The College of Business Administration (CBA) is committed to pursue research as an inherent part of its mandate as shown in its research outputs for the past five years. Each department comprising the college is tasked to contribute to the goals of the college.

            Research efforts of the college are focused on generating research proposals along the three core areas defined in the research agenda of DLSU-D: community development, conservation and preservation of the environment, and enhancement of culture and the arts. Corollary activities as data base establishment, mentoring and partnering, lounge lectures, networking and fund generation, back staffing, curricular upgrading, and special projects will also be undertaken.  Thus, priority areas have been identified as follows:

Priority Areas

1. Environmental Issues
2. Population
3. Trade
4. Labor Issues
5. Agriculture                                                                                                       
6. Agribusiness
7. Consumer/product behavior
8. The use of environmental situation in teaching business, accounting, management, and marketing

A. Environmental Issues.
This area focuses on the importance of environmental issues in economic development. Three important research issues are of paramount importance: defining sustainability, investigating equity, and complex relationships between individuals and environmental conditions. There is a growing body of evidence supporting an association between environmental degradation and high concentration of industries and human population. Extensive literature review and empirical analysis to identify key gaps in knowledge will aid relevant policy in the area of environmental resource management. More basic research is needed into all facets of environmental degradation and development of potentials models for preventive purposes.

Specific Areas:

1. Waste Management Practices
2. Environmental Pricing and Modeling
3. Cost and Benefit Analysis of Environmental programs/Projects
4. Alternative Technology that is Eco-friendly
5. Impact of Environmental Laws to Business
6. Operations of Companies in Cavite
7. Environmental Impact of Resorts
8. Industry Mapping of the province of Cavite and other provinces in CALABARZON
9. Ecology Sound accounting system of DLSU-D
10. TBL-Reporting of Establishments in Gateway
11. Business Process Restructuring for One Town, One product for the province of Cavite

           
B. Population.
The extent of interrelationship of rapid population growth and socio- economic development has not been sufficiently explored. This relationship has become more critical as industries spring up to take advantage of incentives in the economic zone. In the CALABARZON for instance, real state builders for all over the country have invaded to partake in the boom. The real state boom has also encouraged migration. More research is needed to identify the factors that impact on the economy due to population increase.

Specific Areas:

1. Urban/rural migration models
2. Poverty alleviation
3. Poverty and Taxation

C. Trade.  Trade is a central issue associated with economic development. However the gains of trade are also a function of reforms adopted by government. More often than not, some good policies fail to generate intended results. Even when policies do succeed, the absence of clear cut models to decompose gains and losses are evident. Research on assessment of the efficacy of different reforms aimed at promoting incentives to exporters will contribute to a better understanding of the importance of trade to the economy.

Specific Areas:

1. Export performance (industrial zones)
2. Manufacturing (Non-manufacturing)
3. Assessment of existing models for trade
4. Restructuring of Taxation

D. Labor Issues.  Comparative research is needed to identify empirical evidence on employment – related issues including mobility, productivity, wage structures, human capital investment, discriminatory practices and labor unions. Additionally, globalization has introduced preference on certain production in the economic zones. Evidence of overall assessment of impacts of globalization in enhancing productivity and labor creation is needed.

 Specific Areas:

1. Labor Practices/culture
2. Wages/Productivity/Employment/Labor unions
3. Wage model

E. Agriculture.  The Philippine economy is still largely agricultural, but traditional farming is gradually giving way to commercial enterprise especially with the entry of Multinational Corporation in food processing. However, potential problems arise when large scale agricultural methods are adopted. For instance, loss of soil fertility, water pollution and damage to watersheds are some of the unsustainable practices associated with intensive agriculture. In the CALABARZON, where rapid conversion of traditional agricultural lands had taken place, there has not been clear cut evidence of increased efficiency of farmlands. For the traditional farmers, dissemination of accurate and timely marketing information has remained a serious drawback.

Specific Areas:

1. Export Performance
2. Efficiency of Farmlands
3. Housing/land conversion
4. Estimation of demands for agricultural products
5. The effect of land conversion to the income of the farmers

F. Agribusiness.  As the Philippine agriculture undergo structural changes due to the introduction of large-scale methods of farming, so does the agribusiness firm struggle to survive. Advances in technology brought about by globalization has fueled and intensified consumer expectations. The most basic problem is lack of skilled practitioners in the agribusiness firms. Many feeder schools to tile agribusiness chain have reported drastic decreases in enrolment. Evidence of strategies employed by agribusiness firms to stay afloat in the midst of these changes has not been documented.

Specific areas:

1. Assessment of existing farm technologies
2. Marketing of Agricultural Production
3. Alternative models in Agricultural production
4. Analysis of farm gate prices and retail trade
5. The identification of an endemic product that has potential to become the flagship product

G. Consumer/ Product behavior.  Clear understanding of consumerism is the key to developing effective national and local management and marketing strategies for firms. Comparative consumer behavior issues and concerns are many and varied including brand loyalty, price sensitivity, purchasing and leasing, consumer satisfaction (anti dissatisfaction), advertising – (organizational, industrial, and buyer-seller relationships), and market segmentation. Primary concern to businesses and policymakers are insights that will improve consumer satisfaction and increase demand acceptance of goods.

Specific areas

1. Piracy and counterfeit goods
2. Household preferences, consumption of environmental – friendly goods
3. Spending culture, product performance
4. Demand for Commodities (Piracy and counterfeit goods)
5. Acceptance of local product to Supermalls (Are malls the sole channel of distribution of local product?)

H. Environmental situations in teaching business, accounting, management, economics, and marketing.  The challenge in the use of environmental situations in the assessment of costs is to ensure that necessary information are available to those responsible for making pricing decisions for products and services. In the context of environmental decisions, the traditional criteria such as NPV, IRR and economic profits may no longer be adequate in investment decisions. Investment decisions must make tradeoffs on impact to environmental resources. In other words, there may be costs (externalities) incurred by firms in the process of production that do not show up in income statements.

Specific areas

1. Evaluation of Environmental Practices
2. Environmental Participation and Awareness
3. Designing of environment friendly business curriculum