Business Research Defending Market Leadership

Question :

The focus of this paper is to analyze the given case study “Maruti Suzuki India: Defending Market Leadership in the A-Segment.” Maruti Suzuki India Limited also known as Maruti Udyog Limited is an automobile manufacturer operating in India. The organization was founded and started its business in 1983 when the government of India and Suzuki Motor Corporation joined hands together to establish a company in order to sell small cars in India (Arora, 2016). The organization performed quite well in the Indian market but eventually, the performance of the organization dropped significantly in 2011 and 2012 due to a moderate fall in the sale.

Answer :

Introduction

In this paper, the methodology adopted for the research has been detailed. The focus of the research is to understand the role of brand image in enhancing competitiveness, business growth, product sales, and consumer buying behaviour. Four key areas have been addressed in this paper, namely, research design methods, key variables, dependent and independent variables, and ethical considerations. 

Research design and methods

Research methodology helps in identification, selection, and analysis of related information about the research topic. There are various alternatives from which the selection are generally made depending on their suitability to the study. Research designs gives a framework for the study. There are various choices that are available and the one that is suitable for the study is made at this stage. There are several interrelated decisions that are made when making selection. Under research design and methods, the goal will be determine which one should b selected between the positivism or interpretivism philosophy, primary or secondary method, qualitative or quantitative data, sampling method, sample size, questionnaire design, data collection, and data analysis method.

There are two common philosophies that are employed in research study. They are positivism and interpretivism. As per positivists’ approach, it is considered that the individuals are shaped by the society. In this, quantitative data are collected and statistical analyses are conducted. Under this philosophy, the researchers stay detached from the respondents as it is believed that influence may skew the study result. These researches are often reliable, valid, and representative if conducted appropriately (Weber, 2004). On the other hand, interpretivism philosophy is quite opposite, which states that individuals are quite complex and intricate and they cannot be understood merely by collecting numerical and conducting statistical analysis. In this philosophy, the researchers conduct long winded interactions with the candidates and often collect qualitative data. The problem with this philosophy is that it is quite time taking and it ends up sacrificing representativeness of the study and reliability in exchange of greater validity. In the current study, the researcher has picked positivism philosophy as the goal is to conduct the study in shorter time possible while keep in reliable, valid, and representative. 

In this study, the primary research method will be adopted. The reason is that it has been determined by the researcher that this method will gather appropriate data to meet the research aim and objectives. Primary research method allows the researcher to collect data from the respondents directly, and thus it improves the options to ask correct questions and gather only those data that are useful (Zikmund et al, 2013). The opposite of this is secondary method, in which the entire research can be done from the desktop. The merit of this method is that it is cost effective and can be conducted in short time. However, it is possible that the researcher may not find enough data that appropriately justifies the study goal. Therefore, considering primary research as the method for this study seems apt justification to it. 

Under primary research method, the data type that will be collected will be quantitative in nature. The reason for selection of this data type is that it can be collected in shorter period of time without much involvement of the researcher with the respondents. Moreover, quantitative data can be quickly analysed using available analytical tools. The opposite of this is qualitative data. Though this data allows researcher to gain in depth understanding over required data as researcher, but it is comparatively time consuming and requires greater involvement of the researcher in the data collection process. Therefore, quantitative data has been selected as the data type to be collected for this study.

The sampling technique that will be used for this study will be convenience sampling method that falls under non-probability sampling method. This method will give researcher appropriate amount of freedom in selection of the respondents. The respondents can be selected based on the best judgement of the researcher and accessibility of the respondents to the researcher (Etikan et al, 2016). This method, however, poses some challenge regarding possibility of biasness in the study. There exists possibility that the researcher may end up collecting data only from those respondents who conform to predetermined result expectations of the study. In order to resolve this challenge, the researcher has ensured that no predetermination exists regarding the final result of this study, and the respondents are selected based on the maximum fitness to the study. Fitness will be judged on three criteria. The first is that the respondents should be working in MSIL. The second is that they should be active at some managerial position as it entails that they may have some expertise and understanding of their company as they can see things holistically. The third is that they have spent at least ten years with the company. The number of respondents who will be contacted for this 50. The number is quite less due to available time and accessibility to required resources.

A questionnaire will be used to collect the data. The questionnaire will have multiple choice question based on Likert scale, where the respondents can choose between five possible options ranging between Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. Questions will be picked from the literature reviews done in the past for this study.

The questionnaire will be distributed to the respondent through email and social media chats. A Google forms link will be sent to them that they can use to fill the questionnaire conveniently. The data will automatically collect in the attached Google sheets, and will be taken further for analysis. 

The analysis of the data will be done using MS Excel. Correlation analysis will be conducted to determine the relationship between dependent and independent variables. 

Key variables

There are five variables that will be in focus in this study. The first is the brand image of the company. The studies have shown that the brand image that inadvertently influences the decision made by the people regarding the purchases. Studying this variable will be helpful in meeting study objective. The second variable is competitiveness enhancement. Researchers in the past have determined that the more competitively organizations are positioned in the market, better they are in attracting higher number of customers. The third variable is business growth, which often gets impacted by various internal and external environmental factors. The fourth variable is product sales, which also depends on various environmental elements such as the perception of customers about the company, their income level, accessibility, and others. The fifth variable is consumer buying behaviour. It shows how people orient towards or away from something, their preferences towards certain product or services, their intention to purchase, and decisions made by them.

Dependent and independent variables

Out of all the variables determined in the above section, some are dependent variables and independent variables. Understanding which is which will be helpful in meeting the research goal. The brand image of the company has been taken as independent variables. This is the only dependent variable for this study. The goal will be to understand its impact on the dependent variables. The remaining four variables – competitiveness enhancement, business growth, product sales, and consumer buying behaviour – are considered as dependent variables. The study will help determine that whether these variables gets positively or negatively impacted with the variation in the brand image of the company.

Ethical considerations

In order to conduct the study, the data from respondents are to be collected. Thus, it is very important that key ethical considerations are made initially (Oliver, 2010). It will be ensured that the rights of participants are protected in every manner possible. The questionnaire will be sent to them, but if they are unwilling to fill and respond to it, then they can do it. The researcher will not adopt any unethical means to gather input. Moreover, the researcher will not put them in any situation where they get bound to provide information about the company that they would not have in normal circumstances. The goal will be to ensure that the sponsors of this study receive reports that are conducted ethically. 

Summary or Conclusion

Primary research method will be adopted for the study to achieve the goals. Under this method, questionnaire will be sent to the target respondents using email and social media chats. The questionnaire will contain multiple choice questions based on Likert scale to collect quantitative data. The goal is to collect at least 50 responses. The collected data will be assessed using MS Excel. Correlation analysis will be used to determine the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The researcher will ensure to consider all the key ethical considerations during the data collection.

References

Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Alkassim, R. S. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American journal of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), 1-4.

Oliver, P. (2010). The student's guide to research ethics. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Weber, R. (2004). Editor's comments: the rhetoric of positivism versus interpretivism: a personal view. MIS quarterly, iii-xii.

Zikmund, W. G., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. (2013). Business Research Methods (Book Only). Cengage Learning.