SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITYASSIGNMENT COVER SHEETFor use with online submission of assignmentsPlease complete all of the following details and then make this sheet the first page of each file of your assignment ” do not send it as a separate document.Your assignments must be submitted as either Word documents, text documents with .rtf extension or as .pdf documents. If you wish to submit in any other file format please discuss this with your lecturer well before the assignment submission date.Student Name: Sakshi PahujaStudent ID No.
: 22873459Unit Name: Research for Business and Tourism Unit Code: MNG10720Tutor’s name: Dr Noah Nielsen Assignment No.: 4Assignment Title: Research Proposal ReportDue date: 3 June, 2019Date submitted: 4 June , 2019 Declaration:I have read and understand the Rules Relating to Awards (Rule 3 Section 18 ” Academic Misconduct Including Plagiarism) as contained in the SCU Policy Library. I understand the penalties that apply for plagiarism and agree to be bound by these rules. The work I am submitting electronically is entirely my own work.
Signed:(please type your name)SpahujaDate: 03/06/19Investigation on how green product packaging influences customer’s purchase decisions in Australia from last five years (2014-2019). Research Proposal Report Prepared bySakshi Pahuja Southern Cross University Gold coast, QLD22873459Research for Business and tourism MNG10720Abstract A growing emphasis has been made on environmentally friendly practices due to the large development in the economy and the technology of the world. Forcing the businesses to use eco-friendly packaging instead of the traditional one is one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century. To protect the environment, it is very significant for the businesses to make use of the new eco-friendly and sustainable techniques and materials. This research report focuses on explaining how green product packaging has influenced customer purchase decisions in the last five years. The green packaging is usually reusable and renewable and made with natural and recycled paper and other materials that are biodegradable (Zheng 2012). This report involves the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods for the methodological approach. The report includes a lot of information that has been collected by conducting surveys making use of Qualtrics questionnaire and also by interviewing some voluntary customers. The report targets the people living in Australia. The research process took place in Gold Coast. The information was collected in theoretical form and not in a numerical one. The technique that was used to analyse the data collected was the bivariate analysis. A pie chart was used for the presentation of the data. The researcher faced a lot of ethical issues during the research regarding the privacy, voluntary participation of the customers and the consent information. The researcher dealt with all these issues by preparing a folder beforehand, which included all the information about the research and also highlighted the pros and cons linked with the participation in this research. ContentsProblem statement and the research objectives. 5Research design. 5Data collection methods 6Qualtrics survey. 6Sample selection. 7Data analysis techniques 7Ethical considerations … 8References … 9 TOC o “1-3” h z u Problem statement and research objectiveThe main aim of this research repot is to analyse how green product packaging has influenced customer purchase decisions in the last five years. Some of the main objectives of this research report are to start with an investigation on what exactly green products are, to explore about the way these products are packed so that they could attract the customers and then finally examining the fact if the green packaging has actually helped in attracting the customers or not. Research design The research report is outlined in such a manner that gives the information about the characteristics of the Australian customers over the last five years. The report investigates that whether there is any match between the green products packaging and the purchase behaviour of these customers regarding the green products. The main task of this report is to get out as much information it can, that can be helpful for both the businesses and the customers in the near future (Bentley, Gulbrandsen & Kyvik 2015). This is an investigational research that mainly focuses on gathering all the information to analyse why or why not would customers prefer green packaged products (Ann 2010). The research mainly aims to help the business to understand how they could attract their customers by making use of the green packaging. It also helps the customers to study everything in detail and then make a choice before selecting the products they want to buy. The research report focused towards collecting a diversified range of data to come to an end result and then make a conclusion. To acquire this data, a mixed research methodology will be used. Mixed method is the type of research which the researcher or the team of the researcher combine the elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (Judith & Burke 2017). Although mixed methodology is considered to be time consuming, challenging and hard to manage (Halcomb and Hickman 2015). By using both the qualitative and quantitative methods altogether, delivers a wide and detailed range of information (Cook and Cook 2016). This research report mostly uses the qualitative methods of the research. Data collection methods Customer surveys and interviews were used to collect the data enough to be used in this research. These are least demanded by the researcher but has no other option as it is the only data that is tangible and visible and can be gathered from a large amount of people (Mulhall 2013). The researcher closely observed the behaviour of the customers by watching their activities and listening