Introduction
Barnes and Noble is the biggest retail bookseller and prominent content retailer, digital media, and educational products globally. Its objective is to run the greatest Omni-channel specialty retail business in America. This mission assists customers and bookstores in achieving their goals and becoming a credit to the community serviced. The B&N Company manages approximately 600 Barnes & Noble bookstores in fifty countries, as well as BN.com Web’s finest e-commerce destinations (Flett, 2018). NOOK tablets, e-readers, as well as an extensive range of reading digital material are available from the NOOK digital business via the NOOK Store. This B&N is owned by Elliott Advisors (UK) Limited, and bookseller Daunt serves as CEO. Riggio, a bookseller, founded B&N and bought the brand names and bookstore on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Research Statement
The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: how can Barnes and Nobles’ future as the most renowned bookseller in the industry be secured? The presence of competitors and racial allegations does not limit them from competing. Barnes and Noble face competition from Amazon in the college demographic and other companies (Flett, 2018). Those in the college demographic do not prefer B&N bookstores as their priority for physical and electronic books buying or renting. This decline is significant for the engagement of a company to market penetration. Barnes and Noble should employ combined marketing communications to advertise their products and services and focus on e-mail and social media to inform those in the college demographic. B&A should concentrate on the Achievement of an exact balance among their prices should also be focused on gaining profits and a more comprehensive user market. Comfortable reading and studying environments positioning Barnes and Nobles to the populations in the college environment ought to require development.
According to the research, there is an increment in allegations about fake diversity. Attempts to provide a presentation for substantial support mentioned that the brick and mortar bookstore had made allegations. Conversely, engagement to a black history month campaign has companionship with the releasement of previously written books. These books are changed to imitate the cover to appear initially characterized by African American vise Caucasian. However, the effort failed to gain individuals’ trust of the minority or its supporters. A disastrous communal effect which seemed previously to be multicultural challenged established was in turn caused by these failed attempts. This effect used artificial intelligence to determine the redesigning of book covers.
However, Barnes and Nobles apologize as the publishing industry confronts the increased debate around race. This study is very crucial in the sociology and anthropology fields. The presence of communication strengthens the firms’ performances and simultaneously minimizes discrepancies between the firm and its competitors. Social psychologists study the nature of competition by examining the natural urge of competition and its conditions. This research enables the study of different people’s behavior, mental and physiological processes. It will help strengthen the understanding of psychological processes and draw educative and essential predictions. Although there are wide genetic and sex variations, psychiatry indicates that social inspiration and the intensity of rivalry substantially influence mental abilities. In a physical exertion context, rivalry may improve focus, whereas the existence of something like a rival may impair cognition and execution. These discoveries have significant consequences for schooling, the economy, and other cultural situations in actual life.
Literature Review
The central purpose of Edgerton’s book is to assist leaders and professionals in different leadership areas such as the government, education, media, and firms. They figure out what is required to ensure that educational parity is reached by minorities as early as possible with the majority population (Edgerton, 1995). He starts by studying society’s interest in the educational advancement of minorities. He performs narrative research on sharing concerns about minority education in philanthropist Miller’s interview. It is an ethnography study-based approach, consultation involving narrative which permits biographical approach.
The narrative has a language of the evocative background on Miller, who happens to have also encountered racial and ethnic prejudgments. His refreshing ethnological methodology relates to the study of the poor minority representation in Barnes and Noble. Convergence and academic achievement efforts, which sometimes occur among the poorly represented groups, help illustrate disparities in classes during the interview sessions. Data analysis and statistical shreds of evidence explain the percentage of an affected population or the people supporting a particular idea. He examined the US trends in the majority and minority educational attainment by Edgerton. The gaps between majority and minority disparities were keenly explored by laying the groundwork.
The inclusion of photographic techniques by Edgerton facilitates understanding and interpretation of the cover pictures used by B&N in this study. According to Creswell (2016), when conducting a systematic study, scholars select different fundamental approaches to choose, depending on lots of circumstances. On one extreme, the analyst can use quantitative techniques to measure assumptions, create forecasts, and finally explain an occurrence through estimates by employing determined quantities. This strategy allows the investigator to use figures in sampling methods to confirm that outcomes are statistically related and to describe their discoveries with figures. From the other extreme, a qualitative research method is when a scholar describes the standard and level of an issue while analyzing and trying to discover an occurrence.
The scholar can utilize writings to explain their results using this strategy. The audience sees a visual image of the researcher is doing through this methodological approach. Creswell (2016) also influenced the study by explaining setting standards for research methodology. After its recording, the output was recorded, analyzed, and classified into subjects. His works also inspired the processes that drove the research to guarantee that his book safeguarded subjects’ interests. The respondents afterward translated and checked the data available. Debates with focus groups revealed a variety of perspectives while also improving them. This book has served as an all-inclusive guide to the primary methodologies used in the research. These principles have been enhanced through the detailed procedures overview presented, many helpful and best practices offered by contributors, accurate screenings, and the warning tales grounded on the comprehensive collections research encounters in the discipline. The sections include a variety of trans-disciplinary and integrative approaches to examining professions using statistical, subjective, and hybrid methodologies techniques. This Handbook gathers prominent global experts to address barriers and facilitators from both methodology and analytic options, representing existing methods and experimental purposes in vocations study.
