Professional Project: Inflation's Effect on Mazda Cars' Finance

This professional project investigates the impact of the inflation rate on the financial performance of Mazda cars in Australia. The research, conducted by an engineering manager, explores the relationship between inflation and key financial aspects such as bank lending, stock market growth, and consumer spending. The project includes an introduction outlining the research background, rationale, aim, objectives, and questions. A literature review examines the concept of the inflation rate, its influence on the Australian automobile sector, and its negative aspects. The methodology section details the research philosophy (positivism), design (descriptive), and approach (inductive), along with data collection methods (primary and secondary), data analysis techniques, and ethical considerations. A Gantt chart provides a timeline for project completion. The project aims to determine the impact of inflation on Mazda cars' financial performance, considering consumer spending and investment decisions. Secondary data is the priority, while primary data collection could be done to collect qualitative and quantitative data. The research emphasizes the importance of managing inflation to ensure appropriate pricing, encourage spending and investments, and promote the overall growth and development of the automobile sector.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL PROJECT
Professional Project
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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PROFESSIONAL PROJECT
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction..............................................................................................................3
1.0 Research background........................................................................................................3
1.1 Research rationale............................................................................................................3
1.2 Research aim....................................................................................................................3
1.3 Research objectives..........................................................................................................3
1.4 Research questions...........................................................................................................3
Chapter 2: Literature review......................................................................................................4
2.0 Concept of inflation rate...................................................................................................4
2.1 Rate of inflation influencing financial performance of Australian automobile sector.....4
2.2 Negative aspects of inflation rate.....................................................................................4
Chapter 3: Research methods.....................................................................................................5
3.0 Research philosophy, design and approaches..................................................................5
3.1 Data collection methods...................................................................................................5
3.2 Data analysis.....................................................................................................................5
3.3 Ethics and limitations.......................................................................................................5
4.0 Gnatt chart............................................................................................................................6

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Impact of inflation rate on the financial performance of Mazda cars in Australia
Chapter 1: Introduction
The research is done for the purpose of determining the impact of inflation rate on the
financial performance of Mazda cars in Australia and this will include the various
components of the research such as the bank lending activities and even the stock market
growth and development. With the rate of inflation increasing with time, the prices of cars by
Mazda have also increased, which has influenced the cost of mortgages and costs of living,
furthermore, lead to the creation of a positive impact on the financial performance with
higher spending by consumers (Moore & Wang, 2014). I have been assigned as the
Engineering manager to conduct the research and analyse the facts and information regarding
the impact of inflation rate on the financial performance of Mazda cars in Australia
(Mazda.com.au, 2019).
1.0 Research background
The background of research demonstrates about the rate of inflation and its influence
on the prices set for the Mazda cars in Australia, which can not only influence the financial
performance, but will also help in improving the growth and economy development of the
automobile sector in Australia (Laopodis, 2013). The rate of inflation is also associated with
the reduction of power of purchasing along with influence on consumer spending and
investments, increase in cost of borrowing for the Mazda cars in Australia as well.
1.1 Research rationale
The rationale of research demonstrates the problem of the research, i.e., the issues
mostly associated with the rate of inflation and its effect on the financial performance for the
Mazda cars in Australia. The rate of inflation often has created issues like change in costs of

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living, pricing for the cars as well as resulted in reduced growth of employment within the
automobile sector too, which can also affect the revenue and financial performance (Kitapcı
et al., 2014). To overcome this problem, the rate of inflation is needed to be managed
properly to ensure setting right prices for the products and services along with encouragement
of spending and investments to be done by the consumers and shareholders respectively.
1.2 Research aim
The research aims to determine the impact created by the rate of inflation on the
financial performance of Mazda cars in Australia
1.3 Research questions
 How can the inflation rate be related to the spending behaviours and investment
decisions by the consumers and shareholders in Australia?
Chapter 2: Literature review
The literature section constitutes the data and information obtained from the
secondary sources such as journals, articles, newspapers, documents and internet websites
containing information about the inflation rate and financial performance of Mazda cars in
Australia.
2.0 Concept of inflation rate
Within the automobile sector, the rate of inflation has often been associated with the
influence on cost of living, sending behaviours and investments decisions as well. According
to Basnet & Upadhyaya (2015), with the emergence of inflation, the consumers keep on
managing their spending habits as well as consuming behaviours and thus increased prices of
commodities might not make any major difference in the everyday management of financial
aspects. The impact created by rate of inflation has been though immense, which does not

