Research Paper on:
Research Methods

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
to assess any correlation between hedging and profitability and qualitative research to assess the causation and nature of any relationship, positive or negative. The subject of the research and potential  influences should be identified prior to the methodology being developed. The research in this case is the direct relationship between fuel hedging and profitability. The hypothesis will be Hypothesis  1; There is a positive correlation between the practice of fuel hedging in airlines and the profitability measures by the operating profit. When looking at this it is apparent  there may be a number of variables, a key variable may be the volatility of oil prices. This leads to the second hypothesis Hypothesis 2; There is a greater positive  correlation between fuel hedging practices and volatility of oil prices. As the volatility increases so does the hedging. This will lead us to a third hypothesis which may explain  why firms move towards heading at times of oil price volatility. Hypothesis 3; During times of oil volatility prices the airlines which are undertaking hedging will show a significantly  greater level of profitability compared to the airlines which choose not to hedge. The next stage is to consider the best approach to research. The suitability of any research  design may be assessed in terms of the viability, robustness and validity of the results. As the research is seeking to assess the correlation and the causation over the entire  industry it is necessary to uses a sample that is representative of the entire industry and a sample that has sufficient numbers to that the results may be applied with  only a small potential error. The use of two sample groups divided between firms that did or did not use hedging and then divided by years to reduce the potential