Case Study 2
BUSI 600
Dr. Michael Walker
Case Assignment #2
Jaime Arze
9/15/14
3. Describe the sampling plan. Analyze its strengths and weaknesses. Just about every research sampling plan can be associated with a variety of strengths and weaknesses. These are challenges the decision maker in charge of the study must face when choosing the sampling plan for the specific research. Penton media devised a sampling plan that would require several steps, in order to isolate an ideal population of users to poll for their research. Their lengthy process included a multi-step system that began with a phone questionnaire; the second stage consisted of “pretest”, which was mailed to a smaller group of individuals pulled from the Penton database. Finally the actual study was narrowed down further to only 4000 individuals, all in decision-making positions. Dividing a sampling plan into this many steps will strengthen the research since it allows a company like Penton media to meticulously select whose opinion and vote they wish to study. By conducting disproportionate random samples, Penton was able to narrow their study down to 676 of 710 respondents. It was determined in the study that all of these respondents held important decision making roles for their organizations. They also made sure they were further narrowing the subjects to their desired groups by selecting a stratified disproportionate random sample from subscribers that belonged to one of 42 cells, which belonged to seven industry groups all of which derived from six job titles. In doing this Penton was able to completely narrow their studies to include only the most desirable participants. These were participants whose opinion carried a weight in the decision making of their organizations. It is important to note that Pentons ability to highlight and test only the desired subgroups in order to conduct their desired study was the biggest strength behind their study and
Dr. Michael Walker
Case Assignment #2
Jaime Arze
9/15/14
3. Describe the sampling plan. Analyze its strengths and weaknesses. Just about every research sampling plan can be associated with a variety of strengths and weaknesses. These are challenges the decision maker in charge of the study must face when choosing the sampling plan for the specific research. Penton media devised a sampling plan that would require several steps, in order to isolate an ideal population of users to poll for their research. Their lengthy process included a multi-step system that began with a phone questionnaire; the second stage consisted of “pretest”, which was mailed to a smaller group of individuals pulled from the Penton database. Finally the actual study was narrowed down further to only 4000 individuals, all in decision-making positions. Dividing a sampling plan into this many steps will strengthen the research since it allows a company like Penton media to meticulously select whose opinion and vote they wish to study. By conducting disproportionate random samples, Penton was able to narrow their study down to 676 of 710 respondents. It was determined in the study that all of these respondents held important decision making roles for their organizations. They also made sure they were further narrowing the subjects to their desired groups by selecting a stratified disproportionate random sample from subscribers that belonged to one of 42 cells, which belonged to seven industry groups all of which derived from six job titles. In doing this Penton was able to completely narrow their studies to include only the most desirable participants. These were participants whose opinion carried a weight in the decision making of their organizations. It is important to note that Pentons ability to highlight and test only the desired subgroups in order to conduct their desired study was the biggest strength behind their study and
References: Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2014). Business research methods. (12th ed.). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Gigerenzer, G. (2004). Mindless statistics. The journal of Socio-Economics. Retrieved From: http://library.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf