Custom «Critical Analysis in Research» Essay Paper Sample

Analysis of two research reports; MBA admission criteria and an entrepreneurial mindset: Evidence from "Western" style MBAs in India and Thailand from Academy of Management Learning & Education and the other paper is Organizational Commitment and Ethical Behavior: An Empirical Study of Information System Professionals

The two are published research report papers from which the researchers used different approaches, research methods, data collection methods, sampling methods, research design and analysis methods. This paper seeks to analyze the quality of research in the two papers in context with the diversity in the way the research was conducted.

MBA admission criteria and an entrepreneurial mindset: Evidence from "Western" style MBAs in India and Thailand

This paper shows the relationship of the admission criteria in Universities for a MBA and consideration of presence of entrepreneurial mind-set of the students admitted. The background information on the procedure used for selection is so vividly shown implicating that entrepreneurial mind-set is never considered as a priority or a requirement for enrolling MBA (Shepherd A. D. et al 2008). This shows how the paper is purposive and parsimony.

To some extend the research is not generalizible since the report say that the finding of the research should not be generalized to Indian or Thai citizens.

The sampling was not very efficient since it was done in only two universities this could induce an error because the data collected can not be true for all. The research should have been taken in various universities so that it can be fully representative.

The research design of conjoint analysis was an excellent approach in collection of data since the method is among the best in marketing and psychology and the research was about mind-set and enrollment criteria which fall in psychology. This method is good since the decisions one makes in the conjoint analysis are the same one might make in real would situations. This shows the efficacy of the method used in collecting data.

The idea of describing of a decision situation in the questioners of the research was good since this is a good way of determining mind-set of a respondent. In terms of qualitative analysis the research was very rich by the description of the situation and giving all possible reactions to such situation as optional answers. This method offers a good chance for quality quantitative analysis since all the possible responses are available.

A support for none generalizability of the research is the fact that the experimental design used an orthogonal fractional factorial design which reduces the number of attribute combinations making work easier but affecting the significancy of the research or making it more bias.

The use of control variables in the research was fantastic since they emphasize and strengthen the relationship of independent variable and the dependent variable such that one can not argue that the results were due to other variables.

The objectivity of the research is so clear and accurate since the conclusion of the research shows how the criteria of selection of MBA students does not factor entrepreneurial mind-set and how such decision can affect future entrepreneur practice of such students. The conclusion has quantitative data to show the truthfulness of the findings.

Organizational Commitment and Ethical Behavior: An Empirical Study of Information System Professionals

This was a research on determining the ethical behaviors of professional vis a vis their commitment in their work with a specific study in information system (IS) professionals (Effy OzSource, 2001.).

The background information on the research is purposive since it shows how IS professionals have been known to do quality good work in development of software, hardware and software maintenance, and networking. The researcher shows how there is limited research in ethical behavior of IS professionals in their work. The presence of vivid hypothesis in this research shows more purposiveness of it.

The measure of ethical behavior in this research was not rigor enough since there was an assumption that the respondents knew the behavior they indicated was ethical or unethical. Proper operationalization of ethical and unethical should have been done so that the respondents could have been sure of the response they give.

The sampling does not have much generalizability since it was done in two institution so due to discrepancies in environment, social cultural issues, and cultural norms the results of the research may not be applicable in other institutions. Still the report does not show the method that was used in sampling inside the university. Poor sampling can affect the results such that they can lack precision.

The researcher should have used many 'other' professional respondents since he or she used only 29% of the total respondents which is a small representative of that population as compared to 71% respondents of IS professionals. This can give a wrong precision on the behavior of the 'other' professionals (Effy OzSource, 2001.).

Never the less, the sampling was well diversified because the report shows how different professionals were involved in data contribution.

The results of the research are objectives since the report shows how the two variables relate to each other. IS professional were found to be more organizational l committed that other professionals and they had high unethical behaviors among the other professionals questioned.

Conclusions

The first research was well done than the second one. First is because the sampling was better than in the second research. This was so because it used samples from two different institutions while the other one used samples from only one institution. The research design was more precisive than the other. The method of using conjoint analysis proved to give accurate results than just bare questionnaires in the second report. Lastly is the data analysis which was more quantitative and qualitative in regard to mind-set than the data on ethical behavior in the second report.

Never the less both researches needed better sampling methods for greater generalization.