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merely increase the purchasing power, but also has resulted in increasing the prices of
products and services within the automobile sector, increased cost of transportation and even
oil and gas prices (Basnet & Upadhyaya, 2015). The inflation rate, has influenced the long
term savings though sometimes, the undesired rate of inflation often has been a major cause
of not being able to match the needs of people due to the reduced power of purchasing.
2.1 Rate of inflation influencing financial performance of Australian automobile sector
The financial performance of the companies within the automobile sector is quite
good considering the fact that companies have achieved good global sales volume and the
operating income ratio has been effective. As stated by Ayres, Belasen & Kutan (2014), the
shareholder returns are quite good considering the dividend amount in respect of the financial
results derived for the fiscal year, which also helped in managing good and effective
sustainable growth. The corporate governance structure of the Australian automobile sector
also has been quite good, which has created enough scopes and opportunities for the
automobile companies to share r exchange information with the shareholders or investors and
improve the efficiency of decision making process (Ayres, Belasen & Kutan, 2014). For
example, Mazda Cars in Australia also enhanced the product line base ad ensured targeting
the right market segments both locally as well as globally, though kept the prices of cars
reasonable in spite of the inflation rate. This favoured the company to influence the
behaviours of consumer and influencing their spending behaviours as well as encouraged the
shareholders or investors to make investment on the company (Saha & Zhang, 2013).
Therefore, the financial performance of the automobile industry in Australia has been
improved, which created a positive impact on the stock market conditions too.

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2.2 Negative aspects of inflation rate
Few of the major causes of inflation have been the increase in supply of money,
which has expanded much beyond the growth in economy of the automobile sector while the
national debt, when high, also made the Government raise tax rate and produce more money
for paying off the debt experienced. Hajilee & Al Nasser (2014) stated that the rates of
exchange also affected the rate of inflation while the increased exposure to the foreign market
has resulted in higher rate of inflation, which also made the local currency less valuable when
compared to the foreign currencies. Thus, the foreign goods and services became more
expensive while the export costs became much cheaper than before (Hajilee & Al Nasse,
2014).
Often it has been found that the stock market decline has been experienced due to
high inflation rate. Weale et al. (2015) also argued that there are macroeconomic variables
and inflation rate, which have influenced the financial aggregates and affected the stock
prices too, thereby, created substantial effects on the distribution of wealth and lack of ability
to manage proper stock value. With the inflation rate affecting the stock market conditions
negatively, the people in low income nations are subjected to make huge expenditures and
thus the cost of living has also got higher (Weale et al., 2015).
Chapter 3: Research methods
3.0 Research philosophy, design and approaches
Considering the acqusitions of data and information regarding the research topic, the
research has used his sensory experiences, which can improve the logical reasoning
capability and scientific thinking by drawing inference of different research materials
properly. The researcher would be able to manage the research with the use of larger sample
size and a well-designed structure and thus it would be supported with the use of positivism

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research philosophy. This kind of positive philosophy of research should also facilitate
collection of both data and information with the researcher considering both the scope and
nature of research (Bell, Bryman & Harley, 2018). Thus the positivism research philosophy
has been selected here as the most effective.
Among the exploratory, explanatory and descriptive research designs, the descriptive
research design has been the most effective research design, because it has helped the
researcher to explore a particular situation and then explored the various concepts along with
the functions associated with it, i.e., the rate of inflation. The descriptive research design also
favoured accomplishment of research in details and at the same time, facilitated the collection
and analysis of data to forecast the outcomes in the future (Zikmund et al., 2013). This kind
of research design also helped in linking the dependent variable, which is the rate of inflation,
creating an impact on the independent variable, i.e., the financial performance of the
automobile sector in Australia.
While deductive research approach is based on development of hypothesis and here it
has not been the case, thus the inductive research has been more suitable. The inductive
research approach also favoured the development of research aim, objectives and questions,
which are associated with the various solutions to be deduced for conducting the research and
ensure its compliment without any errors (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015).
3.1 Data collection methods
The research is based on both primary and secondary data, though the secondary
sources of data and information have been the priority while conducting the research. Various
secondary sources such as journals, articles, newspapers and websites containing information
about inflation rate and its impact financial performance of automobile sector in Australia. To
obtain more information, the primary data collection could be done to collect qualitative and

