Research and its types

Dr. P C Gita
What is research?
• Management research is an unbiased, structured, and sequential
method of enquiry, directed towards a clear implicit or explicit
business objective.
• This enquiry might lead to validating existing postulates or arriving
at new theories and models.
• Research is a systematic and logical study of an issue or problem or
phenomenon through scientific method
Research is a scientific method
• Sytematic and Rational approach to seeking facts
Basis
• Reliance on empirical evidence(based on data)
• Use of concepts
• Commitment to objectivity (fairness, without subjectivity)
• Ethical neutrality
• Generalisation
• Verifiability
• Logical reasoning process
Applied Management Research?
• What is Management Research or Business
Research?
• Business research is defined as the systematic and
objective process of gathering, recording and
analysing data for making business decisions
(William G Zikmund)
• It is an unbiased, structured and sequential method
of enquiry, directed towards a clear business
objective – (Deepak Chawla and Neena Sondhi)
Research applications in marketing

• Market & consumer analysis

• Product research

• Pricing research

• Promotional research

• Place research
Research applications in Finance
• Asset pricing, capital markets and corporate finance

• Financial derivatives and credit risk modeling research

• Market-based accounting research

• Auditing and accountability

• Other areas: financial forecasting, behavioural finance, volatility analysis

Research applications in Finance
• Asset pricing, capital markets and corporate finance

• Financial derivatives and credit risk modeling research

• Market-based accounting research

• Auditing and accountability

• Other areas: financial forecasting, behavioural finance, volatility analysis

Research applications in HR
Training & development studies

Selection and staffing studies

Performance appraisal–design and evaluation

Organization planning and development

Incentive and benefits studies

Emerging areas–critical factor analysis, employer branding studies

Research applications in Production and operations
management

Operation planning and design

Demand forecasting and demand estimation

Process planning

Project management and maintenance effectiveness studies

Logistics and supply chain-design and evaluation

Quality estimations and assurance studies

Criteria for research
MUST have: a clearly stated research purpose/ objective

MUST have: a sequential plan of execution

MUST have: a logical and explicitly stated justification for the selected methods

MUST have: an unbiased and neutral method of conduct and reporting

MUST have: complete transparency and ethical conduction of the research

process
MUST have: provision for being reliable & replicable
 Types of Research
Historical Study
(Secondary data)

Pilot study
Basic or Pure Exploratory
research Research
Experience
Survey

Case Study
Research

Cross-sectional
studies
Descriptive
Research
Applied Conclusive Longitudinal
research Research studies
Causal Research
Basic and Applied research
• Pure / Basic / fundamental research : the basic premise is the need to KNOW
and the concern is primarily academic in nature.
• Research undertaken for the sake of knowledge without any intention to apply
to practice
• Eg. Invention of automobiles, electronic gadgets, telecommunication, economic
theories, etc.
• Applied research: Solution or action oriented research, that is contextual and
practical in approach.
• Immediate purpose of applied research is to find solutions to a practical problem
• Eg. Solutions in the field of technology, management, commerce, economics,
social sciences
Give some examples for Pure Research and
Applied Research
 Difference between Pure Research and
Applied Research

https://relivingmbadays.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/basic-versus-applied-research/
Exploratory and conclusive research
• Exploratory / formulative research is loosely structured and the basic
premise is to provide direction to subsequent, more structured method
of enquiry.
• Preliminary study of an unfamiliar problem
• the researcher has little or no knowledge.
• It is ill-structured and much less focused on pre-determined objectives
• Conclusive research is structured and definite in orientation.
• These studies are usually conducted to validate formulated hypotheses
and specified relationships.
Difference between Exploratory and
Conclusive
Exploratory research Conclusive research
Loosely structured in design Well structured and systematic in design
Formal and definitive methodology that
Flexible and investigative in needs to be followed and tested
methodology
Most conclusive researches are carried
Do not involve testing of hypotheses out to test the formulated hypotheses
Findings are significant as they have a
theoretical or applied implication.
Findings might be topic specific and
might not have much relevance outside
the researcher’s domain
 Categories of Exploratory Research
• Experience Surveys – It is an exploratory research technique in which
individuals who are knowledgeable about a particular research problem are
surveyed.
• Secondary Data analysis (Historical) – Review of existing literature on the
past events, past researches or studies from research journals, existing
theories in books in the library, Data that has been recorded in the past for
some other purpose, articles available in the internet etc.
• Case Studies – It is a technique that intensively investigates one or few
situations similar to the researchers' problem situation.
• Pilot studies – It generates primary data generally from the subjects such as
employees, customers, suppliers, dealers etc instead of the field experts. It is
done in a small scale to gain further knowledge or to refine the research
design before starting an in depth research.
Types of conclusive research
• Descriptive research: The main goal of this type of research is to
describe the data and characteristics about what is being studied.
• This is a fact-finding investigation with adequate interpretation. It is
more scientific than exploratory research

