Gurtaj Singh Research: Customer Involvement in SME Decision Making

This research design explores the critical role of customer involvement in the decision-making processes of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It begins by establishing the importance of decision-making in SMEs, highlighting the need for effective strategies to maximize profits and maintain product quality. The study aims to analyze existing research and build a framework for understanding how customers can be integrated into the decision-making loop. The research employs an exploratory design using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including surveys, semi-structured interviews, and case studies, to gather data. The research model assumes customers as an independent variable and the decision-making process as a dependent variable, focusing on strategic decision-making, the relationship between customers and decisions, and the challenges of customer involvement. The design includes measures of variables, questions for data collection, and plans for testing reliability and validity through pilot studies and statistical tools. The study intends to provide insights into the benefits, challenges, and best practices for integrating customer feedback into the decision-making process of SMEs, contributing to improved business strategies and outcomes. Data analysis will be performed using excel and other statistical tools to evaluate the study’s findings.

Gurtaj Singh - 1843461934
Research Design
“Involving Customers in Organisational Decision making in SMEs”
Research Design: Involving Customers in Organisational Decision-making in SMEs Page 1

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Research Model..........................................................................................................................5
Research Model Diagram...........................................................................................................8
Measures of Variables................................................................................................................9
Questions for Measuring Variables..........................................................................................10
Testing Measures.....................................................................................................................11
Data Collection.........................................................................................................................12
Data Analysis...........................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction
Decision making is one of the most crucial functions, be it any sphere of life (David,
2008). Researchers and scholars consider decision making as the key process of management
strategy when it surrounds Small and Medium Scale Industries (SMEs) (Nutt & Wilson,
2010). SMEs operate with limited resources towards profit maximisation while maintaining
the quality of product in order to survive and make its place in the market. Therefore, a strong
decision making capability is the necessity in SMEs as it can fetch its management with
many innovative and lucrative ideas, without incurring further cost on Research and
Development. If proper attention is paid on strengthening of decision making process,
enterprises, be it small or large, can gain a lot from it. Customers are the end user of any
product or service and the growth of a company is solely dependent on the customers. So,
inclusion of customers in decision making process could be a stupendous idea, especially
when it is in context of SMEs because SMEs run their business in financial crunch. While
conducting this research, various empirical researches and studies were observed and studied,
and all the researches recommended one common thing, enterprises must include customers
in decision making process. Thus, keeping in mind the advantages of including customer in
decision making process, scholars recommend the marketers to take notice of their customers
on priority and involve them in decision making loop to improve their product and services
(Weinstein, 2012). Customers involvement in the decision making process should include the
latent need of customers and their feedback should be on the premises of ‘how it would work’
and not on the feasibility of its implementation (Magnusson, 2009).
The primary purpose of this research study is to analyse the process of decision
making in SMEs and the secondary purpose of this research is to know how to build the
relationship with the customers and to know the advantages of customer’s involvement in
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decision making process in SMEs. Moreover, this study would also cover the decision
making patterns and suggest / construct a common process of decision making in SMEs and
would also focus on the challenges brought by customer’s involvement in decision making
process. An exploratory research design would be employed in this study and it would focus
on below mentioned points:
 To find out the structure of decision making process in SMEs
 To know the influence of customer database on decision making
 To get idea about to which extent involvement of customers in decision making
process is beneficial
 To know the difficulties faced by the SME because of customer involvement in
decision making
 To highlight the way through which customers get involved in decision making
process
 To find the ways for overcoming the challenges faced by SME
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1. Better Utilisation of Resources
2. Facing Problems and Challenges
3. Business Growth
4. Achieving Objectives
5. Increases Efficiency
6. Facilitates Innovation
7. Motivates Employees

