Managing Multinational Strategic Alliances of Airlines

The study will be performed using qualitative and quantitative methods using structured interviews and survey instruments. Redshaw (2007) reiterates that not all questions are theory based. She further argues that quite concrete practical questions can be addressed without placing the study in one of the theoretical frameworks and the methods of qualitative enquiry stand on their own as reasonable ways of fining what is happening in human settings. Carnall (1990) has pointed out that quantitative analysis is more likely to be secondary and exploratory (or descriptive) in nature, summarising data in the form of charts, tables, percentages and averages. Diefenbach (2007) has suggested that when a survey is carried out, the data obtained would mostly be categorical, hence is likely to be ranked across a scale.

This data might be represented in terms of frequency, central tendency or dispersion. It is highly unlikely the research might require the necessity of inferential data analysis. The survey instruments included multiple sets of Questionnaire and these can be regarded more as quantitative research. As suggested by Bordens (et all, 2005), a properly designed instrument allows for the research to be valid, reliable and accurate. According to Bordens, questionnaire is used in instances where a general interrelation between different variables is studied, ‘in situ’, meaning that there is no attempt to find out how changing one variable would effect the other.

The questionnaires are of multiple-choice questions and scoring has been done as per the Liker 5 point scale. Please refer to Appendix. Table 1. Scoring System for Questionnaire 1   (Trochim, 2006). For the study, a number of primary and secondary sources have been used and these include published literature, websites, company financial reports, interviews with key people and others. Respondents for the survey would be identified as per their role and job functions.

References
Bordens, Kenneth S., & Abbott, B. (2005). Research design and methods: a process approach. (6th ed.). New York; McGraw-Hill

Carnall, C A (1990) Managing Change in Organizations, Prentice Hall, London

Diefenbach Thomas (2007), The managerialistic ideology of organisational change management, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20 (1), pp: 126-137

Redshaw Sue, Mandable Terence E, (July 2007), Managing the people side of major change at WMATA, Journal of Strategic Communication Management, Volume 11, Issue 4, pp: 28-32

Trochim William M.K. (2006). Liker Scaling. Retrieved 17 January 2008 from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/scallik.php