Here THE SCENARIO
The CEO of a deep technology company named Skye, Mr. Jon Williams, is a fervent advocate for sustainability. His company develops products designed to replace plastic, guided by the mission to “Make Earth Green Again.” Mr. Williams recognizes that the supporters of his company expect it to make a meaningful contribution to society. With their main product beginning to gain market traction, they are eager to devise an effective branding strategy to boost sales and establish a solid reputation.
As part of the branding strategy, Mr. Williams plans to launch a nationwide campaign. He is committed to addressing various social issues and has a particular interest in promoting diversity. He hopes that Skye’s campaign will contribute to fostering diversity within society. However, before embarking on a nationwide initiative, he wants to make sure that his company internally reflects these values. He started to think many aspects of diversity within his own company. Are diverse perspectives and opinions considered in R&D? Do the staff members come from diverse backgrounds? Are hiring and promotion practices designed to enhance diversity within the firm? Moreover, if policies to encourage diversity are in place, do they align with the firm’s performance and the firm’s overarching mission? Mr. Williams is now overwhelmed by questions concerning diversity and unable to structure these inquiries effectively.
As a result, he decided to hire you to do research on behalf of him.
QUESTION 1 (15/80; guide wordcount: 150-200 words)
What would be the best way to frame the problem that we are going to investigate? Could you suggest an appropriate research question(-s)? What kinds of deliverables should we set for the project? It would be helpful if you could explain what we need to take into consideration when deciding on research questions and objectives.
QUESTION 2 (10/80; guide wordcount: 150-200 words)
What kind of research strategy shall we adopt? Would qualitative or quantitative research be more suitable or should we mix both (if so, how?)? I would like to be able to answer the CEO’s questions about how we have reached this decision – could you provide some guidelines on that, please?
我们应该
QUESTION 3 (30/80 of the total mark; guide wordcount: 500-600 words)
What about research design? Which research methods should we use to collect and analyse our data? What would be the practical implications of these methods in terms of sampling, data collection, and analysis? What would this mean in terms of access and resource requirements? Again, it would be helpful if you could comment on the rationale for making these choices to inform our discussion about the project.
研究设计
QUESTION 4 (10/80, guide wordcount: 150-200 words)
What would be the ethical implications of the study and how could we make sure that they are duly addressed?
QUESTION 5 (15/80, guide wordcount: 200-250 words)
What might be the limitations of the study and how would we assess the quality of the results? Could you outline the main reasons for the limitations and how they might be mitigated, please? Similarly, could you outline the key considerations we should consider when deciding to what extent we can be confident about our findings?
