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Professional Project : Relationship between Social Media Presence and Company Profitability
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Internal Code : MAS5188
While some of the Variable 2 type of ‘outcome variables’ (dependent variables) can be found in secondary data sets (certainly profit, sales and share price are easy enough to find), most of your predictor/independent variables cannot be found in secondary data sets.
You thought [CASE A] “hmm, I will find some annual reports from three large mining companies, where the company might mention its Twitter account or its Facebook page, and that will give me ‘social media practices’ and then I will get the share price from the tockmarket reports.... And so I will be able to answer the research question.
OR
You might have thought, [CASE B] “hmm, I will analyse two large chocolate manufacturing firms, Nestle and Cadburys, and I’ll get their sustainability reports, and then link that with some news items that talk about how happy their workers are.... And so I will be able to answer the research question.
In both cases you would be quite wrong, and I need to explain quite carefully why you are wrong. There are TWO key reasons why you can’t do this. 1] Firstly, your N. N means the number of cases you are using to answer your research question. In this case, you have three mining companies in CASE A (N=3) and two chocolate manufacturing firms in CASE B (N=2).
A small N is risky unless you have chosen very very wisely. A wise choice would be to choose two companies with very different sustainability or social media practices (to go with the above two examples)...not just simply select two chocolate or three mining firms. That way you have some contrast between your cases. Even if you get this right, it is still a problem. After all, with an N of 2 or 3, just by sheer chance, the relationship between Variable One and Variable Two may be pure luck. You won’t be able to say “this proves that Variable One impacts or is associated with Variable Two” because it could just be by pure chance. If you throw a pair of dice in the air a couple of times, the chance of each time throwing the same result is in fact very very high. So it’s bad science to have a N of 2 or 3.
2] Secondly, an equally big problem is how do you operationalise variables like CSR, sustainability or employee satisfaction on the basis of annual reports or policies?
So let’s say you have an annual report that has a section on sustainability, and the company says things like we have introduced a company-wide strategy on sustainability, that takes in everything from our policies on recycling to hiring diverse populations.”
Let’s say the other company in your sample (N=2) says something like this:
we take sustainability seriously, really seriously. We have appointed an Executive Director of Sustainability and a staff of five in head office to oversee sustainability operations.
Task Steps :
STEP ONE: Find data.
STEP TWO: Research about the topic and your variables.
STEP THREE: Create a research question about two or more of the variables.
STEP FOUR: Do your analysis.
STEP FIVE: Write your report.
Professional Project Assignment :
Topic : Analyzing the Relationship between Social Media Presence and Company Profitability. your hypothesis states that one of the things on the left (variable one) is associated with or causes one of the things on the right (variable two):
While some of the Variable 2 type of ‘outcome variables’ (dependent variables) can be found in secondary data sets (certainly profit, sales and share price are easy enough to find), most of your predictor/independent variables cannot be found in secondary data sets.
You thought [CASE A] “hmm, I will find some annual reports from three large mining companies, where the company might mention its Twitter account or its Facebook page, and that will give me ‘social media practices’ and then I will get the share price from the tockmarket reports.... And so I will be able to answer the research question.
OR
You might have thought, [CASE B] “hmm, I will analyse two large chocolate manufacturing firms, Nestle and Cadburys, and I’ll get their sustainability reports, and then link that with some news items that talk about how happy their workers are.... And so I will be able to answer the research question.
In both cases you would be quite wrong, and I need to explain quite carefully why you are wrong. There are TWO key reasons why you can’t do this. 1] Firstly, your N. N means the number of cases you are using to answer your research question. In this case, you have three mining companies in CASE A (N=3) and two chocolate manufacturing firms in CASE B (N=2).
A small N is risky unless you have chosen very very wisely. A wise choice would be to choose two companies with very different sustainability or social media practices (to go with the above two examples)...not just simply select two chocolate or three mining firms. That way you have some contrast between your cases. Even if you get this right, it is still a problem. After all, with an N of 2 or 3, just by sheer chance, the relationship between Variable One and Variable Two may be pure luck. You won’t be able to say “this proves that Variable One impacts or is associated with Variable Two” because it could just be by pure chance. If you throw a pair of dice in the air a couple of times, the chance of each time throwing the same result is in fact very very high. So it’s bad science to have a N of 2 or 3.
2] Secondly, an equally big problem is how do you operationalise variables like CSR, sustainability or employee satisfaction on the basis of annual reports or policies?
So let’s say you have an annual report that has a section on sustainability, and the company says things like we have introduced a company-wide strategy on sustainability, that takes in everything from our policies on recycling to hiring diverse populations.”
Let’s say the other company in your sample (N=2) says something like this:
we take sustainability seriously, really seriously. We have appointed an Executive Director of Sustainability and a staff of five in head office to oversee sustainability operations.
Task Steps :
STEP ONE: Find data.
STEP TWO: Research about the topic and your variables.
STEP THREE: Create a research question about two or more of the variables.
STEP FOUR: Do your analysis.
STEP FIVE: Write your report.