Through her book, Barnes & Noble: Business Analysis, Gregory’s scholarly works have been crucial in the research proposal. It explains Barnes and Noble’s history since it started in 1873. Her research methodologies have employed the approaches available for responding to problems or problem situations. Critical thinking and various responses are a proposal by a plurality of intervention methods; this, in turn, helps improve the fundamental imperialistic trends in creating the recommendation.
Her work elaborates a perspective on facilitating in which specific focus is paid to how the moderator of group processes may act as a temporary participant in the process, giving content ideas to the debates. The substantive contribution is significant to the work of community operational research because it explores what it may mean to build communities toward enhanced dialogical capabilities. These competences provide the potential of ethical participation, in which the facilitator acknowledges their participation in providing thoughts and perspectives on the topics highlighted. This engagement is legitimate as long as they moderate it by recognizing the need to subject all inputs to critical evaluation and self-reflection.
Individuals may function rather well as long as they are aware of the necessity. This operation raises a conceptual question about the statements made by group participants. It also underlines the need of being open to the challenges of others as part of the same dialogical approach. It emphasizes on critical self-reflection, such as being aware of how the facilitator’s intervention may influence the process. The fundamental concept of what we consider to be an acceptable intervention in group discussion is that supervisors become objectively conscious of functioning what has been referred to as critical self-reflection. To become critically aware and behave ethically in group contexts, the facilitator must expose their thinking to Habermasian validity tests. Anthropology is defined by its ability to explain why individuals choose to frequent Barnes & Noble cafés over others. Anthropology is a field of study that blends humanism with social science techniques.
Comprehensive Methodological Section
Ethnography is a subjective approach that analyzes human behavior, conduct, and appearance while also separating psychology from other fields. Using this ethnographic technique, anthropologists may determine astounding views by investigating a subject in individual, in context, across time, as well as from various angles. The ethnographic approach utilizes numerous data-gathering strategies to provide a comprehensive and contextual knowledge of the phenomena under investigation. This research will utilize methodologies such as observational research, interviews, focus groups, and content analysis.
While performing research, involvement observations and investigation opinions will be made from a variety of angles and perspectives. They will aid in viewing and chatting with people from diverse social groups that have differing degrees of familiarity with the events under investigation, and they grasp and respond to those occurrences in various ways. Anthropologists do research that incorporates information from surveys as well as assessments of people’s behavior and social relationships. Anthropologists participate in the study’s comprehensive, primarily qualitative data collection and undertake iterative analysis to find emergent patterns as well as gain insights into the information’s importance. An anthropological approach attempts to produce a dependable, competent, and repeatable assessment of well-described facts. Scholars want to do more than just analyze application and ramifications, thus anthropology has a lot to offer in terms of research and assessment.
Anthropology reveals the contextual importance and reasons for such descriptions inside a rapidly rising company (Barnes & Noble Café). An anthropological method can assist academics in examining and recognizing alterations in a changing firm. This capacity leads to causes in rehearsal, between individuals, and in society, which determines transition judgements on how differences arise and those impacted. The method goes beyond quantitative data to look at subjective elements of how the practice is evolving, why certain variations are occurring in a given critical course, and how persons engaged grasp and experience the changes. This technique comprises studying issues from many perspectives and employing a range of methods, such as data collection from individuals, staff members, and other sources. Anthropological evaluations are used by researchers to identify cultural development and to discover shared cultural interpretations among varied stakeholders. Documenting the drastic shift in replication of way of life and people’s connections with this change as organizational renovation plans evolve is part of an ongoing anthropological study.
In this regard, the researcher used a variety of data collection methods. A focus group was the gold standard of fieldwork back then. There were also several levels of participant observation, ranging from active participation to passive observation. Participant observation was useful at numerous phases of the assessment process, including flagging issues that needed additional investigation using other data gathering methods. Participation observation proceeded as a process assessment, with various types of data collecting ranging from extrapolation of prior findings to direct observations of the specific incidents stated by participants. Through participant observation, the researcher was able to assess actual performance during the study time. This method’s expertise can aid improve the interpretation of information acquired through interviews. The researcher took observations at various points throughout time to identify patterns and differences.
