The Business of Staying in Business: a cross sectional, mixed method questionnaire and interview of managers’ perceptions of the influence of economic variables on profit sustainability of retail firms in Scottburgh

Abstract

This paper describes how the researcher uses qualitative interview research techniques to better understand the results of the quantitative survey research techniques used to identify managers’ perspectives pertaining to the influence of economic variables on business sales. Data from the quantitative survey were used to construct the qualitative interview questions to provide explanations to manager’s individual responses. The data obtained from the quantitative study was inserted within the Theory of the Firm Profit Maximisation Model to identify the perceived increase/decrease of profits caused by the fluctuations of economic variables. These findings were backed up with the reasoning given by the qualitative data. The insights gained from the combined quantitative and qualitative data suggest that the economic variables are perceived to have an effect on the sales made within each manager’s business, however, the managers provide different types of impacts and reasoning’s to back up how the different economic variables have an influence on the sales of their business.