Business Research
1 Introduction to Research
Research is the process of finding solutions to a problem after a thorough study and analysis of the situational factors.
1.2. What is business research?
1. Applied research
1 Introduction to Research
Research is the process of finding solutions to a problem after a thorough study and analysis of the situational factors.
1.2. What is business research?
- Research provides the needed information that guides managers to make informed decisions to successfully deal with problems.
- The information provided could be the result of a careful analysis of data gathered firsthand or of data that are already available (in the company).
1. Applied research
- Is to solve a current problem faced by the manager in the work setting,demanding a timely solution.
- Is to generate a body of knowledge by trying to comprehend how certain problems that occur in organizations can be solved.
- The findings of such research contribute to the building of knowledge in the various functional areas of business.
- Solve problems
- Decision making tool
- Competition
- Risk
- Investment
- Hire researchers and consultants more effectively
- Observation
- Identification of problem area
- Theoretical framework
- Hypotheses
- Research design
- Data collection
- Data analysis
- Data interpretation
- Implementation
- Observation
- Problem identification
- preliminary information gathering
- Theoretical framework
- theory formulation
- Hypothesizing
- Research design
- further scientific data collection
- logical analysis
- Deduction
- Problem statement is a clear, precise, and succinct statement of the question or issue that is to be investigated with the goal of finding an answer or solution.
- Theoretical framework is the foundation on which the entire research project is based. It is logically developed, described, and elaborated network of associations among the variables relevant to the problem situation.
- A hypothesis is a tentative statement that proposes a possible explanation to some phenomenon or event. A useful hypothesis is a testable statement which may include a prediction. A hypotheses should not be confused with a theory.
- Data analysis: the data gathered are statistically analyzed to see if the hypotheses that were generated have been supported.
- Measurement is the process observing and recording the observations that are collected as part of a research effort.
- Deduction is the process of arriving at conclusions by interpreting the meaning of the data analysis results.
- Well begun is half done” --Aristotle, quoting an old proverb
- Where do research topics come from?
- The idea for a research project?
- One of the most common sources of research ideas is the experience of practical problems in the field?
- The Literature Review
- QUESTIONING
- PLANNING
- GATHERING
- SORTING & SIFTING
- SYNTHESIZING
- EVALUATING
- REPORTING*
- Almost every organization has to engage in research at some level to stay competitive.
- Companies gather data both from within and outside the organization.
- The methods used to gather, analyze, and synthesize information from the external and internal environments are becoming increasingly sophisticated to the immense scope of computer technology.
- ICT
- Information
- Communication
- Technology
- Observation
- Data gathering
- Problem definition
- Theoretical framework (variables identified)
- Hypotheses
- Research design
- Data collection, analysis, interpretation
- Deduction
- Report writing
- Report presentation
- Managerial decision making
- Purpose of the study:
- Exploratory study
- Is undertaken when no information is available on how similar problems or research issues have been solved in the past
- Descriptive study
- Is to able to describe the characteristics of the variables of interest in a situation.
- Hypotheses testing
- Is undertaken to explain the variance in the dependent variable or to predict organizational outcomes.
- Case studies
- Research design can be thought of as the structure of research -- it is the “glue” that holds all of the elements in a research project together
- The rating scale
- Have several response categories
- Likert scale is designed to examine how strongly subject agree or disagree with statements on a 5-point scale
- Ranking scale
- Are used to tap preferences between two or more objects or items
- Goodness of measure : reliability, validity
- Data can be collected in a variety ways, data sources can be primary or secondary.
- Data collection methods such as:
- interview(face-to-face, telephone, computer-assisted interviews),
- Questionnaires
- Observation
- Motivational technique
- A sample is a subset of the population.
- Sample is the process of selecting a sufficient number of elements from the population.
- Studying a sample rather the entire population is sometimes to lead to more reliable results, mostly because fatigue is reduced, resulting in fewer errors on collection data. (time, cost, human resources)
- Surveys are useful and powerful in finding answers to research question but if data are not collected from the people or objects that can provide the correct answers to solve the problem, the survey will be in vain.
- The data analysis involves three major steps, done in roughly this order:
- Cleaning and organizing the data for analysis (Data Preparation)
- Describing the data (Descriptive Statistics)
- Testing Hypotheses and Models (Inferential Statistics)
- Descriptive statistics
- Provide simple summaries about the sample and the measures.
- Central Tendency. The central tendency of a distribution is an estimate of the “center” of a distribution of values. There are three major types of estimates of central tendency:
- Mean is the most common-used measure of data tendency. =average.
- Median is the middle value, when the data is arranged in numerical order.
- Mode is the value (number) that appears the most.
- Dispersion (Range, Standard Deviation)refers to the spread of the values around the central tendency
- Inferential statistics
- t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), regression analysis, Correlation is a measure of the relation between two or more variables.
- We use inferential statistics to make judgments of the probability that an observed difference between groups. Thus, we use inferential statistics to make inferences from our data to more general conditions;
- We use descriptive statistics simply to describe what's going on in our data.
- Research proposal
- Research report
- Research presentation
- Abstract - Brief summary of the contents of the article
- Introduction - A explanation of the purpose of the study, a statement of the research question(s) the study intends to address
- Literature review - A critical assessment of the work done so far on this topic, to show how the current study relates to what has already been done
- Methods - How the study was carried out (e.g. instruments or equipment, procedures, methods to gather and analyze data)
- Results - What was found in the course of the study
- Discussion - What do the results mean
- Conclusion - State the conclusions and implications of the results, and discuss how it relates to the work reviewed in the literature review; also, point to directions for further work in the area
