Instructor: Dr. Abdul Ali

Office: Room 105, Malloy Hall

Office Phone: (781) 239-5584, Fax: (781) 239-5020

Office Assistance: Ms. Marion Power, (781) 239-4697

Email: alia@babson.edu

Mail Box: Room 208, Malloy Hall

Office Hours: Wed.: 5:15 - 6:15 PM and by appointment.

Class Meetings: Malloy 101, Wednesdays, 6:30 - 9 PM.
 
 

Each student will be given an index card in the first class meeting. Please provide the information requested on the card: also provide your e-mail address if available. Cards should be handed back to me by the first class meeting of the second week.
 
 

Course Materials
 
 

1. Required Text Book:

Marketing Research, David A. Aaker, V. Kumar, and George S. Day; John Wiley & Sons, Sixth Edition, 1998.

2. Case Reading Packet, and

3. Handouts.
 
 
 
 

Course Description and Objectives
 
 

The objective of this course is to assist the student in understanding the theory and the methods of marketing research through class discussions and project work. The emphasis in this course is on marketing research as an aid to management decision-making. In my opinion, the primary issues in marketing research are:
 
 

1) whether to conduct market research at all, and how much to pay for a research study;
 
 

2) deciding what information is needed, developing the data collection instrument, and collecting the data; and
 
 

3) analyzing the data and arriving at conclusions regarding marketing actions.
 
 

The topics covered in the class can be broadly divided into three categories as follows:
 
 

A. Research Process and Design: This section provides students an overview of research process. Here, the student will learn how to formulate a research problem, to determine a research design, to design the methods of data collection, and to develop instruments for data collection.

B. Data Analysis: This section will deal with the statistical analysis of marketing data. Topics covered will include hypotheses testing with means and proportions, analysis of cross-tabulation, multiple regression, and selected methods of multivariate data analysis. The student will be introduced to the use of the techniques, and also to the logic behind the techniques.
 
 

C. Applications: This section provides students how the concepts, tools, and techniques from the first two sections can be used to solve real-world, marketing- related problems. Topics include several different types of marketing research studies and cases that are typically conducted in real world.
 
 

Prerequisites

Every student must have a good command of the essential concepts covered in the Marketing Fundamental and Statistics courses. This course will be taught on the basis that students have retained the general concepts from these courses.

Course Requirements
 
 

There are 4 course requirements:
 
 

3. Exercises: During the semester, you will be required to read the assigned texts and analyze several problems. To ensure that each of you have read the text and solved the discussion problems, I will ask you to submit solutions for two assignment problems.

A practice-problem set will be given in Week 1. The material will cover the basic statistical concepts that students have learned in their pre-requisite statistic course. The practice-problem set will give students experience in statistical analyses that will be helpful for learning in this course. The assignments will be conducted on materials covered in the practice problem set and on other topics discussed in the class. The purpose of this exercise is to illustrate methods or techniques discussed in class and to give students experience in applying concepts to very focused situation. These are individual assignments and students should not discuss or collaborate with other individual(s) in any form.

4. Class participation: The student is expected to actively participate in class discussions. Application problems for class discussion will be provided in Week 1. This problem set is meant to guide, but not limit your preparation for the class. Please note that quality and brevity of your comments matter, not quantity. Contributing in class does not mean that you have to constantly talk or bring up trivial points to participate in the class.

Student Responsibilities :
 
 

1. All students are expected to abide by the Babson Academic Integrity Policy. All assignments and testing are to be the work only of that individual without help or guidance from any other person. Any evidence of collaboration, plagiarism, cheating, or fabrication on assignments and exam will result in a referral to the judicial board.
 
 

2. Students are expected to keep current on reading assignments and be prepared to discuss the material . Students will be called on to discuss, in a substantive manner, the material presented in the text, cases, and handouts.
 
 

3. Class attendance is not required, however, the student is responsible for any material presented in class and for any additional assignments made. Lack of attendance , regardless of the reason, is no excuse for failing to turn in an assignment.
 
 

4. No make-up examination will be arranged unless it is required under the College Policy. Students who have a legitimate reason for missing the exam or an assignment must present their excuse prior to or 48 hours after the scheduled exam or assignment. If the excuse is deemed to be reasonable one (e.g., college sponsored activity, illness) and is justified with proper documentation, a make-up exam or alternate arrangement may be considered on case to case basis. An unexcused absence will result in a grade of zero for the exam or assignment.
 
 

5. In order to obtain a good class participation grade, active participation during all case discussion classes is a must. If a student is unable to attend a class when a case is scheduled to be discussed, he/she can turn in a one page write-up on the case prior to the class discussion of the same case and gets a participation grade for that class discussion.
 
 

6. Groups will be required to hand in a group participation grade. This will evaluate each member's performance in the project. Those individuals who make lower contribution than their peers will be penalized with lower grades on the relevant group assignments. The procedure to do group evaluation will be described further during the semester.
 
 

Student Feedback:
 
 

Final grades will be determined from the student's performance in the areas just described (course requirements). A distribution will be derived based on all students' numeric scores, which will be weighed accordingly:
 
 

Area	Percent of Grade
One Final Exam	25%
Assignments ( two @ 10%)	20%
Group Project   Interim Report (5%)  Questionnaire Design (5%)   Written Report (20%)   Oral Presentation (10%)	40%
Class Participation	15%
Total	100%

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Website

You may check my website for class documents and also submit your assignments through internet. There are two ways you can access my course materials. First, you can go directly to my website. Second, you can access my class materials through "icampus." The address for the website is provided below:
 

1. http://faculty.babson.edu/alia

 

 

2. http://icampus.babson.edu

A tentative schedule is attached. Depending on circumstances and class needs, it may be modified during the semester.