CIS 9280

"Quantitative Research Methods in Business"

Course Syllabus

Instructor: Detmar Straub 

 

 

Meeting place and time: Thursdays, 1pm-3:30pm

RCB 900

 

Last updated: November 2, 2006 at 4pm 

Number of hits on this page since July 1, 2006: 

 

    

 

General Information

 

Instructor: Detmar Straub

Computer Information Systems (CIS) Department

904 J. Mack Robinson College of Business Building
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia 30302-4015
Phone (404) 651-3827; CIS Dept. telephone #: (404) 651-3880

E-mail: dstraub@gsu.edu

 

                 Instructor-Participant Meetings:

 

 

[home]

 

 

 

You are welcome to call me at home (or on my cell) for pressing matters that cannot wait for an email response. I check my email every half hour when I am working, so this is usually a good avenue of exchange. However, if you need to call me at home, please keep in mind that it would be considerate not to call before 9AM nor after 11PM. I thank you (and my wife thanks you) for this extra measure of consideration.  

(404) 352-2938; (404) 210-6650 (my cell phone)

 

Conduct of Course

  

 

The course will be conducted as a seminar.  Each student is expected to participate in every class.  The grade will be determined on the basis of the quality of the student's preparation and participation (abstracts and critiques, class discussions, and course project). 

Discussion Guides:

One student will be assigned primary responsibility for each reading assignment.  That student will: (1) prepare and present a 5-10 minute opening analysis of the material, (2) lead the subsequent class discussion, (3) prepare a short (less than 1/3 page single spaced) abstract of the assignment, simply copying the abstract when it is provided in the original reading or creating a new one when it is not provided, and (4) prepare a short, up to 1 page (single-spaced) critique of the material including, where appropriate, its relation to other relevant readings in the course. (Items 3 and 4 are to be neatly prepared and a copy is to be distributed to each member of the class in e-mailboxes by 9:00 a.m. of class day).  Each student will read all assignments before the class on which it is due.  There will be no quizzes or examinations; however, there will be two course assignments, as described below.

 

 

Learning Objectives

 

 

In general, CIS 9280 attempts to give doctoral students the conceptual resources they need to think like scientists and to function effectively in the IS academic profession.  Specifically, at the conclusion of the course, students should be able to:

1.    Define and describe essential characteristics of the major positivist, quantitative research methods covered in the course,

2.      Discuss, in oral and written form, key philosophies of science and intellectual currents underlying the domain(s) of study,

3.      Identify potential research designs and articulate one that will obtain desired results under specified circumstances,

4.      Formulate research design, data analysis, and evaluation techniques for research projects,

5.      Articulate the main characteristics of successful validation of research instruments,

6.   Present a cogent argument, in written and oral forms, for a selected research topic in one of the business disciplines, the importance of that selected research, both for the literature that has been advanced in this area and for a research method appropriate for studying this research area.

7.   Describe the process of preparing manuscripts for publication and effectively presenting ideas to a journal readership

8.   Articulate the components of a dissertation and the process required to complete a doctoral degree.

 

 

 

Course Resources

 

 

Resource #1: Your Classmates

One course project will be team-executed in groups of:

Two (2) persons

Your group should function as a self-managed team and adopt the rules and practices of this organizational work and task structure.  Participation should be relatively equal between the group members, with each member both monitoring one's own level of participation and that of the other member of the group.  Constant, frequent, and open communications between the group members will ensure that the group members feel that all are participating equally, each utilizing his/her own strengths to the fullest.  

Self-managed teams are free to make decisions about group processes, including if they will continue to be members of the same team.  If the team decides, for whatever reason, to reconstitute the group makeup, then this change will go into effect immediately.  Please inform the instructor, in writing, that this decision has been made and the reasons for it.  Include this document as well in the deliverables for the project.

Consistent with the principles and operations of self-managed teams, peer appraisals are, presumably, ongoing.  These appraisals will become formal in one, and only one circumstance.  If the group members feel that participation has not been even, but that this uneven participation was not sufficiently disruptive to change the constitution of the team, then please send, under separate cover and under your own signature, your evaluation of the percentage participation of the other group member.  Such personalized peer appraisals will become part of the evaluation of the individual class participation score.  Also, to be above board about this with your teammate, indicate to him/her that you have turned in this peer appraisal.  You are not required to reveal your individual assessments; only that your have turned in such an appraisal.

