What are Different Research Approaches? Comprehensive Review of Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Research, Their Applications, Types, and Limitations

There are different ways to examine and explain a study and its findings based on using numbers as a measure, a descriptive style, or a mixture of both. These three research approaches are quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods that are commonly used by researchers in various research studies. However, with many options regarding the research design, it seems challenging for researchers to select the most appropriate approach based on the study and realize differences. This study provides a comprehensive review of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research methods. Each method is clearly defined and specifically discussed based on applications, types, advantages, and limitations to help researchers identify select the most relevant type based on each study and navigate accordingly

Analysis of Simple Additive Weighting Method (SAW) as a MultiAttribute Decision-Making Technique: A Step-by-Step Guide

The simple additive weighting (SAW) method is one of the oldest and most widely used decision-making methods. It has a simple process that can be utilized in different subject areas such as engineering, environmental sciences, and energy. The main concepts of the SAW method are introduced in this paper and then a step-by-step guide to using SAW technique for decision-making and ranking purposes in multi-attribute cases is presented

Determination of Business Strategies Using SWOT Analysis; Planning and Managing the Organizational Resources to Enhance Growth and Profitability

A SWOT analysis is the method to evaluate the internal weaknesses and strengths of an organization as well as evaluating the threats and opportunities of its external environment. This is considered as an effective framework to plan and manage the organizational resources to achieve certain goals in a specific period of time. The purpose of implementing SWOT analysis in an organization is to formulate the strategy of a business based on existing internal and external factors. There may be several disadvantages associated with running a SWOT analysis; however, its efficiency in determining the future strategy of a business is more indeed. Although the origin of SWOT analysis is uncertain, there is a long historical background about its uses to facilitate the decision-making process in every complex environment. The final result of a SWOT analysis can be presented in a matrix which is a combination of the four factors and determines strengths and weaknesses that a company involves, with opportunities and threats that it may face. This article provides a study of SWOT analysis basics and provides several practical insights of steps to provide a SWOT matrix

Development of an instrument to measure smart card technology acceptance

Recently smart card is used all over the world in different applications such as financial, telecommunication, network, and physical access where the security is considered very crucial. User acceptance is very significant in successful implementation of smart card technology. Thus, in order to investigate the user adoption of the technology, the instrument to identify the user acceptance is needed.The aim of this study is to develop an instrument to measure the user acceptance of smart card technology in Iran environment. Factors which can affect on user acceptance are presented and discussed

Role of Effective Leadership on Empowerment, Effective Communication, and Motivation in Customer Service

Customer service is the act of supporting customers of a business that can break a business or generate profit in the competitive environment with growing customers’ expectations. Regarding the critical role of customer service to differentiate between businesses, it is considered as one of the top considerations in businesses. However, there is a range of key factors that are tied to the success of a customer service provider in offering quality customer service that will eventually lead the business through exceeding or falling short in responding to customers’ expectations. Besides, businesses are prone to face some challenges in the employment of customer services that are required to be addressed. This paper aims to discuss the importance of customer service and the establishment of an efficient customer service strategy in business considering different influential factors that affect offering quality customer services. It also explains challenges that businesses may face in providing amazing customer services and how to address them

An application of Fuzzy DEMATEL electronic life-insurance development

For years, e-commerce has generated competitive advantage for many industries especially in insurance industry where people could apply for any sort of insurance, very easily. In fact, insurance industry has become one of the most important sectors in the world. E-commerce, on the other hand, has absorbed various people in insurance industry to develop economic growth. However, applying e-commerce for insurance firms may encounter serious obstacles and it is important to know them properly and setup appropriate actions to remove them. In this paper, we present a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) technique based on DEMATEL with an adaptation of fuzzy logic to find important factors impacting implementation of e-commerce for life insurance industry. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some insurance experts and then we analyze them using fuzzy DEMATEL technique. Findings indicate that “lack of designing death table based on the existing statistics of population death in Iran”, “lack of variety in protections of life insurance in proportionate to society individual’s requirements by means of low level income of society individuals” and “lack of extensive advertisements for developing the culture of life insurance in country” are the most important factors influencing insurance industry for enhancing e-business

