International Business
Environment
RATIONALE
Every business endeavour or venture is constantly
faced with financial management problems to which the owner or manager should
be able to attend to in order to take the business to success especially during
the times of crisis that the global communities are facing. Thus, key financial
decisions normally confronts the managers in issues and problems that concerns
financial investments they usually provide answer to the problems regarding the
assets on which the company of firm needs to put money and how a chosen
investment should be financed.
With this consideration, we
may say that the current credit crunch or the so-called credit crisis is one of
the problems experienced not only by some firms in the United States but also
by the global economy since their cost of capital was affected. Basically, the current financial crisis of
2007–2009 which is classified by the general media as a "credit
crunch" or "credit crisis" was started last 2007 of July. The crisis was triggered when most investors
loss their confidence in the value of securitised mortgages in the United
States. This development created a
liquidity crisis that prompted an extensive inoculation of capital into
financial markets by the United States Federal Reserve, European Central Bank
and Bank of England (Norris, 2007).
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The primary objective of
this study is to examine and determine the major causes of the global financial
crisis ("credit crunch") of 2008 onwards. To address this objective,
the researcher explores the nature of this crisis by evaluating number of
companies in Singapore.
Apparently, a survey to be conducted to SMEs in
Singapore aimed to determine their perception towards the current crisis in
their respective company/organisation. Furthermore, an interview will be also
conducted to know what are their problems and concerns regarding the 2008
credit crunch. Finally, this research comes up with pertinent findings, and
provides insightful recommendations on global financial crisis in relation to the
development of SMEs in Singapore.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Generally, the purpose of
this study is to conduct a study concerning the impact of global financial
crisis to the SMEs in Singapore and identify the perception of the business
experts and assess their macro-perspective towards the said crisis. This study will
answer the following queries:
1.
What are the business and
financial experts’ perceptions in Singapore regarding the impact of the current
global financial crisis in their respective companies?
2.
What are the variables that
significantly affect the perception of the business experts regarding ‘credit
crunch’?
3.
In relation to the impact
of the current global financial crisis, to what extent in which some companies
would benefit and some face challenges from the ageing population?
4.
What are the strategies
imposed by SMEs in Singapore to counter effect of the current global financial
crisis?
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
The study intends to
investigate effect of global financial crisis to SMEs in Singapore. For this
study, primary research and secondary research will be used. Primary research
will be conducted using anonymous questionnaires that will be sent to selected administrative
and financial officials of SMEs in Singapore. The questionnaires will be used
to collect quantitative data and the interviews will be used to provide
qualitative insights into the data collected.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES FOR DATA COLLECTION
Research requires an organised
data gathering in order to pinpoint the research philosophies and theories that
will be included in the research, the methodology of the research and the
instruments of data interpretation. In this study, the Research Process “Onion”
will be utilised so that the findings of the study can be thoroughly
established. The inner part of the onion describes the methodology portion
whereas the outer part discusses the strategies that can be utilised in
interpreting the results of the findings.
The descriptive research
method uses observation and surveys. In this method, it is possible that the
study would be cheap and quick. It could also suggest unanticipated hypotheses.
Nonetheless, it would be very hard to rule out alternative explanations and
especially infer causations. Thus, this study will use the descriptive
approach. This descriptive type of research will utilise observations in the
study. To illustrate the descriptive
type of research, Creswell (1994) will guide the researcher when he stated:
Descriptive method of research is to gather information about the present
existing condition. The purpose of
employing this method is to describe the nature of a situation, as it exists at
the time of the study and to explore the cause/s of particular phenomena. The
researcher opted to use this kind of research considering the desire of the
researcher to obtain first hand data from the respondents so as to formulate
rational and sound conclusions and recommendations for the study.
The research described in
this document is partly based on quantitative research methods. This permits a
flexible and iterative approach. During data gathering the choice and design of
methods are constantly modified, based on ongoing analysis. This allows
investigation of important new issues and questions as they arise, and allows
the investigators to drop unproductive areas of research from the original
research plan.
This study also employs
qualitative research method, since this research intends to find and build
theories that would explain the relationship of one variable with another
variable through qualitative elements in research. These qualitative elements
does not have standard measures, rather they are behaviour, attitudes,
opinions, and beliefs. Furthermore, as we define the qualitative research it is
multimethod in focus, involving an interpretative, naturalistic approach to its
subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their
natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms
of the meanings people bring to them. Accordingly, qualitative researchers
deploy a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping always to get a better
fix on the subject matter at hand.
The primary source of data
will come from interviews and anonymous questionnaires from SMEs in Singapore. The primary data frequently gives the
detailed definitions of terms and statistical units used in the study. These
are usually broken down into finer classifications. The secondary sources of
data will come from published articles from social science journals, theses and
related studies on personnel management. Acquiring secondary data are more
convenient to use because they are already condensed and organised. Moreover,
analysis and interpretation are done more easily.
REFERENCES:
Creswell, JW (1994) Research design. Qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Norris, F. 2007, "A New Kind of Bank Run Tests
Old Safeguards". The New York Times.
Accessed: 05 April 2010, Available Online at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/business/10liquidity.html?_r=1>
Comments