Methods for Applied Business Problems

Objectives

This course will equip students with the tools to conduct empirical work in business. It will cover the phases of applied research, including the main qualitative and quantitative techniques used in the analysis of business problems and a detailed treatment of their advantages and disadvantages. By the end of the course students should be able to critically assess simple analytical results and use the tools to take well informed data driven business decisions.

General characterization

Code

2488

Credits

7

Responsible teacher

Carlos Daniel Santos , Elizabete Cardoso

Hours

Weekly - Available soon

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

English

Prerequisites

Pre-requisites: Statistics

Bibliography

Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, Tatham, Multivariate Data Analysis, Prentice Hall Malhotra, N., Marketing Research, Pearson [Chapter 7]
Singleton, R. and B. Straits, Approaches to Social Research, OUP, [Ch9 for 5th ed, Ch8 for 4th ed] Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, Research Methods for Business Students, 6/E, 2013, Pearson Belk, Russel et al, Qualitative Consumer and Marketing Research, 2013, SAGE


Teaching method

Applied lectures with empirical case studies and student field work

Evaluation method

The Final Exam is mandatory and must cover the entire span of the course. Its weight in the final grade can be between 30 to 70%. The remainder of the evaluation can consist of class participation, midterm exams, in class tests, etc. Overall, written in class assessment (final exam, midterm) must have a weight of at least 50%.
 
Final Exam 50%)
2 Assignments (50%)


Subject matter

1.    Structuring an empirical study
2.    Examining the applicable body of literature
3.    Research philosophy and design
4.    Using secondary data
5.    Qualitative research designs and tools
6.    Using mixed methods approach
7.    Preliminary evidence: First impressions from the data
8.    Experiments: How to know what works best?
9.    The basics: ANOVA, Linear regression
10.    Factor analysis (PCA)


Programs

Programs where the course is taught: