarize the operations of Company X for 20XX.
Factors:
d. A building contractor engaged to remodel an office for Company X submits a report
summarizing its weekly progress.
Problem Statement: To summarize construction progress for Company X for month of
____________.
Factors: (the appropriate divisions of the work done during the period)
Land Grading Electrical Work
e. The supervisor of Department X must prepare a report about the need for a new
staff member.
11–24
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
Problem Statement: What are the projects that are currently in need of work?
f. Baker, Inc., is experiencing higher than normal employee turnover.
Problem Statement: Employees are leaving Baker at a higher than normal rate because of
____.
Factors:
g. An executive must rank three subordinates on the basis of their suitability for
promotion to a particular job.
Problem Statement: Should A, B. or C be promoted?
Factors:
Experience
h. A restaurant manager must compare two possible suppliers of fresh seafood.
Problem Statement: Which supplier will provide the best product for the best price?
Factors:
i. An investment consultant must advise a client on whether to invest in the
development of a lake resort.
11–25
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
Problem Statement: Is investment in ___________ property a good investment?
Factors
j. A consultant needs to help a wine shop improve its profits.
Problem Statement: Profits of Wine Shop X could be increased through ___.
Factors:
2. Find a company whose website features a section on its role as a community or world
citizen (e.g., its principles and practices for corporate social responsibility). How
persuaded are you that the information there is complete and accurate? Check the
information there against other Internet resources to see if your assessment was
accurate. (LO6)
3. Search the relevant research databases in your school library to gather information
about a current business topic, practice, or technology. Using the citation style preferred
by your instructor, construct an annotated bibliography that presents and briefly
describes your findings. (See Reference Chapter B for citation formats and advice.)
(LO8)
4. Using your imagination to supply any missing facts you may need, develop a plan for
conducting a survey to research these problems. (LO9, LO10)
a. Pizza Marketplace, a resource for people in the pizza business, wants to give its
11–26
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
c. Your boss wants to hire an experienced computer webmaster for your company.
Because the company has not ever hired anyone for such a position, you were
5. Using your imagination to supply any missing facts you may need, develop a plan for
conducting an observation to help solve each of these problems. (LO11)
a. A chain of department stores wants to know what causes differences in sales in a
6. Using your imagination to supply any missing facts you may need, develop a plan for
conducting an experiment to help solve the following problems. (LO12)
a. The Golden Glow Baking Company has for many years manufactured and sold
11–27
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
7. Using your critical-thinking skills to supply any missing facts you may need, develop a
plan for conducting focus groups to help solve these problems. (LO13)
a. A brand of work boots has for years sold its products through conventional retail
8. Using your critical-thinking skills to supply any missing facts you may need, develop a
plan for conducting interviews to help solve these problems. (LO13)
a. Grow More Company sells children’s clothes. The company has seen an
9. Think of a hypothetical problem that would involve gathering information across several
time periods. How might you organize this information besides using a time-based
pattern? Compare and evaluate the two possibilities as the main bases for organizing the
report. (LO16)
10. Assume that you are writing up the results of a survey conducted to determine what
kinds of groceries are purchased by female college students in the United States. What
organizational patterns could work here? Which would you recommend? (LO16)
11–28
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
Place—As the survey covers a geographic area, a place division is a possibility (Northeast,
11. For the problem described in the preceding exercise, use your imagination to construct
topic headings for the outline. (LO17
12. Improve the parallelism of these headings: (LO17)
a. Lagging Sales in Region I
13. Improve the parallelism of these headings in a report evaluating a piece of production
equipment: (LO17)
a. High Cost of Operation
14. Select an editorial, feature article, book chapter, or other relatively lengthy document
that has no headings. Write headings for it. (LO17)
11–29
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
15. Assume you are writing a report that summarizes a survey you have conducted. Write a
paragraph of the report using the present-time viewpoint; then write the paragraph
using the past-time viewpoint. The paragraph will be based on the following
information: (LO18)
Answers to the question about how students view the proposed Aid to Education Bill
in this survey and in a survey taken a year earlier (last year’s results are in
parentheses):
16. List the advantages and disadvantages of each of these different media for writing
collaboratively. (LO19)
a. Face-to-face meetings
b. Email
c. Discussion board
11–30
Chapter 11: Researching and Writing Reports
d. Online writing tool (e.g., Google Drive)
e. Live online interaction (e.g., chat or Skype)