Unrestricted queries were used in detailed individual dialogs to represent the informant’s cognitive and perceptual surroundings. Personal interviews enabled participants to tell their stories in length and clarity without worrying about what their peers might think. Given the need for multiple interviews, which are frequently conducted by more than one researcher, as well as the comparison and contrast of internee feedback requirements in Barnes & Noble Café, the semi-structured survey, which coupled continuity and flexibility, was the most useful most structured dialog for this evaluation. A semi-structured investigation used an interview guide with a core set of open-ended inquiries and expected follow-up questions to guarantee that the researcher asks all respondents a minimal number of identical queries in order to obtain meaningful, comparable qualitative information.
Furthermore, the researcher was able to use this interview approach to ask spontaneously constructed questions in order to corroborate the participants’ responses and to report back on three new, noteworthy subjects provided by the participants. Semi-structured interviews necessitate the participation of someone who has been trained in unstructured questioning and is comfortable asking open-ended questions to elicit clarification from participants. The interviews can be recorded and transcribed, and they can be of any length. There were interviews going on with folks from all walks of life who were taking part in the Barnes & Noble Café evaluation process. Bringing together multiple viewpoints offered a lot of information and unexpected insights on the Barnes & Noble Café and its impact, exposing areas of challenge and achievement for the practice.
Focus groups were indeed employed to conduct research and collect data from a diverse range of people with varying points of view. Focus groups are a sort of group interview used by academics to collect information on under researched subjects where the full range of varied domains is undiscovered and the complex interplay among respondents is of interest. Focus groups are preferred over individual in-depth interviews when data gathering benefits from the dynamic created by group debate. The discussion typically elicits information and insights that would be challenging to get in a subsequent interview, such as the informal communication strategies used by participants.
In the study, focus groups were used to assist practice employees with their intentions for practice transition or to suggest particular concerns to tackle early in the process and many others to handle later. To guarantee the secrecy of the participants and to offer a comfortable environment for discussing ideas, this study avoided including persons at different levels of rank and within administrative hierarchies in focus groups. These qualitative approaches included ten participants in them and lasted one to two hours. When audio recordings and transcriptions are used to conceal participants’ identities, each focus group serves as a single unit of analysis irrespective of the number of respondents.
Textual Analysis methodologies produced a variety of texts that provided useful insights on their operation, values, and methodology. Anthropological methodologies were used to investigate essential themes and structures in documents such as practicing mission statements, informative brochures, and procedure manuals. The researchers conducted a thorough examination of the practice’s textual resources for its personnel, members, and the community. The purpose of the systematic review is to determine how stakeholders believe about the practice’s primary objective, services, and transformation goals in order to better comprehend the larger environment in which the technique, its employees, and its service delivery exist. Less typically, practice-produced narratives were seen as literary material that provided critical insights into the practice setting. Researchers acquired valuable insights into hitherto undefined attitudes, motives, and hopes about and for the practice culture. These benefits were achieved as a result of groups and individuals developing their practice narratives, documenting their practice histories, and participating in story rewriting as part of the transformation process.
Interview Guide
- Is the participant consented to participate in the interview?
- What are your café’s products and services?
- What is your role in provision of the stated products and services?
- How could you give a brief work history of this company?
- What are your feelings about the past and present of this company?
- What are some of the problems you encounter in the company?
- What is your attitudes and approaches towards the work partners?
- How can you describe your relationship with the external environment?
- Where do you see Barnes and Noble in the next few years?
- What are some measures you will employ in attaining the stated goals?
These questions are important since interviewing with an unconsented interviewee can be attitude-based; therefore, this will help avoid biasness. When conducting an interview, the interviewer possesses very little or no information about the issue on research. These question serves as the basis of other research questions. The feedback will explain how the various services and products reach the college demographic. It will state the opportunities offered and contrast the past to the present. Statement of any history positive or negative attitude from the past. They give a statement and definition of any issue arising and how they purpose to overcome. These questions will further elaborate its relationship with other related companies, the issues like competition and taste and preference of its clients. The feedback will help determine whether B&N’s growth is positive or negative. Investigating measures employed in attaining the stated goals will help determine whether the standards are SMART or create biasness among some individuals. The internal environmental relations will also be explained and the respondent will clearly define the criticized matter on racial disparity.
A standardized open-ended interview will be employed, and therefore, this guide format will facilitate comfort since they match my experience in the Barnes and Noble café. The respondents will be free to answer the questions hence facilitating faster interviews. The above order of questions reaches the problem of the study and provides the behavior, opinions, feelings, knowledge, and background answers. Furthermore, it will enable in-depth information around the study in problem.
References
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2016). Qualitative inquiry and research design (4th Edition). Web.
Edgerton, R. (1995). A new case for accelerating minority educational advancement.
Flett, A. (2018). Book ReviewOrthodontic Therapy: Fundamental Treatment Concepts. By A Wichelhaus (HF Wolf, ed). New York/Stuttgart: Thieme Publishers, 2017 (560 pp, €229.99/$249.99 h/b). eBook available from ebookstore. thieme.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes. Orthodontic Update, 11(1), 30-30. Web.