Business Research Methods: I
Lecture 1
Agenda
- Course outline
- Why is a business research course important ?
- Myths about business research
- What is business research ?
- Research process
- Research design
Objectives of the course
- Insight into the business research process
- Explain steps in business research process
- Research design
- Data collection
- Data analysis
- Develop quantitative research skills
- Analysing
- Reporting
- Apply quantitative research skills
Why is a business research course important ?
- Managerial decisions that are based on:
- The results of «good» research tend to be more e ective
- Hunches, intuition, and past experiences are more likely to be wrong
- To be able to perform business research
- e.g undertake research yourself to solve small problems you encounter
ff
, - To be able to steer business research
- e.g interact e ectively with researchers / research agencies
- To be able to evaluate business research
- To discriminate between good and bad research proposals of
researchers / research agencies
- To discriminate between good and bad published research studies
Myths about business research
- Managers are from Mars, researchers are from Venus
- There is no need to study business research for future managers
- Most research is not read
- Business research ends up in the bottom drawer
- Big bucks
- Business research is only for the wealthiest organisations
- Big decision
- Business research is only useful when you have a major decision to
make
- Universal
- There is just one way of researching business problem
What is 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
- A business research:
- 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
fi ff fi
, Hallmarks of scienti c research
1: Purposiveness
- Knowing «the why» of your research
- e.g.
- The stock market reaction to our sustainability investments is weak
- Employees are dissatis ed
- Tra c to our website is low
- The sales of our new products are lagging
2: Rigor
- Ensuring a sound theoretical based and methodological design
ffi fi fi
, 3: Testability
- Being able to test logically developed ideas based on data
4: Replicability
- Finding the same results if the research is repeated in similar
circumstances
5: Precision & con dence
- Drawing accurate conclusion with a high degree of con dence
6: Objectivity
- Drawing conclusions based on facts (rather than on subjective ideas)
7: Generalisability
- Being able to apply research ndings in a wide variety of di erent settings
- Applied research
- To solve current problem faced by a manager
- Applies to a speci c company
- Within rms or research agencies
- Fundamental (or basic) research
- To generate new knowledge about how problems that occur in several
rms can be solved
- Applies to several organisational settings
- Mainly within universities and knowledge institutes
8: Parsimony
- Shaving away unnecessary details, explaining a lot with a little
fi
fi fi fi fi fi ff
Lecture 1
Agenda
- Course outline
- Why is a business research course important ?
- Myths about business research
- What is business research ?
- Research process
- Research design
Objectives of the course
- Insight into the business research process
- Explain steps in business research process
- Research design
- Data collection
- Data analysis
- Develop quantitative research skills
- Analysing
- Reporting
- Apply quantitative research skills
Why is a business research course important ?
- Managerial decisions that are based on:
- The results of «good» research tend to be more e ective
- Hunches, intuition, and past experiences are more likely to be wrong
- To be able to perform business research
- e.g undertake research yourself to solve small problems you encounter
ff
, - To be able to steer business research
- e.g interact e ectively with researchers / research agencies
- To be able to evaluate business research
- To discriminate between good and bad research proposals of
researchers / research agencies
- To discriminate between good and bad published research studies
Myths about business research
- Managers are from Mars, researchers are from Venus
- There is no need to study business research for future managers
- Most research is not read
- Business research ends up in the bottom drawer
- Big bucks
- Business research is only for the wealthiest organisations
- Big decision
- Business research is only useful when you have a major decision to
make
- Universal
- There is just one way of researching business problem
What is 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
- A business research:
- 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
fi ff fi
, Hallmarks of scienti c research
1: Purposiveness
- Knowing «the why» of your research
- e.g.
- The stock market reaction to our sustainability investments is weak
- Employees are dissatis ed
- Tra c to our website is low
- The sales of our new products are lagging
2: Rigor
- Ensuring a sound theoretical based and methodological design
ffi fi fi
, 3: Testability
- Being able to test logically developed ideas based on data
4: Replicability
- Finding the same results if the research is repeated in similar
circumstances
5: Precision & con dence
- Drawing accurate conclusion with a high degree of con dence
6: Objectivity
- Drawing conclusions based on facts (rather than on subjective ideas)
7: Generalisability
- Being able to apply research ndings in a wide variety of di erent settings
- Applied research
- To solve current problem faced by a manager
- Applies to a speci c company
- Within rms or research agencies
- Fundamental (or basic) research
- To generate new knowledge about how problems that occur in several
rms can be solved
- Applies to several organisational settings
- Mainly within universities and knowledge institutes
8: Parsimony
- Shaving away unnecessary details, explaining a lot with a little
fi
fi fi fi fi fi ff