Importance of Decision Making in Management
Research Model
“If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses” (Ford,
2014)
Customer’s role is pivotal in any organisation. Involving customers in decision
making process could be a substantial contributor of competitive advantage and researchers
perceive customers as a key decision making resource (Cheng, Chen, & Tsou, 2012), but
involvement of customers bring with it certain challenges too, for which an organisation
should be well prepared to manage it effectively (Foss, Laursen, & Pedersen, 2011). There
are several historical studies dealing with customers involvement, customer participation,
customer interaction, user involvement, customer integration in organisational context
(Gronroos & Voima, 2013). Therefore, customer involvement foregrounds a strong
relationship between customers and enterprises. Therefore, the main purpose of this research
would be to discover the importance of customer’s involvement in the decision making loop
of an enterprise, especially, small and medium scale (Mota, 2012). Due to the scarce
resources availability in a small scale and medium scale enterprise, an effective decision
making process becomes very crucial. Therefore, this study emphasises on discovering the
decision making process of SMEs and construct a common process of decision making in
SMEs. To establish the relationship between customers and the decision making process of
SMEs, this study would assume two variables, dependent and independent. Assumptions
would be made as below:
Variable X - Independent variable = Customers
Variable Y - Dependent Variable = Decision Making Process of SMEs
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Thus, this research would consider customers as independent variable as they are
independent to take any decision. While, decision making process would be considered
dependent variable. Apart from these variables, the research study would focus to prepare its
survey questionnaire on three selected variables of decision making process in SMEs, they
are, 1) Strategic decision making process of SMEs, 2) Relationship between strategic
decision making and customers, and 3) Challenges brought by customer involvement in
decision making process.
Research Model Diagram
`
Median X Median Y
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Strategic
decision
making process
of SMEs
Relationship
between
strategic
decision
making and
customers
Challenges
brought by
customer
involvement in
decision
making process
of SMEs
Independent
Variable
Customer’s
Dependent
Variable
Decision
making
process of
SMEs
Closely related
Three variables selected for survey questionnaires and semi structured interviews