A secure audio steganography approach

A wide range of steganography techniques has been described in this paper. Beside the evaluation of embedding parameters for the existing techniques, two problems -weaknesses- of substitution techniques are investigated which if they could be solved, the large capacity - strength- of substitution techniques would be practical. Furthermore, a novel, principled approach to resolve the problems is presented. Using the proposed genetic algorithm, message bits are embedded into multiple, vague and higher LSB layers, resulting in increased robustness

Representing a new approach for implementing e-insurance using fuzzy DEMATEL

During the past two decades, e-commerce has revolutionized many industries by providing easy access infrastructures for interested users who wish to place their orders via internet facilities. Insurance industry is one of the most important financial industries in the world. E-commerce has been attracting many in insurance industry and insurance industry has utilized e-commerce because of its own significance in economic growth and health of society. However, enhancing e-commerce into insurance firms may face serious barriers and it is important to detect and setup appropriate actions to remove them. In this paper, we present a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) technique based on DEMATEL with an adaptation of fuzzy logic to find important factors influencing implementation of e-commerce into insurance industry. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among five important insurance experts. Findings indicate that “behavioral-cultural barriers” influence on structural and field barriers. “Problems resulted from obeying government complicated rules” in the group of structural barriers, “low capacity of accepting e-insurance” in field barriers group and “lack of sufficient support of insurance chief managers from e-insurance and relative tendency of insurance staffs to make the insurance affairs electronic” in behavioral-cultural barriers group have the most influence on other factors of group

Initial validation of the general attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale

Author Accepted Manuscript with Appendix A (Sources of News Stories) and Appendix B (General Attitudes Towards Artificial Intelligence Scale, with instructions and scoring). For data files, please follow the DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2020.100014 to the publisher's site. This article is available Open Access via the Publisher's site: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451958820300142A new General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale (GAAIS) was developed. The scale underwent initial statistical validation via Exploratory Factor Analysis, which identified positive and negative subscales. Both subscales captured emotions in line with their valence. In addition, the positive subscale reflected societal and personal utility, whereas the negative subscale reflected concerns. The scale showed good psychometric indices and convergent and discriminant validity against existing measures. To cross-validate general attitudes with attitudes towards specific instances of AI applications, summaries of tasks accomplished by specific applications of Artificial Intelligence were sourced from newspaper articles. These were rated for comfortableness and perceived capability. Comfortableness with specific applications was a strong predictor of general attitudes as measured by the GAAIS, but perceived capability was a weaker predictor. Participants viewed AI applications involving big data (e.g. astronomy, law, pharmacology) positively, but viewed applications for tasks involving human judgement, (e.g. medical treatment, psychological counselling) negatively. Applications with a strong ethical dimension led to stronger discomfort than their rated capabilities would predict. The survey data suggested that people held mixed views of AI. The initially validated two-factor GAAIS to measure General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence is included in the Appendix

Different domains of dengue research in Malaysia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of questionnaire-based studies

This review provided a systematic overview of the questionnaire-related dengue studies conducted in Malaysia and evaluated their reliability and validity used in the questionnaires. An extensive literature search was conducted using various electronic databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, Medline, and ScienceDirect. Systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) were selected as the preferred item reporting method. Out of 88 identified dengue-related, 57 published from 2000 to April 2020 met the inclusion criteria and were included. Based on the meta-analysis, a poor mean score was obtained for knowledge (49%), attitude (44%), and preventive practice (55%). The study showed that the level of knowledge on cardinal signs and modes of transmission for dengue virus were highest among health care workers, followed by students (international and local) and lastly community residents. In treatment-seeking behaviours, only half of the respondents (50.8%) would send their child to the nearest health clinics or hospitals when a child became restless or lethargic. The acceptance rate for dengue vaccine, bacteria (Wolbachia), as a vector for dengue control and self-test diagnostic kit for dengue showed considerably high (88.4%, 70%, and 44.8%, respectively). Health belief model (HBM) constructs, such as perceived barriers, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, self-efficacy, and perceived benefit influence prevention practices. Lastly, only 23 articles (40.3%) had piloted or pretested the questionnaire before surveying, in which three reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.70–0.90). A need for active participation of communities and healthcare personnel, promotion of awareness, and safe complementary medicines, as well as assessment of psychometric properties of questionnaire use in dengue surveys in Malaysia, in order for assessing dengue reliably and valid