If there is no communication to the contrary to the instructor, the assumption will be that both members contributed equally.

[Schedule]

Resource #2: Software

You will need to download the latest shareware version of Winzip in order to decompress some of the files that are located on the Web page server located at the Georgia State University CIS Department.

Readings and topic/discussion/lecture overheads are located on the server and downloadable via the schedule and/or readings or cases citation link below.

Note: If zipped, the readings may be in *.rtf (Rich Text Format) or .doc (Word) format.  Topic/discussion/lecture notes overheads are in *.pdf (Portable Document Format) format. All modern word processors can read *.rtf files. 

You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view and print the Adobe *.pdfs [portable document files]. If you do not have this reader, download it by clicking here.  In the download.com search box, type the word "Acrobat."  Find the 32 bit version of the latest Acrobat.  It should be compatible with the operating system of PC you are working on (e.g., Windows XP).

[Schedule]

Resource #3: Required Texts

1. Cook, Thomas D. and Donald T. Campbell (1979). Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analytical Issues for Field Settings. Chicago: Rand McNally. [This book can be tough sledding, but is still the most common methodological citation for people who need an authority for their issues with validation.  It is worth your effort.]

2. Davis, G. B., and Parker, C. A. Writing the Doctoral Dissertation.  Barron's Educational Series, Woodbury NY, 1979. [Please use the latest edition.] 

3. Kuhn, T. S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1970. [Please use the latest edition.] 

4. Stone, Eugene. Research Methods in Organizational Behavior. 1978 [Out of print, but electronic copy is available for downloading (see schedule) with publisher's permission.]

[Schedule]

 

 



 

Grading

 

Grading Component

Type

Score

Project #1

Group

30%

Project #2

Individual

30%

Class Participation (including discussion leadership)

Individual

40%

Total

-

100%

 

Grading Correction Symbols

Symbol

 Meaning

OK or good

This is the idea; you are on point.

vague

The writing is too general or ambiguous. It begins and ends with phrases like "higher productivity" and "achieved cost savings" without providing the case details to back up this assertion.

irr

Irrelevant. This issue is not germane to the question or the answer you are developing.

???

The passage marked is not easy to interpret. Your meaning is not clear.

proof

In order to be accepted and believed by the reader/manager, the marked passage needs further evidence or proof. In the context of this course, proof is considered to be details from Topic #s, readings, cases, and other authoritative sources that can be cited. Lifting simple narrative from the case and reinserting it in your case brief, for example, is not considered to be proof. Interpretive use of facts, figures, quotations from the case is considered to be proof.

logic

There is a flaw in logic in the marked passage. There is a lack of clear flow between the thesis or main assertion in the paragraph and the details that are provided by the author to prove the point.

sp

Spelling error

X

Careless error; often a typographical error, but, in any case, it should not have occurred with careful proofreading.

k

Awkward phrasing. The sentence or phrase needs to be rephrased for greater clarity.

ww

Wrong word. Choose another word. This one is not meaningful in this context or means something different than you want to convey.

lc

Calls for lower case, not upper case (i.e., no capitalizing).

uc

Calls for upper case, not lower case (i.e., needs to be capitalized).

/

Delete this section, word, phrase, sentence or punctuation mark.

^

Insert the word or phrase that appears into this place in the text

run-on

Run-on sentence. Sentences that run-on do not have proper punctuation at the end of the sentence they continue into the next subject and verb without properly pausing via a punctuation mark like a period or colon.

subj-verb

The subject and verb do not agree in number.

grammar

There is a serious grammatical problem with the sentence and, as it stands, it cannot be understood as an English sentence.

para

There needs to be a new indented paragraph at this point.



