Business Research Methods 1 Iris Lijkendijk
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Managerial decisions that are based on:
• The results of “good” research tend to be more effective
• Hunches, intuition and past experiences are more likely to be wrong
The managers are from Mars, researchers are from Venus myth:
• There is no need to study business research for a future manager
But, managers with knowledge about business research have an advantage over
managers who don’t
The most research is not read myth:
• Business research ends up in the bottom drawer
This happens often, however this is often due to the manager being intimidated by
the research, caused by a lack of understanding.
The big bucks myth:
• Business research is only for the wealthiest organisations
This is not true, one of the solutions being A/B-testing. The practice of giving a part
of the visitors of the website version A and the other part of visitors version B. After
a while, you will look at the difference in conversion rate and select the version
with the highest rate. So, business research is diverse: it can be cheap or expensive.
The big decision myth:
• Business research is only useful when you have a major decision to make.
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110
, For small decisions, it is often better for the manager to carry out their own
research. Creating strategies often does not take a long time but analysing which
strategy to use is very time consuming.
The universal truth myth:
• There is just one best way of researching a business problem.
There is no such thing as an absolute truth in business, nevertheless this does not
imply that any research is good.
Business research
“A series of well-thought-out and carefully executed activities that enable the
manager to know how organisational problems can be solved, or at least
considerably minimised” (Sekaran & Bougie, , p. )
A business researcher:
• Speci es the information necessary to address these issues
• Designs the method for collecting information
• Manages and implements the data collection process
• Analyses the results
• Communicates the ndings and their implications
Hallmarks of scienti c research
• Purposiveness • Precision and con dence
• Rigor • Objectivity
• Testability • Generalisability
• Replicability • Parsimony
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, . Purposiveness
• Does it lead to the goal that you had in mind?
• Knowing the why of the research
. Rigor
• Ensuring a sound theoretical base and methodological design
• Left: A theoretical base that explains job performance based on articles
including the important concepts.
• Right: sample of a population that resembles this population
. Testability
• Being able to test logically developed ideas based on data
• Narrow down different explanations
. Replicability
• Finding the same results if the research is repeated in similar circumstances
• Can you replicate your ndings?
. Precision and con dence
• Drawing accurate conclusions with a high degree of con dence
• Narrow con dence intervals re ect accurate estimates
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, . Objectivity
• Drawing conclusions based on facts (rather than subjective ideas)
• did you incorporate intuition or were you completely objective?
. Generalisability
• Being able to apply research ndings in a wide variety of different settings
. Parsimony
• Shaving away unnecessary details, explaining a lot with a little
• did you include the right amount of variables that were actually required or did
you include unnecessary variables
Research process
• Identify problem area and de ne problem statement
• Theoretical framework, hypothesis and model
• Determine nature of research, methods, sampling…
• Data collection
• Data preparation and data analysis
• Data interpretation
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Lecture 1 - Introduction
Managerial decisions that are based on:
• The results of “good” research tend to be more effective
• Hunches, intuition and past experiences are more likely to be wrong
The managers are from Mars, researchers are from Venus myth:
• There is no need to study business research for a future manager
But, managers with knowledge about business research have an advantage over
managers who don’t
The most research is not read myth:
• Business research ends up in the bottom drawer
This happens often, however this is often due to the manager being intimidated by
the research, caused by a lack of understanding.
The big bucks myth:
• Business research is only for the wealthiest organisations
This is not true, one of the solutions being A/B-testing. The practice of giving a part
of the visitors of the website version A and the other part of visitors version B. After
a while, you will look at the difference in conversion rate and select the version
with the highest rate. So, business research is diverse: it can be cheap or expensive.
The big decision myth:
• Business research is only useful when you have a major decision to make.
Page of
110
, For small decisions, it is often better for the manager to carry out their own
research. Creating strategies often does not take a long time but analysing which
strategy to use is very time consuming.
The universal truth myth:
• There is just one best way of researching a business problem.
There is no such thing as an absolute truth in business, nevertheless this does not
imply that any research is good.
Business research
“A series of well-thought-out and carefully executed activities that enable the
manager to know how organisational problems can be solved, or at least
considerably minimised” (Sekaran & Bougie, , p. )
A business researcher:
• Speci es the information necessary to address these issues
• Designs the method for collecting information
• Manages and implements the data collection process
• Analyses the results
• Communicates the ndings and their implications
Hallmarks of scienti c research
• Purposiveness • Precision and con dence
• Rigor • Objectivity
• Testability • Generalisability
• Replicability • Parsimony
Page of
110 fi
2 fi fifi 2016 2
, . Purposiveness
• Does it lead to the goal that you had in mind?
• Knowing the why of the research
. Rigor
• Ensuring a sound theoretical base and methodological design
• Left: A theoretical base that explains job performance based on articles
including the important concepts.
• Right: sample of a population that resembles this population
. Testability
• Being able to test logically developed ideas based on data
• Narrow down different explanations
. Replicability
• Finding the same results if the research is repeated in similar circumstances
• Can you replicate your ndings?
. Precision and con dence
• Drawing accurate conclusions with a high degree of con dence
• Narrow con dence intervals re ect accurate estimates
Page of
210
4
5
1
3 fi fi fi fl fi
, . Objectivity
• Drawing conclusions based on facts (rather than subjective ideas)
• did you incorporate intuition or were you completely objective?
. Generalisability
• Being able to apply research ndings in a wide variety of different settings
. Parsimony
• Shaving away unnecessary details, explaining a lot with a little
• did you include the right amount of variables that were actually required or did
you include unnecessary variables
Research process
• Identify problem area and de ne problem statement
• Theoretical framework, hypothesis and model
• Determine nature of research, methods, sampling…
• Data collection
• Data preparation and data analysis
• Data interpretation
Page of
610
7
8
1
4
fifi
