Follow-up research question and assignment review

¶ … pros of a representative sample in this case? In this regard, your thread provides some of the advantages?

The study affirms the importance of cultural influences in research and management. A representative sample is particularly important in this study since the ramifications are immense. The authors argue that culture impacts perceptions and outcome of research. The researchers argue that consideration of cultural differences is critical when choosing researchers for and applying techniques in cross-cultural research as well as in the performance appraisal and international management. Implications of this study would have huge effects in an immense amount of fields from that of the social sciences where scholars and government as well as NGOs would choose researchers based on cultural specifications to conduct and evaluate research. Corporations, too, would include ethnicity as one of their criteria when choosing employees who would conduct performance appraisals. Most importantly still, management echelons would be parceled out on ethnicity basis too. This may result in bias and conflict, and may violate affirmative action principles since workers and academicians in each of these areas would be chosen on the basis of race rather than on the basis of merit. The situation can result in apocryphal and ominous extremes since almost every organization requires research and every organization includes a structure of management of some sort. Using this study, concentration would be displaced from focus on merit and diligence to focus on ethnicity. Ethnic background would become prime criteria for employment and recruitment and many qualified and skilled workers may find themselves unemployed. Implications can extend to other possible outcomes too such as imposing university quotas and to increased racial discrimination (due to alleged ethnic replacement of jobs). For these and more reasons, it is crucial that that researchers conduct their research within the strictest scientific methods one of which is having a representative sample that can attest to the fact that they have conducted balanced an impartial research on a diverse and equilibrated population.

How might a researcher ensure that the sample is representative?

The researchers in this case conducted their study on Asian-American and Caucasian-American subjects alone. This is insufficient for researchers to conclude that there are general cultural differences on observer judgment making. To conclude so would require the researcher to sample a representative population from all cultures.

The best way to ensure that the sample is representative is to conduct a cross-sectional and longitudinal research. Cross-sectional would require that the researcher take from various states and regions as well as from diverse countries so that the people differ in terms of geographic differences. They should be divers too in terms of education, socioeconomic backgrounds, personal experiences, gender, education of their parents, and, in fact, they should be diverse in ale experiences excepting in race. Ultimately, the researcher wants to investigate where race has an impact on decision-margin. To objectively test this, race has to be kept constant in contradistinction to other elements (Rundblad, 2006).

The research should also be conducted in a longitudinal manner since sociological differences occur to races over time. A people, for instance may reason differently in one period than in another. If the researchers discover that differences in racial thinking still hold regardless of historical period, the researcher may have more support for their argument that culture effects observer judgment making.