to what they said. The researcher also made use of case studies in collecting the data he wanted. Case studies are a form of qualitative method of collecting information that help is gathering a detailed and richer amount of data that can be really very useful. When it is impossible to get large samples for observation, case studies turn out to be very informative. Though the data gained from the case studies cannot be reliable when a larger population is involved in the research. It can also affect the results as the opinions gained from the observer can be completely biased. According to Molina-Azorin (2016), customer e-surveys and qualitative interviews are the best means of collecting data that is to be used in a research. The questionnaires are easy to perform, require the least amount of skills and are less costly to the researcher. Surveys also maintain the anonymity of the participants which makes it more comfortable for more people to take part in it and it also allows ample amount of time for the respondents to reply back (Pribyl 1994). Although, surveys can be really time consuming and involve higher costs when it comes to acquiring information from a large population yet they are a significant and realisable source of getting out information that can be used during a research. Surveys also guarantee a large amount of responses than any other methods during this research. A lot of secondary data was also collected from various sources which are based on the researches conducted in the past on the similar topic. Qualtrics surveyWilling customers will be able to complete the survey in various stores located within Australia. There will be a link that will directly take them to the questionnaire. The survey includes 3 types of questions i.e. multiple-choice questions (MCQs), rank in order questions and some long-extended questions. These questions will help in keeping the survey short, straight to the point and simple. The survey will be quite helpful in getting both qualitative and quantitative information altogether. Sample selection The local people have been selected for the questionnaire. The population targeted the most are the customers who use green products very often. There are different types of sampling that have been selected. One type is a probability sampling in which everybody has an equal and fair chance to get involved in the questionnaire (Fisher et al 2007). Although this type of sampling is very time consuming and hard to manage yet it is very reliable and ensures of the correct representation of the population (Bailar 1997). This research report used the non-probability sampling method. In this type of sampling, not all the chances of the population are calculated. It completely depends on the researcher’s judgement (Setia 2016). This sampling method is completely opposite of the probability method. It is very easy to handle and is very time effective and is not too costly. This sampling method will be used when the data has to be gathered from the sample that is near to the researcher. It is called convenience sampling. It is very easy to handle the when the sample is not too big and is also less time consuming. This method will be very significant to gather a useful amount of information for this research report rather than the probability sampling method. Convenience sampling method can lead to the researcher being bias which can further lead to underrepresentation or overrepresentation of the sample when it comes to surveying the whole population, argued by Farrokhi and Mahmoudi-Hamiabad (2012). Sample frame will be made use of to avoid bias and to match the target consumers perfectly. Data analysis technique A qualitative method of analysis will be used in this research report. The information collected will be detailed and significant. Almost all the data will be gathered from the questionnaire or interviews with the people who regularly buy and use the green products. A better understanding of the green products, its benefits, reasons behind purchasing them, opinions and motivations of the consumers will be attained in this research report through qualitative analysis method. The data will be acquired in a bivariate form in this research report. The report covers two variables in this research i.e. the green packaging products and its purchases. Bivariate analysis will be applied in this research report to collect all the necessary information required throughout (Quinlan et al. 2015). Due to all the information being in a theoretical form, the data collected will be represented through the pie charts. All the data collected will be nominal i.e. not quantitative or arranged in order but properly categorised (Weiss 2009). According to Weiss (2009), pie charts are the best way to represent this data, as the data is not in the numerical form. Ethical considerations While gathering all the primary information for this report, it is expected to come across a few ethical issues. The issues will be mainly regarding the privacy of the consumers, their voluntary participation and the consent information. To handle these issues peacefully and with no further problems, the researcher will prepare a folder which would include all the information regarding the research and the risks involved as well. This information will be provided to all the participants before they make any decisions regarding the survey. The anonymity of all the participants will be respected during the process of data collection. While conducting the interviews, the interviewer will make sure that no personal data is collected and will the maintain the privacy of the interviewee. While collecting information from the secondary data, the researcher will ensure that none of the information is misunderstood, as it might lead to serious consequences. This might later have a negative impact on the final results or the conclusion. 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