You are the administrative assistant for a division chief in a large holding company that owns several hotels and theme parks. You and the division chief have just come from the CEO's office, where you were informed that the guest complaints related to housekeeping and employee attitude are increasing. Your on-site managers have mentioned some tension among the workers but have not considered it unusual. The CEO and your division chief instruct you to investigate. Suggest at least three different types of research that might be appropriate in this situation. As an administrative assistant for a division chief in Griffin-Gammage Holding Company, I have been tasked by both the CEO and my division chief to investigate the growing number of guest complaints as it relates to the guests at several of our hotels and theme parks The guests complained about housekeeping and employee attitudes With some initial investigation, the on-site managers spoke of normal tension among the workers, which they did not, considered unusual.
There are many types of research that can be utilized to investigate this situation. However, I will present at least three different types of research that can be applied to this situation: exploratory research, a communication study, or a casual-explanatory study.
According to Cooper and Schindler "exploratory research is appropriate for the total study in topic areas where the developed data are limited". Exploratory research is considered the initial stage of projects that is used to guide both the researcher and the study. As the objective of exploratory research is to develop a hypothesis, this hypothesis can lead to a formal research design that will test the hypothesis. One key thing to remember is that the exploratory-formal study is "less precise than some other classifications" The exploratory study would help to develop a hypothesis or additional questions for continued research. For this situation, housekeeping and the employees may be disgruntled about the mandatory hours or other changes that have been implemented by company leadership. The exploratory study would help me confirm or disapprove the proposed hypothesis.
Another type of research is the communication study. Cooper and Schindler explain this study involves the researcher questioning the subject and collecting their responses in a personal or in an impersonal manner such as interviews, self-administered or self-reported instruments. There could be a visit to a selected number of hotels and theme parks to conduct interviews of employees and housekeeping to gather additional information. Wang (2014) used the same approach to conduct his study by "interviewing four professionals who are knowledgeable and experienced in using creativity techniques in the real business world".
The final proposed research design is a casual-explanatory study. With this approach, the study is concerned with learning "why" - that is how one variable produces changes in another variable. The goal in this study is to explain relationships among variables according to Cooper and Schindler. With this study, we would look into why are the housekeepers and employees being accused of having attitudes that result in complaints from the guests.
As stated by Cooper and Schindler, "no single definition imparts the full range of important aspects" Hirschl (2016) goes on to say "Courses on the logic of comparative social inquiry, research design, and methodological proficiency that are mandatory in virtually every respectable Masters or Ph.D. program in the social sciences".
A very good example of an implementation of research design would be the story of Joshua and the twelve spies in the book of Numbers (NKJV). Joshua and the spies went and explored the land as directed by God.