What is research?

Research is:
• “The process of thoroughly studying and
analysing the situational factors surrounding a
problem in order to seek out solutions to it”.
(Cavana, Delahaye and Sekaran, 2001: 4)
• ‘.. a systematic, careful inquiry or examination
to discover new information or relationships
and to expand/verify existing knowledge for
some specified purpose’ (Bennett, 1991: 68).
 What is business research?
• “Undertaking systematic research to find out things
about business and management” (Saunders, Lewis
and Thornhill, 2003: 3)
• “An organised, systematic, data-based, critical,
objective, scientific inquiry or investigation into a
specific problem or issue with the purpose of finding
solutions to it or clarifying it. (Cavana et al, 2001: 5)
 Why Do We Do Research?
(Babbie, 1995; Veal 2005)
• Exploration
– Uncovering issues of concern
– Increasing understanding of the problem
• Description
– Finding out, describing what is
– What is the situation? Where are we now?
 Why Do We Do Research?
(continued)
• Explanation
– Explaining how or why things are as they are (and
using this to predict)
– Answering questions, solving problems, testing
theories
• Evaluation research
– evaluation of policies, strategies, programs and
practices dents
Basic versus applied business research
• Basic – to enhance the understanding of
problems that commonly occur across a range
of organisations
• Applied – done with the intention of applying
results to specific problems in the business
 The Research Process
A general approach:
• Desire to do research
• Formulating and clarifying the topic
• Reviewing the literature
• Choosing a research strategy
• Collecting data
• Analysing data
• Reporting the findings (write-up)
 Scientific Investigation
• The need for an honest, truthful, accurate and
complete investigation
• Focused on the goals of problem-solving
• Pursues a step-by-step, logical, organised and
rigorous method
 The Hallmarks of Scientific
Research
1. Purposiveness 5. Accuracy
2. Rigour 6. Objectivity
3. Testability 7. Generalisability
4. Replicability 8. Parsimony