Judging a Business Plan

¶ … large number of retail sporting equipment companies that do not cater to the individuals in society who are of the lower-income category. Additionally, it is premised that these firms also do not provide sports equipment that have been manufactured in an environmentally safe and secure scenario. It has been decided that a company that accomplishes both of these objectives may be a viable option, but further evaluation is needed.

Analyzing the data

Analyzing data from a quantitative questionnaire is almost always a difficult endeavor. The questionnaire for this specific study was created in order to process data in an efficient and effective manner. The study seeks to determine the viability of forming a business entity that will cater to the lower-income individuals in society. At the same time, the new business entity will also seek to provide products that are developed in an environmentally safe and sound surroundings. As one recent study states "explanations for the perceived limited environmental activity of small firms tended to emphasize the "busyness" of owner-managers or their need to concentrate on day-to-day management" (Sampaio, Thomas, Font, 2012, p. 180). It is hoped that the proposed business entity will be able to manage the day-to-day management in such a manner that environmental concerns are maintained at the forefront of all business decisions. Another recent study determined that "the Theory of Planned Behavior considers that people's conduct is determined by the intention of carrying out a certain behavior" (Sanchez-Medina, Romero-Quintero, Sosa-Cabrera, 2014, p. 1).

The study will attempt to ascertain exactly what the intentions of the participants are in order to implement the theory in developing a business entity that is both profitable and produces environmentally safe products.

Accomplishing the goals and objectives of the proposed business entity however, will only take place once it has been discerned that the viability of such an approach can be successfully addressed. In order to discover the viability an evaluation tool has been created that will be disseminated to participants at a local sporting goods store. The evaluation tool is a questionnaire containing eight questions concerning the buying patterns of the participants as it regards to retail sporting goods. The questions are coded with a scale of 1-5 points with 1 being the least likely to purchase and 5 being the most likely. The number of participants are projected to be between 50 -100 individuals. The analysis will take place by adding the scored results for each question and then dividing those scored results by the number of participants. The resulting number should be between 1 and 5. The midpoint, of course, will be 3; anything below that will determine that the participants were not likely to act in a certain manner, while anything over the midpoint means that the participants would act in a certain way, or believe in a certain manner. The higher the number, the more positive the response, the lower the number the more negative the response. The best graphical display for the scaled eight quantitative questions would be a bar chart showing the number of responses and how highly (or low) the responses were for each question.