Answer this one question after reading the story. I'll give a good or bad rating accordingly :)
One way of tapping more abstract and subjective attributes is operationalizing these attributes.
a. What is operationalization?
b. Describe the process of operationalizing variables.
The Standard Asian Merchant Bank is a Malaysian merchant bank headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. The bank provides financial services in asset management, corporate finance, and securities broking.
Clients of The Standard Asian Merchant Bank are among others institutional investors, foundations, (semi) public institutions, companies, and high net- worth individual clients. Segments in which The Standard Asian Merchant Bank operates are small and medium-sized listed companies, real estate, and biotech firms.
Syafiq Aimi is a Business student from the National University of Malaysia which is located in Bangi, Selangor - about 35 km south of Kuala Lumpur. Syafiq is currently undertaking a research project for the Structured Products (SP) desk of The Standard Asian Merchant Bank's securities department.
The SP desk is responsible for developing and selling structured products: investments that consist of a portfolio of securities and derivatives.
Structured products are investment instruments that are created to meet specific needs that cannot be met from standardized financial instruments. The products of the SP desk are tailor-made and they are developed based on the Standard Asian Merchant Bank's niche specializations which are Asian listed real estate companies, life sciences companies, and shares.
The SP desk of The Standard Asian Merchant Bank has its own website that is primarily used to provide information to the users of the website. The website contains information about the products offered (e.g., brochures, legal documents, and bid-ask spreads), publications, and contact information.
The website can be classified as a services-oriented relationship- building website. There are two main groups of website users; financial advisors and institutional clients of the SP desk. They use the website to examine product features, prices of the products offered by the SP desk, and legal information.
For the SP desk, there are several reasons why they have asked Syafiq to undertake a research project:
1. Satisfaction with the website has never been measured. As a result, the SP desk does not know how the users experience the website. The current content and layout of the website are based on assumptions of what users are looking for on the website. For this reason, the website may contain elements deemed unnecessary by the users and it might lack features that are important to the users.
2. Users of the website only spend a small amount of time on the website. In 2011,
more than 70% (75.4%) of the visitors spent less than 30 seconds on the website of the SP desk (AWStats, 2011). The products offered at the website are quite complex and clients often have a lack of knowledge concerning Structured Products. Therefore it is desirable to encourage website users to spend more time on the website.
3. The website is not self-explanatory. Consequently, people contact employees of the SP desk to ask for explanation and clarification. This is a time consuming process that is relatively expensive for a small desk.
Based on preliminary research, the following problem statement was created by Syafiq:
"What elements are of importance in driving Satisfaction with the Website in the Asian investment banking industry, to what extent do these variables influence Satisfaction with the Website, and how can the results of this study be used to create a website for the SP desk that is self-explanatory, that people use as their main information source and that website users spend more time on?"
Several research methods are used by Syafiq to answer the problem statement. In order to determine the variables relevant to his study Syafiq has carried out a literature review and face-to-face interviews. Based on the literature review and a rigorous analysis of the interviews Syafiq has developed the following conceptual model.
Information quality
System quality
Interactivity
Satisfaction with the Website
System design quality
Syafiq now wants to collect quantitative data to be able to test this model with multivariate regression analysis. In order to collect these quantitative data, Syafiq is currently busy with designing a survey which he wants to post online. He has developed the following table that should help him to operationalize the constructs in his conceptual model.
Table 1: Overview of the Constructs/variables in my Model, "Subconstructs", and Survey
Attachment:- Information quality.rar