Measures of Variables
Fundamentally, there are two types of variables. Observable and latent variables
(which cannot be observed directly). This research would take into consideration both the
observable and latent variables to carry this research as the three variables, namely, Strategic
decision making process of SMEs, Relationship between strategic decision making and
customers and Challenges brought by customer involvement in decision making process,
which would be hypothesised to carry the research, are of both observable and non-
observable. The first variable ‘Strategic decision making process of SMEs’ can be directly
observed. While, second variable ‘Relationship between strategic decision making and
customers’ cannot be directly measured rather it is dependent on other variables for its
measurement. Likewise, the third variable, ‘Challenges brought by customer involvement in
decision making processes of SMEs’ is also latent variable and would require support of
other variables to measurement. Questions designed for these variables would be compiled to
form a questionnaire with close ended questions and multiple choice questions based on
Likert Scale wherein respondents would be asked to answer within the range of 5 answers
‘Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree’. Each variable will cover different aspects of the
research, for example, ‘Strategic decision making process of SMEs’ will cover the questions
related to decision making processes followed by SME, whereas, ‘Relationship between
strategic decision making and customers’ will cover questions related to customers
involvement in decision making process like advantages, disadvantages, implications etc.
While the third variable, ‘Challenges brought by customer involvement in decision making
process’ will cover questions related to the challenges brought to enterprises by involvement
of customers in decision making process of SMEs.
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Questions for Measuring Variables
1. Strategic decision making process of SMEs ?
Q.1.1: What do you mean by strategic decision making process?
Q.1.2: Do you have enough understanding of decision making process of your organisation?
Q.1.3: How do you rate the decision making process of your organisation?
Q.1.4: Do you feel any requirement of modification in decision making process of an
organisation?
Q.1.5: Are customers given priority in organisational decision making process?
Q.1.6: What would you improve in decision making process, if you could?
2. Relationship between strategic decision making and customers?
Q.2.1: Do you find any relationship between decision making process and the customers of
an organisation?
Q.2.2: Do you think it would be wise to involve customers in the decision making process?
Q.2.3: Are you aware that customer’s involvement in decision making process would fetch
advantages as well as disadvantages?
Q.2.4: What would be your choice if customer involvement brings more challenge than
advantages?
Q.2.5: Do you think decision making process and customer share a close relation?
Q.2.6: Is decision making process and customers directly proportional to each other?
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3. Challenges brought by customer involvement in decision making process of SMEs?
Q.3.1: What is your overall satisfaction about customer’s involvement in decision making
process?
Q.3.2: Do you find existence of challenges when customers get involved in in decision
making process?
Q.3.3: Have your organisation ever consulted customers or conducted customer survey for
betterment of product or services?
Q.3.4: Do you think customer involvement in decision making can befool the management of
an enterprises and can bring loss instead of profit?
Q.3.5: Do you have any experience of involvement of customers in strategic decision making
process (previous or current organisation)?
Q.3.6: What would be the measures taken by you, if you think of bringing customers in the
decision making loop?
Testing Measures
The main purpose of the research is to find out the ways and outcome of involvement
of customers in decision making process of SMEs. The study would be carried with the help
of survey questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and case studies. Considering the size
and scale of this research, pilot study would be opted for this research. Before the data
analysis, the collected data would pass through Pilot Study in order to evaluate the reliability
and validity of information gathered. The reason behind the selection of pilot study would be
to evaluate the practicability of adopted methodologies and to discover the improvement or
alteration required for this research when the research would be carried on a larger scale.
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Further, to measure the reliability and validity of the measures adopted Cronbach
Alpha Test would be exploited. Reliability test would help in measuring the consistency of
answers given by respondents. In other words reliability test would help in knowing that how
many times the same answer is being repeated by the respondents. Validity of a research is
considered the strength of findings and conclusion drawn from a research and helps in
acknowledging the establishment of relation between methodologies and outcomes. As this
study will utilise quantitative measures therefore, validity measurement becomes necessary to
measure the authentication of this research. Validity test would help in calculating the extent
to which the hypothesis and assumptions made in the research are precisely measured. Apart
from these, the measurement of independent and dependent variables would be done with the
help of mediator variable methodology, considering customers as independent variable
(Variable X) and decision making process a dependent variable (Variable Y) along with other
statistical tools.
Data Collection
The study would utilise semi-structured interviews and questionnaires for data
collection. The primary data would be collected through semi-structured interviews
considering that such data collection would permit an appreciative combination of
consistency and flexibility as flexibility of semi structured interviews helps in asking probe
questions which enables the respondents to elaborate their answers freely and leads the
interviewers to capture individual voice of interviewee (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009).
Additionally, well-structured questionnaires with multiple choice answers based on Likert
Scale was developed and distributed within 45 SMEs of Sydney and Melbourne.
Questionnaires would carry closed ended questions too. Apart from these, questions would be
asked to the respondents based on constructed situations. As a complement to these three
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instruments of data gathering, a case study approach would be employed in this research
seeking to collect data and important information pertaining to this research like, various
organisational reports.
Respondents of the randomly selected organisations were strongly motivated to take
part in survey enthusiastically considering the survey at a program magnitude. The length of
interview sessions and questionnaires would be around 20-30 minutes maximum and the
questions will be constructed in a very simple and understandable to answer format. The
quantitative analysis would be done using Excel sheet as gather data will be first entered in
excel sheet for mean and standard deviation calculation and then various other statistical tools
would also be utilised like, SPSS, Anova, Skewness and pie charts would be utilised.
Data Analysis
Data analysis is the process of filtration of total gathered data with the help of survey
questionnaires and interviews. With the help of data analysis enterprises can extract data
which are of their use and thus reach to the conclusion of the survey and research aimed at by
emitting mistakes and repetitions, if found. The research would be utilizing quantitative
process. The gathered data would be primarily filtered with the help of excel spreadsheets
and mean (m) and standard Deviation (sd) would be concluded with the help of excel sheet
by simple averaging. Variance will also be calculated. Further, this research would utilise
various statistical tools to like skewness, Anova, Nova, Kurtosis for data demonstration. It
would also utilise linear regression and factor analysis along with bar diagrams and pie charts
for graphical representation and helping in arriving at conclusion.
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References
Cheng, C. C., Chen, J., & Tsou, H. T. (2012). Market Creating service innovation:
verification and its associations with new service development and customer
involvement . Journal of Service Marketing, 444-457.
David, F. R. (2008). Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases. Sydney: Pearson
Education.
Ford, H. (2014). My Life and Work. Createspace Publishing.
Foss, N. J., Laursen, K., & Pedersen, T. (2011). Linking customer interaction and innovation:
The mediating role of new organisational practices. Organisation Science, 980-999.
Gronroos, C., & Voima, P. (2013). Critical service logic: Making sense of value creation and
co-creation. Journal of Academy of Marketing Research, 133-150.
Magnusson, P. R. (2009). Exploring the contribution of involving ordinary users in ideation
of technology-based services. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 578-593.
Mota, A. P. (2012). Customers integration during innovation development: An exploratory
study in the logistics service industry. Creativity and Innovation Management, 263-
276.
Nutt, P., & Wilson, D. (2010). Handbook of Decision Making. New York: John Wiley &
Sons.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business student.
Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Weinstein, A. (2012). Superior Customer Value: Strategies for winning and retaining
customers. Florida: Taylor& Francis Group.
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