Penton Media is a publisher of business trade magazines, including Industry Week, Machine Design, and Restaurant Hospitality. The research department has commenced a study of the practicality of publication reader service cards. The reader service card is a post-card-size method that is to be used by the customer to order product and service information from the magazine thorough the mail. The purpose of case assignment one is to study the first two questions proposed within the article “Inquiring Minds Want to Know—Now!”. Question one is asking to build the management research question hierarchy. Question two is to identify the ethical issues that are relevant within this study.

Case Assignment 1 Penton Media research department will need to start their research by stating the basic dilemma that is prompting this research study. “A useful way to approach the research process is to state the basic dilemma that prompts the research and then try to develop other questions by progressively braking down the original question into more specific ones.” (Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 77) The study process should begin by identifying the management dilemma which is a symptom of the actual problem. The management dilemma that is present in this scenario is that Penton Media is experiencing a decline in the number of reader service cards that are being returned by the customer to the individual publications. This decline in returned reader service cards shows that the reader inquiry is smaller than in the past, thus directly impacting the number of sales leads for the advertisers. After the management dilemma has been identified the next stages within the management-research question hierarchy will involve the manager and team members brainstorming and working together to define the remaining questions. The management question at hand is how Penton Media can increase the responses to the reader service cards. Another management question would be are the reader service cards still a viable option for the customer to request product and service information. The management question drives the direction of the research; if this is not defined correctly the research could be misdirected. In order to obtain this information, respondents within the survey need to be asked how frequently the reader service card is used and to evaluate the importance of these cards versus other methods of requesting information, such as email or company websites. The research question should be addressed next. The research question states the hypothesis for the objective of the research. This hypothesis should involve questions that focus attention to the management dilemma. Instead of requesting product and service information using the reader service cards, should other methods be used such as email, company websites, or toll-free telephone numbers to company contacts. A research study should be conducted to focus on the efficiency of the reader service cards and the customer preferred method of requesting product and service information. In order for management to obtain the information necessary to decide on the further use of the reader service cards, an evaluation of proposed methods should take place to gain knowledge of the effectiveness of each method. This stage is known as the investigation question. Investigation questions are “questions the researcher must answer to satisfactorily answer the research question; what the manager feels he or she needs to know to arrive at a conclusion about the management dilemma.” (Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 79) Questions that should be asked could include asking the type of information