Chapter 3

Business Research
Methods
Donald Cooper
Pamela Schindler
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Chapter 3

The Research Process

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The Management-Research
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Question Hierarchy
Slide 3 - 1

Management
Decision
5 Measurement
Questions
4 Investigative
Questions
3 Management
Questions
2 Research
Questions
Management Dilemma

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Management Dilemma
The symptom of an actual problem
Not difficult to identify a dilemma, however
choosing one to focus on may be difficult

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Management Question Categories

Choice of purposes or objective
Generation and evaluation of solutions
Troubleshooting or control situation

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Fine tune the research question

Examine concepts and constructs
Break research questions into specific
second-and-third-level questions
Verify hypotheses with quality tests
Determine what evidence answers the
various questions and hypothesis
Set the scope of your study
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Investigative Questions
Questions the researcher must answer to
satisfactorily arrive at a conclusion about
the research question

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Measurement Questions
The questions we actually ask or extract
from respondents

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Other
in the
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Exploration
Recent developments
Predictions by informed figures about
the prospects of the technology
Identification of those involved in the
area
Accounts of successful ventures and
failures by others in the field
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Research
Problems
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The Favored Technique Syndrome

Company Database Strip-Mining
Unresearchable Questions
Ill-Defined Management Problems
Politically Motivated Research

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thetitle
Study
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Select a research design from the

large variety of methods, techniques,
procedures, protocols, and sampling
plans

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Resource
Allocation
& style
Budgets
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Guides to plan a budget

Project planning
Data gathering
Analysis, interpretation, and reporting

Types of budgeting
Rule-of-thumb
Departmental or functional area
Task
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Methods
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Ex Post Facto Evaluation

Prior Evaluation
Option Analysis
Decision Theory

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Contents
of aMaster
Research
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title Proposal
style
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Statement of the research question

Brief description of research methodology
Pilot Testing
Data collection
Data preparation
Data analysis and interpretation
Research reporting

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Collection
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Characterized by
abstractness
verifiability
elusiveness
closeness to the phenomenon

Types
Secondary data
Primary data
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Final
Steps
in Research
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Data analysis
Reporting the results
Executive summary
Overview of the research
Implementation strategies for the
recommendations
Technical appendix

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