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quantitative data. For quantitative data collection, survey questionnaires should be distributed
to the respondents for gathering information and data in the form of their responses while the
qualitative data could be the responses provided by the managers of the organisation.
The sample size has been chosen as 40 customers and 5 managers for quantitative
data and qualitative data respectively.
3.2 Data analysis
The analysis of data could be done by linking the secondary data and information and
finding out how the variables are related to each other. This could be done for secondary data
analysis, while for the primary quantitative data, the SPSS tool could be used (Palinkas et al.,
2015).
3.3 Ethics and limitations
The information and data have been collected from reliable and authentic secondary
sources to ensure conducting the research appropriately without any flaws. None of the
respondents have been forced to take part in the research while the research materials are kept
confidential to prevent any unauthorised access to it (Sierzchula et al., 2014).
The limitations and constraints could be the time and cost constraints. With the
availability of some more time and money, the research would likely be able to conduct the
research in much more details and analyse the different variables through extended support
by the appropriate research design, approaches and data collection methods selected. This
would extend the scope for research as well as create convenience for conducting the research
on the similar topic in the future as well (Mazda.com.au, 2019).
4.0 Gnatt chart
Main activities/ stages Month Month Month Month Month Month

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13-03-
2019
31-03-
2019
20-04-
2019
10-05-
2019
31-05-
2019
06-06-
2019
Selection of topic 
Collecting data from
secondary sources
 
Constructing the research
layout

Literature review   
Development of research Plan  
Selection of Appropriate
Research Techniques
 
Primary data collection  
Analysis & Interpretation of
Data which are collected
 
Conclusion 
Development of Draft 
Final Work submission 
The timeline is feasible considering the fact that a research, while conducting, takes a
minimum of 5 to 6 months. Due to this, it is always vital to assign the various research
activities in such a manner that sufficient time is available for the accomplishment of these
activities properly. This would not only allow for extending the scope and nature of research,
but would also facilitate successful achievement of positive research outcomes and
maintaining the authenticity and validity of the research as well. Due to this, it could be stated
that the time allocation is appropriate for the research activities presented here and therefore,
this research timeline is feasible for the completion of this research effectively.

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References
Ayres, K., Belasen, A. R., & Kutan, A. M. (2014). Does inflation targeting lower inflation
and spur growth?. Journal of Policy Modeling, 36(2), 373-388.
Basnet, H. C., & Upadhyaya, K. P. (2015). Impact of oil price shocks on output, inflation and
the real exchange rate: evidence from selected ASEAN countries. Applied
Economics, 47(29), 3078-3091.
Bell, E., Bryman, A., & Harley, B. (2018). Business research methods. Oxford university
press.
Hajilee, M., & Al Nasser, O. M. (2014). Exchange rate volatility and stock market
development in emerging economies. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 37(1),
163-180.
Kitapcı, O., Özekicioğlu, H., Kaynar, O., & Taştan, S. (2014). The effect of economic
policies applied in Turkey to the sale of automobiles: Multiple regression and neural
network analysis. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 148, 653-661.

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Laopodis, N. T. (2013). Monetary policy and stock market dynamics across monetary
regimes. Journal of International Money and Finance, 33, 381-406.
Mazda.com.au (2019). Retrieved from https://www.mazda.com.au/
Moore, T., & Wang, P. (2014). Dynamic linkage between real exchange rates and stock
prices: Evidence from developed and emerging Asian markets. International Review
of Economics & Finance, 29, 1-11.
Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K.
(2015). Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed
method implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and
Mental Health Services Research, 42(5), 533-544.
Saha, S., & Zhang, Z. (2013). Do exchange rates affect consumer prices? A comparative
analysis for Australia, China and India. Mathematics and Computers in
Simulation, 93, 128-138.
Sierzchula, W., Bakker, S., Maat, K., & Van Wee, B. (2014). The influence of financial
incentives and other socio-economic factors on electric vehicle adoption. Energy
Policy, 68, 183-194.
Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. (2015). Introduction to qualitative research
methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Weale, M., Blake, A., Christodoulakis, N., Meade, J. E., & Vines, D.
(2015). Macroeconomic policy: Inflation, wealth and the exchange rate. Routledge.
Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods.
Cengage Learning.

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