Katlene D.

Hortilano

BSAccountancy 4-1

RESEARCH METHODS

1). In the field of scientific research, the issues of validity and reliability are of great

importance. As a researcher, you have to make sure that the research method used will help you

to obtain valid and reliable data.

In measuring a firm’s environmental sensitivity, interviewing the members of the

organization would be a great help for the researcher but it will still not going to be enough in

obtaining reliable and sufficient information for the research. By merely interviewing the

members of the organization, you can only capture their individual perceptions and what theory

they think is in place, not a holistic view of the issue at hand. In a situation wherein interviewing

the members of the organization is not available, the researcher needs to find a way in order to

conduct the said research about the organization. This is where the nuances between espoused

theory and theory-in-use come in. The espoused theory is when a person is asked and they

describe how they behave while the theory-in-use is what a person actually uses. These two

theories often differ from each other.

Meanwhile, the best way to conduct this study is to:

1. Look for a widely-used, validated indicator index of firms’ environmental sensitivity.

Doing simple desk research about the operation of the firms and comparing it to one

another will also be helpful.

 2. Once you have an index, review the firm’s internal memos and publications

specifically highlighting the presence of those indicators.

3. Once you have gathered pertinent data about the firm’s course of actions towards

environmental sensitivity, you can then review external web pages and press releases

specifically highlighting how the firm actually applies their policies or programs

towards environmental sensitivity and how it affects other key players. Combining

those information will lead to achieving an accurate result of the study.

2). A. No, this is not a good and valid methodology. A researcher should never include his

personal judgements and biases in his study. In order for the consultant to have a holistic and

concrete view of what actually transpired, he first has to gather the necessary documents related

to the project like project plans.

After examining the necessary documents, the best way to gather data about how the

project was done and what actually went wrong is to conduct a focused group discussions

(FGDs) involving the key players in this project instead of conducting key informant interviews.

This way, the consultant will not only capture each key player’s individual take on the issue but

this will also allow for an exchange of ideas among them. Through this, the consultant can better

review the project and assess the issues and problems encountered; address the root cause.

B. The consultant’s attitude towards the interviewees is one of the major mistakes in

research. A researcher should always suspend his personal judgements and biases. This kind of

attitude can be plotted in between subject-respondent because the data that can be produced
through this methodology might not be reliable because the data was personally selected by the

consultant in a subjective manner.

3). In order to capture a particular culture, the best methodology is to conduct a focused

group discussion involving the members of the organization. While individual interviews can

also provide good results if you ask the right questions, the focused group discussion allows for

an exchange of ideas among the members which will also allow the consultant to obtain

sufficient data to work on. It is better to get the views of each and every members of the

organization about the said topic and conducting and individual interview will be a bit time

consuming while having a group discussion will be more convenient for the study.

In this kind of research, the questions asked are very important. The questions to be

asked should include the following among others:

 The rewards and awards given to the employees and how to acquire such awards or the

criteria as perceived by the members;

 What behaviours and actions are prohibited, and what happens if this is violated.

 How this culture or understanding affects the performance of each individuals in the

organization;

 The views and opinions of the individuals about this said culture of the organization.

After conducting the group discussion with the members of the organization using these

formulated questions, the researcher will be able to collect the ideas and opinions of the members

and comparing those data with each other in arriving to the more detailed information about the

culture of the organization.

4). Since this study aims to capture perceptions, the best research design to be used is

descriptive research (qualitative) since it will allow the researcher to capture individual

experiences and collate them to produce valuable results. The respondents will then be selected

through purposive sampling since we are only targeting a certain group which is the musicians in

the Boston area. Once the respondents are selected, an interview questionnaire will be designed.

This questionnaire will contain questions that will capture the Boston musicians’ experiences and

perceptions. It will also be better if the researcher can conduct a focused group discussion just to

capture how each musician’s experiences and perceptions about the music world around them –

the bands, the public, and the business differs from one another.

Once the results are gathered, common theories will be identified and that will serve as

the starting point for data interpretation. Through these steps, the researcher will be able to

categorize and differentiate each of the perceptions of the selected respondents to arrive into the

final result of the study.

5). In order to understand which attributes of entrepreneurs lead to long term success, a

descriptive research will be conducted. The respondents will be selected through purposive

sampling. In this day, a theoretical background about the topic is necessary. The theory will then

be put to test by interviewing selected entrepreneurs. After selecting the entrepreneurs, the

researcher should formulate questions related to the personality traits of entrepreneurs and how

they compare to other groups; their attitudes towards risk that they display; and the overall goals
and aspirations that they bring to their pursuits. Properly and correctly formulated questions will

help the researcher in achieving the accurate results of the study.

The researcher should also be careful in selecting the entrepreneurs to be interviewed. It

would be better to choose those that have already a lot of experiences and are already a bit

successful in their fields for they will be able to share a lot of relevant information regarding to

their success.

In preparing for conducting the study, it would also be better for the researcher to have

some research first about the past studies related to the topic. This will enable the researcher to

have an idea about the study to be conducted.