Question

1. Imagine that the city council is considering a proposed ordinance to require an 8-cent deposit on each beverage container sold in the city. Each beer can, soft drink bottle, or other containers would carry a city sticker or imprint. Retailers would collect the deposit on each container sold and would be required to pay 8 cents for each empty container returned to the store. Proponents of the bill argue that it would help clean up the city and provide better recycling of containers. Opponents argue that the bill would be difficult for stores to adhere to and a nightmare for the city to enforce. Explain your research design—a plan for conducting research—that would enable you to report to the city council on the potential costs and benefits of the proposed ordinance.

Answer 1

The research question is “The customer response and cost-benefits analysis of the 8-cent deposit for beverage container proposal”

The research objectives for this proposal will be:

• To analyze the customer response as well as disposition regarding the proposal of returning the containers to the retailers
• To conduct a cost benefits analysis of this proposal

A sample from the process is basically used to estimate the characteristics and disposition of an entire population. Study of an entire population can be quite vast and time consuming. So the researchers select a sample and conduct research on the same. The researchers also need to make sure that the research environment remains stable and no external factors impact the study.

The peculiar problems of research, pertaining to the research environment are as follows:

• The research environment is not constant and keeps changing. So the research scope may vary accordingly.
• Selecting the size as well as the scope of the research environment can be quite tricky
• There are various factors which may have substantial effect on the research environment. It will be quite challenging to limit this collaboration

The research methodology will be a mixture of descriptive and analytical methodology. To fulfill the first objective of the study i.e. to have a perspective about customer response, the descriptive research study can be used. Close-ended survey questions can be floated to a sample set of customers and their response could be analyzed. For conducting the cost benefits analysis, the analytical research study can be taken inti consideration.