7BUS2043 Integrated Management Research Project Assignment Sample

Introduction

Aim

The research aims to analyse and measure the importance of CRM for the growth and the progression of Walton electronics in terms of market reach and organisational growth.

Objectives

There are various objectives of this research that have been highlighted below to make a transparent research analysis:

1. To analyse the need for Walton electronics for better growth and successive developmental phase maintenance
2. To investigate the processes of CRM
3. To derive the causes of applying CRM in Walton electronics
4. To make appropriate recommendations for the better designing of the CRM strategies

Research Questions

1. What is the definition of the term CRM?
2. Why is CRM applied in different business firms and needs to be applied in Walton electronics?
3. How important is CRM to let Walton electronics grow in the future?
4. What should be the strategies that need to be recommended to Walton electronics for the developmental growth of the company profile?

Research Strategy

Approach 

The research approach that will be much more appropriate for this current research is taking the inductive research approach, which has the benefit of deriving the information from collective sources and substantiating it. The research articles that treat the inductive research approach in a varied and classified form have made the analysis of the information that inductive research makes better guidance in regards to future research works (Woo et al., 2017). The relationship marketing impacting the loyalty of the customers has been a major and significant research theme and yet has not received much light, on which the inductive research approach seems quite appropriate due to the observation from collected data. Thus it may be argued that the secondary data collection is better formulated by observing any kind of changes within the data and formulating the conclusions, as is better by understanding the changed treatment of customer loyalty in modern organisations such as Walton electronics. On the other hand, the deductive research approach has not been considered because the deductive way often aims to validate the collected information instead of forming any kind of remarks, which is not suitable for the given case (Patel and Patel, 2019).

Philosophy 

The research philosophy that will be considered is interpretivism, where the benefit of identifying the possible problems of the research and making numerous data observations will be available. The research philosophy is thus always needed to examine and choose rationally because it reflects the scientific core of the entire research work, which may be thought of as the foundation of the research (Žukauskas et al., 2018). Again, it may be argued that interpretivism has the machinery of including the theme of augmenting with logical constructs and thus collecting completely differentiated data structures, which the research will benefit from. Academic studies about interpretivism have observed that the research often makes much sense if interpretivism philosophy is followed because of generalisation and bringing out a concise remark of a subject that may not be otherwise interpreted (Pham, 2018). Positivism will not be considered because, as to the justification of the other academic sources, positivism has been assigned a lower rank and does not hold much importance in modern research contexts (Corry et al., 2019).

Data Collection

The collection of the secondary data will be considered in the research and the sources of all such data will be thematic, taken from various academic sources as fitted to the topic. The need for relationship marketing by taking the case study of Walton electronics will be the centre focus of the research, and secondary research data for analysing the history as well as the present scenario will be immensely beneficial. It may be argued thus that the secondary data sources will be constructed and examined to find the importance of relationship marketing by a method of thematic analysis, and for which the different research articles and journals will be considered. It may be shown that the different research journals that take on the secondary data have been quite successful to analyse and carry out the research focussing on a particular issue, and may be utilised for informing all crucial solutions (Omukuti et al., 2021). The collection of the data being of secondary importance will be of immense value in that there will be much less cost involved and accurate precision in studying the collected data from external sources. Moreover, the research will be based on the finer analysis of the issues that may arise without relationship marketing and all these aspects make it highly important for the consumer data to be of secondary origin. The research will be based on the structure as given in the Research Onion by Saunders, and the secondary data will be considered the prime tool to navigate and comprehend the importance of the subject (Saunders et al., 2015).

Figure 1: Saunders Research onion

(Saunders et al., 2015)

Furthermore, the research data will be easily available in the form of articles and approved journals, where the chances of errors that usually occur in the first-hand collection will be minimised, and updated information as the scholarly articles will be considered from recent times.

For the method of data collection, the selected sample size is crucial for the researcher to gather reliable data for conducting this research process. However, in this research, the sample size will not consist of a designated sample size as the research data will be collected through a secondary data collection method. In this research, the sample size will be based on the number of journals and articles that the researcher will find similar or suitable to the research topic to gather the relevant data for this research. The researcher will be free to choose as many research articles, journals and websites that will be readily available for gathering data for this research, which will be considered to be the sample of the research.

Data Analysis

In this research, thematic data analysis will be suitable that may be conducted through the data that has been collected through a secondary data method, for the researcher to identify patterns. The thematic data analysis method will be useful for the researcher to identify patterns in the collected data and themes that will be derived in the process. Thematic data analysis will involve the process of reflectivity which the researcher may utilise to involve subjective experience in producing meaning to the data collected (Byrne, 2022). The flexible nature of thematic analysis will be useful for the researcher to be applied to a wide range of the research questions, designs and sample size that has been chosen in the form of secondary data collection in this research. In thematic analysis, the researcher will be able to use Codes that will be identified through important concepts in the data collected by the researcher for research purposes. Then the grouping of the codes identified by the researcher will be converted into themes that are a way of summarizing the sections of the data useful for fulfilling the research purpose (O’Connor and Joffe, 2020).

The most usefulness of thematic analysis that will be for the researcher is that the themes that will be derived in the process will be driven by the research questions selected for this research. Thematic data analysis may be stated as a method of an exploratory process which involves the research questions making progress with the coding and theme identification to reach the desired result (Hajirasouli et al., 2020). Thematic analysis will be beneficial in analyzing the secondary data collected for the research as the researcher will be able to categorise large amounts of data collected through articles and journals. Furthermore, the researcher may be able to collect subjective information thorough thematic analysis from the data that will be collected through a secondary method.

The thematic data analysis process involves steps that will help the researcher to gather adequate data through suitable approaches to build the themes for the research problem statement. In the thematic data analysis procedure, the researcher will be able to get familiarized with the data collected through a secondary method for this research (Skubic and Fišer, 2022). Then the researcher will go through the procedure of coding that involves labelling or highlighting certain words in the data collected for possible meaning. After the codes are identified by the researcher then themes will be generated that will make sense to the research questions selected for this particular research by the researcher. The researcher then will have to review the themes which involve comparing the themes to identify the justification of the data collected. Thematic analysis will be useful for the researcher to divide the data collected into meaningful divisions to gain a better understanding of the research questions leading to desired results (Debesay et al., 2022). Thematic analysis may be denoted as the most influential approach to studying data collected that will involve the summarization of the data which will be analyzed into themes to gain insight into the result anticipated by the researcher (Morgan and Nica, 2020).

Conclusion

The research will take the secondary thematic analysis to analyse the topic of relationship marketing and have a base formation of all kinds of interpretations given the importance of the subject in modern times. The research strategy will be considered as fitted to the secondary research information, and hence the inductive approach will be considered because of the simplification of the underlying research themes. Interpretivism philosophy will be considered in the current research scope for making the research a proper and justifying system of reaching the needed conclusions, as has been shown by interpretivism for other academic journals. The CRM strategies will be of use to understand the need for relationship marketing and customer loyalty determination, on which the research will take the second approach for better analysis. Thus, it may be concluded that the research will have a scientific layout by bringing the essential strategy tools to understand the CRM methods as applicable for customer loyalty in the case study of Walton electronics.

Reflection

Concrete Experience

According to Kolb’s Reflective Model, I have realised that to gain a complete experience and throughout the research, I have to find the result of the research based on my own experience. Being a researcher, I have learned that the researcher has to describe the experience that I have gained while doing the research on the topic of CRM activities in Walton Electronic to gain consumer loyalty. According to the model, this stage in the learning cycle involves personal involvement with people that I have experienced in everyday situations while taking the inductive approach to gathering reliable data for this research.

 Figure 2: Kolb’s Reflective Model

(Source: Morris, 2020)

Reflective Observation

The model has helped me to realize that in this stage of observation, to understand the ideas and the situations from different viewpoints of the research topic in alignment with the data collected. I have been able to identify the key criteria in this stage which is to rely on objectivity, patience and careful judgment in gaining an insight into the research topic selected. I have observed the benefits of deriving the desired results through the use of interpretivism approaches that may be beneficial for scientifically gathering data within a specific period that has been time-scaled (Refer to Appendix 1).

Abstract Conceptualization

In this stage, I have realized that the use of thematic analysis may be beneficial as a means of using ideas, logic and theories to gain the desired result for the research. Thematic analysis may prove to be useful in understanding the data collected through secondary research to understand the issues and the problems that Watson Electronics have been facing in gaining consumer loyalty to the company.

Active Experimentation

Learning through this model has helped me to understand the importance of an active form of experimenting with the change of situations that will be faced in gathering the data to research Watson Electronics. The practical approach that I have learned from this model will help me in understanding the strategies that Watson Electronics may take in having consumer loyalty for the operational functioning of the organisation.

References

Byrne, D., 2022. A worked example of Braun and Clarke’s approach to reflexive thematic analysis. Quality & quantity, 56(3), pp.1391-1412.

Corry, M., Porter, S. and McKenna, H., 2019. The redundancy of positivism as a paradigm for nursing research. Nursing Philosophy, 20(1), p.e12230.

Debesay, J., Arora, S. and Fougner, M., 2022. Organisational culture and ethnic diversity in nursing homes: a qualitative study of healthcare workers’ and ward nurses’ experiences. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), pp.1-14.

Hajirasouli, A., Banihashemi, S., Drogemuller, R., Fazeli, A. and Mohandes, S.R., 2022. Augmented reality in design and construction: thematic analysis and conceptual frameworks. Construction Innovation, (ahead-of-print).

Morgan, D.L. and Nica, A., 2020. Iterative thematic inquiry: A new method for analyzing qualitative data. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19, p.1609406920955118.

O’Connor, C. and Joffe, H., 2020. Intercoder reliability in qualitative research: debates and practical guidelines. International journal of qualitative methods, 19, p.1609406919899220.

Omukuti, J., Megaw, A., Barlow, M., Altink, H. and White, P., 2021. The value of secondary use of data generated by non-governmental organisations for disaster risk management research: Evidence from the Caribbean. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 56, p.102114.

Patel, M. and Patel, N., 2019. Exploring Research Methodology. International Journal of Research and Review, 6(3), pp.48-55.

Pham, L.T.M., 2018. Qualitative approach to research a review of advantages and disadvantages of three paradigms: Positivism, interpretivism and critical inquiry. University of Adelaide.

Saunders, M.N., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A. and Bristow, A., 2015. Understanding research philosophy and approaches to theory development.

Skubic, J. and Fišer, D., 2022. Parliamentary discourse research in sociology: Literature review. Proceedings of ParlaCLARIN III@ LREC2022 pages, 81(91), p.91.

Woo, S.E., O’Boyle, E.H. and Spector, P.E., 2017. Best practices in developing, conducting, and evaluating inductive research. Human Resource Management Review, 27(2), pp.255-264.

Žukauskas, P., Vveinhardt, J. and Andriukaitienė, R., 2018. Philosophy and paradigm of scientific research. Management culture and corporate social responsibility, 121.

Appendices

Appendix 1 (Gantt chart)