 

Projects

 

·         Course Project #1

·         Past Projects

 

·         Course Project #2

 

[Schedule]

 

 

Schedule

 

 

Session

Date

Topic

Required Readings/

Due dates

Optional Readings

1

Aug 24

·  Introduction to course and syllabus [Bring syllabus to class with you, please.]

·  Guest Speaker: former student who has taken this class

What makes researchers productive?

·  Endnote & Endnote libraries 

·  Large Endnote library of the instructor (6 MB)

·  ABI-Inform, EBSCO and Galileo

·         Deceased Grandmother Exam Syndrome

·         Plagiarism case

 

1.  Daft et al. (1987; short version)

 

2.  Pearson et al. (1995)

3.  Straub et al. (1994)

 

.

2

Aug 31

---Module 1---

Research and Publication in the Business Disciplines

 

·   The Ethics of Human Subjects Research and The Institutional Review Board (IRB)

·   What are the accepted forms of publication in the various business disciplines? Why are schools productive in scholarship and teaching? 

1. Readings:

·         The Nuremberg Code, 1947

·         The Declaration of Helsinki, 1964

·         The Belmont Report, 1979

[Brett]

·         Get IRB-certified!

·         IRB template; ICF templates

·         AIS Code of Research Conduct (plagiarism, double submissions, etc.)

 

2. Trieschmann et al. 2000 and Trieschmann et al. 2001 [Rob]

 

Discussion Guide Sheets due

Ackoff (1967)

Alavi et al.  (1989)

Avgerou et al. (1999)  

Banville & Landry (1989)

Barki et al. (1988)

Benbasat & Zmud (2003)

Culnan (1986)

Dearden (1972)

Dickson et al. (1980)

Dickson (1981)

Emery & Sprague (1972)

Gorry and Scott Morton (1971)

Grover and Goslar (1993)

Hamilton et al. (1981)

Ives et al. (1980)

Kendall and Kriebel (1980)

Madnick (1991)

Mason and Mitroff (1973)

Niederman et al. (1991)

Nolan and Wetherbe (1980)

Straub & Wetherbe (1989)

Webster and Starbuck (1988)

 3

Sept 7

--Module 2--

The Processes of Science

·         Theory Construction

 

 

1. Kuhn (1970) [book;  pp. 1-110] [Raj]

2. Cook & Campbell (1979) [book; Ch. 1] [Chad]

 

3. Dubin (1976) [Benoit]

.

4. Huber (1990) [Radu]

.

Discussion Guide Sheets due

.

Armstrong (1980)

Cheon et al. (1991)

Berger & Luckmann (1966)

Culnan & Swanson (1986)

Glaser & Strauss (1967)

Keen (1980)

Miller (1991)

Platt (1964)

4

Sept 14

·         Theory Construction

 

1. Gnyawali and Madhavan (2001) [Christophe]

2. Kuhn (1970) [book;  pp. 110-end] [Chad]

3. Cook & Campbell (1979) [book; Chs. 2 & 3] [Rob]

4. Kaplan & Duchon (1988) [Jesse]

.

Discussion Guide Sheets due

.

Armstrong et al. (1997)

Lacity and Janson (1994)

 

5

Sept 21

·         Research Methods and Techniques

1.   Stone (1978) [book] [Jeff]

2a. Jenkins (1978) complete version [Scan quickly]

2b. Jenkins (1978) short version [Tony]

 

3. Bouchard (1976) [Brett]

.

Discussion Guide Sheets due

Armstrong et al. (1997)Bariff & Ginzberg (1982)

Benbasat et al. (1987)

Campbell (1975)

Cohen & How (1988)

DeLone & McLean (1992)

Glass (1978)Lee (1989)

Moore & Benbasat (1991)

Nunamaker et al. (1990-91)

Orne (1962)

Rosenthal & Rosnow (1979)

Teng & Galletta (1991)

Todd & Benbasat (1987)

6

Sept 28

·         Research Methods and Techniques

1.   Fromkin & Streufert (1976) [Rob]

2. Orne (1969) [experimental artifacts] [Radu]

 

3. Straub & Karahanna (1998) [scenario experiments] [Christophe]

 

4. Ericsson & Simon (1980) [Benoit]

 

