(University of Choice)
MASINDE MULIRO UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(MMUST)
UNIVERSITY main EXAMINATIONS
2017/2018 ACADEMIC YEAR
FIRST year SECOND semester examination
FOR THE DEGREE
OF
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION / MSC HRM
COURSE CODE:MBA 809/HRM 820
COURSE TITLE: RESEARCH METHODS
DATE: MONDAY, 30/07/2018 TIME: 9:00AM – 12:00NOON
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
Answer question ONE and any other THREE questions
TIME: 3 HOURS
MMUST observes ZERO tolerance to examination cheating
QUESTION ONE (COMPULSORY) (40 MARKS)
This Paper Consists of 4 Printed Pages. Please Turn Over.
The Kenya Government in its quest to ensure costs reduction in its activities, efficiency,
effectiveness, transparency and accountability, it has developed the procurement system and the
public procurement act 2005 to the current public procurement and asset disposal act of 2015 and
also implement a side by e-procurement practices to achieve its objectives. The policy on
preference and reservation in public procurements, with youths included, will help solve most of
the economic and societal challenges facing the country by empowering the preference groups.
The youth involvement in public procurement borne from the preference policy is expected to be
the highest amongst the special groups provided for in the policy given that they form a higher
segment of the Kenya population.
An area of great importance and cries out for reforms due to corruption, entrepreneurs and cartels
is the procurement section and financial management in public institutions, however, there are
challenges of implementation of the procurement regulations and also the electronic procurement
practices which have been broken into e-tendering practices, e-supplier management practices, e-
ordering practices and integrated financial management information systems. In his study,
Muraguri (2014) it is evident that public procurement preference and reservations policy among
the marginalized group in public procurement had not been effectively implemented. Noor
(2014) said that implementing-procurement will enhance transparency and costs reduction but
public institutions had not fully adopted the E-procurement practices. This could be due to the
enterprises being highly strained and the procurement laws not refined well hence the low
implementation of the regulations by these corporations or cartels trying to avoid the
transparency brought about by e-procurement practices and the preference regulations. To meet
the goals there is need to take strategic measures for quick implementation of the legislation on
the preference and reservations. With the introduction of e procurement by Kenyan government,
many have expected that many marginalized groups was able to access procurement
opportunities considering the availability of telecommunication and data facilities through
mobile operators and the government through the fiber optic.
However, the scholarly evaluation of e-procurement initiatives, especially in relation to the use
of e-procurement on implementation of preference regulations on state corporations in Kenya is
very limited. There is a need to contribute to literature gap on the link between e-procurement
and disadvantaged group’s empowerment as the current uptake is just 3% against an available
resource of 30% of the government procurement expenditure before full implementation of the e-
tendering system (PPOA 2015). Noor 2014 stated that e-procurement adoption in Kenyan state
corporations stood at only 33% regardless of it being introduced from 2005.
With the presidential executive order vide legal notice 114 of 2013 instructing all public entities
to adopt the implementation of preference regulations and also e-procurement and Integrated
Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) by Dec 2015, the researcher wanted to find
out if the implementation of the e-procurement would positively affect the uptake of preference
regulations which stood at a mere 3% instead of 30% without e-procurement (PPOA 2015) to a
higher percentage considering that those eligible to participate in the process form more than
50% of the total population of the country and the country was having excellent communication
networks that would enable absorption of the preference regulations by those targeted.
Required
a) Formulate the research topic, general objective and four specific objectives to be
addressed by the researcher. (10 marks)
b) Develop a conceptual frame work displaying independent, dependent and moderating
variables that could help the researcher to expedite this research. (10 marks)
c) What do you understand by the term hypothesis? In reference to the case above formulate
four hypotheses to be tested by the researcher. (10 marks)
d) Propose a research design to be adopted by the researcher hence justify why you thing its
appropriate for this research problem. (10 marks)
QUESTION TWO (20 MARKS)
a) Research design in exploratory studies must be flexible but in descriptive studies, it must
minimize bias and maximize reliability. Discuss. (10 marks)
b) Enumerate the different methods of collecting data. Which one is the most suitable for
conducting enquiry regarding MBA/MSC HRM learners on perception of courses offered
in School of Business and Economics of MMUST? (10 marks)
QUESTION THREE (20 MARKS)
a) The procedure of testing hypothesis requires a researcher to adopt several steps. Describe
in brief all such steps. (10 marks)
b) “Processing of data implies editing, coding, classification and tabulation”. Describe in
brief these four operations pointing out the significance of each in context of research
study. (10 marks)
QUESTION FOUR (20 MARKS)
a) “Knowing what data are available often serves to narrow down the problem itself as well
as the technique that might be used”. Explain the underlying idea in this statement in the
context of defining a research problem. (10 marks)
b) Explain the significance of a research report and narrate the various steps involved in
writing such a report. (10 marks)
QUESTION FIVE (20 MARKS)
a) Two random samples drawn from two normal populations are:
Sample A 20 16 26 27 23 22 18 24 25 19
Sample B 27 33 42 35 32 34 38 28 41 43 30 37
Test using variance ratio at 5% and 1% level of significance whether the two populations
have the same variances. (10 marks)
b) Experimental method of research is not suitable in management field. Discuss, what are
the problems in the introduction of this research design in business organization? (10
marks)
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