Tasks: Categorize the following cases as APPLIED RESEARCH OR BASIC RESEARCH. What are the differences between APPLIED RESEARCH AND BASIC RESEARCH? What are the purposes of basic research and applied research?

Example 1:

As part of an urban renewal project, a local municipal planning group (funded by an economic development authority) decides to fund a team of university researchers to assist in the development of a strategic growth plan for a city. The municipal planning group requests that the team consider factors such as renewable energy, ecological protection, and economic and industrial growth and deliver a study that the planning group can use for long-term strategic planning for the city. The municipality places no publication restriction on the project and asserts no claims to intellectual property. The final deliverable for the project is a comprehensive study and recommendations for a strategic growth plan. The funding milestones are based on specific project deliverables (interim project briefings, delivery of final report, etc.). The effort is funded with a fixed price contract from the economic development authority and is not considered a grant.

Example 2

A group of faculty researchers have developed a set of new data-mining and text-mining algorithms that enable rapid entity detection for large sources of streaming unstructured text. The faculty researchers publish two papers in peer-reviewed journals and one PhD dissertation is completed on the subject. One of the federal intelligence agencies provides funding for the university to develop a software tool using the new algorithms. The intelligence agency will provide access to other software packages, some of which are classified, to assist in the development. The goal of the project is to integrate the software package to be developed by the university into a larger intelligence-related software system planned for release within the larger intelligence community. The project has a blanket publication restriction and the university researchers are each required to have and maintain a SECRET security clearance since they researchers may need access to classified test data. The project is funded using a federal information technology (IT) services contract (ID/IQ) and several task order awards are anticipated. The university will also hire additional software development experts and programmers to assist in the project. The project has well-defined deliverable milestones including monthly status reports, quarterly program reviews, and incremental prototype demonstrations and deliverables. The funding agency will use a larger contract vehicle to provide funding. The funding agency will retains all rights and usage licensing for the software package and system. The overall program manager will reside in CARD.

Example 3:

To acquire or not to acquire: that is the question

Companies are very interested in acquiring other firms, even when the latter operate in totally unrelated realms of business. For example, Coca-cola has announced that it wants to buy China Huiyuan Juice Group in an effort to expand its activities in one of the world’s fastest-growing beverage markets. Such acquisitions are claimed to “work miracles”. However, given the vitality of the stock market and the slowing down of business, many companies are not sure whether such acquisitions involve too much risk. At the same time, they also wonder if they are missing out on a great business opportunity if they fail to take such risk, Some research is needed here!.

Example 4:

Reasons for absenteeism

A university professor wanted to analyze in depth the reasons for absenteeism of employees in organizations. Fortunately, a company within 20 miles of the campus employed her as a consultant to study that very issue.

Example 5:

Effects of service recovery on customer satisfaction

A research scientist wants to investigate the question: What is the most effective way for an organization to recover from a service failure? Her objective is to provide guidelines for establishing the proper “fit” between service failure and service recovery that will generalize across a variety of service industries.

Discussion Questions

1. Why should a manager know about research when the job entails managing people, products, events, environments, and the like?

2. For what specific purposes is basic research important?

3. When is applied research, as distinct from basic research, useful?

4. Why is it important to be adept in handling the manager-researcher relationships?

5. Explain, giving reasons, which is more important, applied or basic research.

6. Give two specific instances where an external research team would be useful and two other scenarios when an internal research team would be deployed, with adequate explanations as to why each scenario is justified for an external or internal team.

7. Describe a situation where research will help you as manager to make a good decision.