Discussion Guide Sheets due

Gefen & Straub (2000)

7

Oct 5

·         Oral Reports on Chosen Research Method

·  Student Presentations on Quant Methods

 

8

Oct 12

·         Validation

1.  Straub (1989)  [Raj]

2. Straub et al. (2004)  [Brett]

3.  Boudreau et al. (2001) [Jesse]

4. Gefen et al. (2000) [Christophe]

Discussion Guide Sheets due  

Alwin (1973)

Baldwin and Yadav (1994)

Baroudi and Orlikowski (1989)

Campbell (1960)

Cronbach (1971)

Huck et al. (1974)

Peter (1981)

Peter (1979)

Rosenthal (1963)

9

Oct 19

·         Validation

1.   Campbell & Fiske (1959) [Chad]

2.  Churchill (1979)  [Jeff]

Discussion Guide Sheets due

Jarvenpaa et al. (1985)  

10

Nov 2

§       Validation

1. Sharma et al. (1981) [Radu]

2. Podsakff et al. (2003) [Benoit]

3. Petter et al. (2006) [Christophe]

Discussion Guide Sheets due

Edwards & Baggozi (2000)

 

11

Nov 9

·         Validation (External Validity)

1.   Calder, Phillips, & Tybout (1981): "Designing Research for Application"; Calder et al. (1982): "Concept of External Validity"; Calder et al. (1983): "Beyond External Validity" [Jeff]

2.   Lynch (1982): "On the External Validity of Experiments"; Lynch (1983): "The Role of External Validity"; McGrath and Brinberg (1983): "External Validity and Research Design" [Tony]

3.   Sivo et al. (2006) [Radu]

4.  Gordon et al. (1986) [Brett]

Discussion Guide Sheets due

Lee & Baskerville (2003)

 

12

Nov 16

--Module 3--

Disseminating Research in the Business School

  • Preparing Manuscripts for Publication

·        Topic-discussion: Publishing in the Business Disciplines (Please download 4-up pdfs before class for yourself)

 

1. Mingers (2002) [Raj]

 

2. Limerick (1994) [Jesse]

 

Discussion Guide Sheets due

 

Catch up

 

13-14

Nov 18

·         The Dissertation

·         Course project presentations

1.   Davis & Parker (1979; use the latest edition) [Chad]

Discussion Guide Sheets due

*** Scan a dissertation of your own choosing.  Be prepared to summarize the basic ideas and your assessment of its quality for your classmates.

 

Given everyone’s agreement, we will meet at 9:30am on this day and go until we finish.  Pizza/sodas for lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please have your presentations ready on thumb drives and load them onto the PC before 9:30am.

15

Dec 7
  • Business Journals 
  • The Journal Review Process
  • Relevance versus Rigor

 

Blurb about Sokal (1996)--for fun!!

1. Frost & Taylor (1985) [Benoit]

2.  Lowry et al. (2004) [Rob]

3.  Chua et al. (2002) [Jeff]

4.  Whitman et al. (1999) [Raj]

5. Dennis (2002) [Jesse]

*** Review the RCB target journal lists

 

*** IS journal rankings

*** Review the "IS Journals" Web pages: (1) AISWorld and (2) John Lamp's site  

     

*** For CIS/CEPRIN students, please visit and add your name to the MISRC Online Faculty Directory--doctoral students are most welcome.  [This is a very important professional action for all doctoral students.  Students in disciplines other than CIS need to find out where they can add their names to appropriate Web-based directories.]

 

Discussion Guide Sheets due

 

 

Boyer & Carlson (1989)

Cheon et al (1993)

Cooper at al. (1993)

Daft (1985)

Doke & Luke (1987)

Gillenson & Stutz (1991)

Hamilton & Ives (1983)

Ives (1992)

Jacques (1992)

Kock et al. (2002)

Lending & Wetherbe (1992)

Mahoney (1985)

Nord & Nord (1990)

Oviatt & Miller (1989)

Vogel & Wetherbe (1984)

Vogel & Wetherbe (1985)

Walstrom et al. (1995)

 

Citations for Readings

 

·         Required and Optional Readings