Spring 2020
Tuesday 6pm to 8:45pm
Location: KCB 106
Cheonghum Park
Department of Economics
270 Bay State Road, Room 514
Email: chpark@bu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays 4:00pm to 5:40pm
TA: Fei Liang (She will be holding office hours 11am to 12pm on Thursdays)
This course will provide a comprehensive discussion of market and economic research and analysis, their key concepts, process description, qualitative and quantitative techniques for market research and data analysis, and application scenarios. Students will gain an appreciation for some of the breadth and depth of this subject and its significance for the business enterprise – both from start-up entrepreneurship as well as an established business organization. The structure of the course is based on the six steps of the market research process: problem definition, development of an approach to the problem; research design formulation; fieldwork and data collection; data preparation and qualitative and quantitative analysis; report preparation and presentation.
1) Required text: Stromp, S. (2019), Market Research Essentials, Stukent
2) Course website: Blackboard Learn - To access your course website, go to http://learn.bu.edu and select AD856 (2019 Fall)
3) Lecture notes: Lecture notes will be uploaded to the course website after each class.
4) Computer: You are required to bring a laptop to every class
5) Software
· Microsoft Excel, as you are probably already familiar with the use of its statistical functions (special tutorials will assist you in learning how to apply statistics in Excel).
· Students will also be exposed to tools for data mining and (web) scrapping, modeling, KDD, data preparation, analysis, and reporting. Such tools may include Pandas, Notebook and Orange (Python), KNIME, RapidMiner and WEKA (Java), as well as quantitative statistical tools such as STATA, SPSS, ANOVA, R, and qualitative tools such as ethnography, focus groups, NVivo, ATLAS.ti, and Quirkos.
· An optional Python Pre Laboratory will be available: SPL AD200 Unit 5 “Introduction to Python for Business” (available from Jan 21, 2020).
· Self-paced laboratory “Statistics with applications in Management” (SwaM), freely available to all AD students.
Class participation (6%)
Open book quiz (25%)
Online discussion forum (25%)
Individual exercises (12%)
Team final project (32%)
The Term Project consists of three integrated individual assignments, and executive summary (based on Assignments 1 to 3) and a final presentation (based on the project and Executive Summary). These assignments will give students opportunities to research and to substantiate and strengthen their understanding of some aspects of the market and economic research and analysis process.
• Assignment 1 (Due Week #4, Day 7): Define a management decision problem (MDP), the appropriate market research problem (MRP), and your approach to solving it
• Assignment 2 (Due Week #8, Day 7): Based on the selected MDP and MRP, formulate the appropriate market research design as a process.
• Assignment 3 (Due Week #12, Day 7): Data preparation and data analysis
• Assignment 4, Executive Summary (Due Week #13, Day 7): Term project: Executive Summary
• Final Presentation (Due Week #14): Summary of the results of the term project. [Submission of PowerPoint presentation due on Day 1 of Week 7 at 5:59 PM ET]