Business Extended Exssay topic question

[Mwewa]

I am doin my extended essay in Business Management my topic is marketing, i have chosen a small company that my parents own as my organization. What i don't have is a topic question! I have searched but none of them seems to fit so I would really appreciate any suggestions

[hanz]

[quote name='Mwewa' post='39524' date='Mar 8 2009, 07:18 PM']I am doin my extended essay in Business Management my topic is marketing, i have chosen a small company that my parents own as my organization. What i don't have is a topic question! I have searched but none of them seems to fit so I would really appreciate any suggestions[/quote]

OMG ! me too ! i want to do my EE in business and management as well and my topic is marketing, i already chose my company but like you, i am searching for a good research question !! anyone can help us ?

[Mahuta ♥]

[quote]I have searched but none of them seems to fit so I would really appreciate any suggestions[/quote]

You dont search for research questions, you come up with it. Just like in most of the EE help requests, we can't give you any suggestions unless you have a research question to come up with. So you two have to sit down, jot down your ideas and think about the specific thing you want to investigate. You can't for example do an EE on the marketing of the whole company. You have to decide what is it you want to research about in that marketting. Then you would have a research question and so we can help you develop it.

[Vvi]

You can't search for a research question, because that means that the topic has already been done already and the IB wants something original that explores a topic from a new angle. You can search for ideas, and adapt them to form a new question .

[Ruan Chun Xian]

As said, you can't pull RQs out of thin air. You have to think about the business and problem at hand.

What you are planning to do is essentially at market research paper (roughly). This is coming right out of my Market Research lecture notes.

The process of coming up with a market RQ includes

Define the decision problem.
Define research objectives.
Define research questions.

Companies often have problems that they need to make decisions about. For example (again, this comes out of my MR tutorial), facebook has been inrreasing in number of users in the last 5 years but they are still continually making losses. >> This is the problem.

The preliminary data the company now has is that trends show an increase of mature age (24 years +) users of facebook. But facebook started out to target college aged (19-24)

The decision they need to make is: should they change facebook features to target the new age group (24+)?

Before coming up with a research question you have to know what your objective is. Your research objective should have the following:
[color="#FF0000"]- what you're trying to find out[/color]
[color="#0000FF"]- of who or what[/color]
[color="#FF00FF"]- when (time frame)[/color]
[color="#9932CC"]- for what purpose.[/color]

For example: Determine [color="#FF0000"]the causes for the increase[/color] of[color="#0000FF"] facebook members aged 24 and above[/color] [color="#FF00FF"]in the last five years[/color] [color="#9932CC"]to determine whether facebook should change its marketing strategies to target this demographic. [/color]

From here, you can pull out a variety of research questions. Keep in mind the decision is whether they should target this 24+ demographic. For example:
- To what extent is a rise in socioeconomic status a significant reason for the increase in facebook users aged 24+ in the last 5 years? / How significant is a rise in socioeconomic status a factor in increasing number of facebook users aged 24+ in the last 5 years?
- To what extent is the increase of facebook users aged 24+ in the last 5 years considered a change in demographic (i.e. people of other age groups are no longer using facebook as much) rather than a shifting demographic (i.e. facebook had exhausted the number of college-aged people, people aged over time)?

So you can't just sit there and 'search' for a RQ. You have to look at the business you're doing, see what their problem is, what decision they're trying to make. Then consider, to make that decision, what information do they need to know and how would this information help them make their decision? Then from there, come up with a meaningful question that covers the scope of your study (socioeconomic status, changing vs shifting demographic), the population/sample/object you're going to study (the number of facebook users aged 24+) and the time frame (last 5 years).

My marketing research project this semester at university is doing a report for a real business, and the best reports in the class will be given to the real business as real marketing advice, so count yourself lucky that your EE will only be read by the IBO who doesn't care jack about the business you're writing about. Hey, at least by writing this I did my studying for this week's lecture.

PS: DO NOT take the facebook example I just gave you to do your EE on, you will NOT be able to get the necessary information just from secondary research to write it properly.

[hanz]

Thanks for the help, and i was thinking about doing it on facebook. and i nearly came up with a good RQ, thanks for the tips, but i didnt chose my RQ similar to the one you wrote above, dont worry

[stickyicky]

if it's a company someone close to you owns (ie. your parents), then you could always just interview them. Have a set of questions to ask them, figure out what kinds of problems their company is facing today. And then from finding out what problems they face say, in the marketing sector of their business, then you can just choose which of the challenges interests you most and generate a research question from that!

I hope that helps. It's what my teacher suggested I do.