1 Research Methodology

1.1 Research method

1.1.1 Research Philosophy

Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill (2013) have defined research philosophy as the process of
developing knowledge regarding the issue of the research through the world view of the
researcher. Positivism, realism, interpretivism, and pragmatism are four major research
philosophies. Positivism ignites the use of evidence-based observations through quantitative
method and numerical data analysis to determine the outcome of a research. Realism is also a
scientific philosophy like positivism which also used evidence-based observations but makes
some pre-determined assumptions to make the investigation easy. Interpretivism philosophy
is developed with a view to differentiate the social aspects of a research from human aspects.
Finally, pragmatism philosophy uses advanced scientific methods to generalise the outcome
of the research. However, this study aims at investigating the impact of customer satisfaction
on customer locality. Therefore, evidence-based data, collected quantitatively, will be
required along with numerical data analysis. These issues are best mitigated if positivism
philosophy is used; therefore the philosophy will be positivism.