• Causal research: Explores the effect of one or more variables on

other variable(s), with reasonable level of certainty by controlling the
impact of other influencing variables.
 Descriptive Research
• Descriptive research is designed to describe characteristics of a
population or a phenomenon
• It helps to answer questions such as who, what, when, where
and how.
• Descriptive research often helps in segmenting the market,
describing what happened during a campaign, what happened
during onboarding, who were impacted and how etc
• Sometimes while describing, the researchers try to answer the
reasons for a problem (Question why) by conducting diagnostic
analysis but it doesn’t yield in good results as for such purpose
a causal research is preferred.
Two types of Descriptive Studies

• Cross-Sectional Studies – The cross-sectional studies are

conducted at a single point in time on a chosen sample of the
population. Hence, its applicability is most relevant for a specific
time period.

• Longitudinal Studies – A single sample of the identified

population is studied over a stretched period of time is termed
as longitudinal study.
 Causal Research
• The main goal of causal research is to identify cause and effect
relationships among the research variables when the research
problem has already been defined.
• It tries to explain the impact or influence of one variable on the
other say for example influence of the changes in the sale price of
a product on the quantity sales of it or say training on
productivity etc
• It explains the relationship between the research variables so as
to find out why something has happened, what was the cause
and how was the effect.
• There could be one or more independent variables and one or
more dependent variables
 Relationship between Problem definition to
Type of Business Research
Exploratory Research
Problem Ambiguous (Not clear about the
definition problem)
Example Sales are declining and the
reasons are unknown
Absenteeism is higher and the
reasons are unexplored
Descriptive Research
Partially defined
What kind of people are
buying a particular brand or
product of a company
What features are preferred
by a customer while buying a
particular product?
Causal Research
Clearly defined
What extent the sales of the
company be impact when the
price of the product is increased
What would be the impact of the
training program on the
productivity of the employees?
Quiz
Exploratory? Descriptive? Causal?
• Establishing the functional relationship between advertising and
sales
• Investigating reactions to the idea of a new method of defense
budgeting
• Identifying target-market demographics for a shopping center
• Estimating the prices for IBM stock 2 years in the future
• Learning how many organizations are actively involved in Just-in-
time production
• Learning the extent of job satisfaction in a company
Other types of research
Diagnostic study - directed towards discovering why a phenomenon
has occurred and the possible outcomes of it.
Evaluation study – to evaluation a programme
Action research – concurrent evaluation of an action programme
Experimental research –to assess the effect of particular
variables on a phenomenon keeping others constant
Historical research – based on past records
Surveys – fact finding
Experimental Research
• An experiment is generally used to infer Causality
• In an experiment the researcher actively manipulates one
or more causal variables and measures their effect on the
dependent variables
• It is virtually impossible to prove a causality as causality is
always probabilistic in nature and hence one can only infer
a cause and effect relationship
Environment for Experiments
• There are two types of environments in which the experiments
is conducted namely laboratory environments and field
environments
• In a laboratory environment the researcher conducts the
experiment in an artificial environment constructed exclusively
for the experiment
• The field experiment is conducted in actual market conditions
or in actual situations
Criteria for Good Research

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 Criteria for Good Researcher

• Good research is systematic: It means that research is

structured with specified steps to be taken in a specified
sequence in accordance with the well-defined set of rules.
• Systematic characteristic of the research does not rule out
creative thinking but it certainly does reject the use of guessing
and intuition in arriving at conclusions.
 Criteria for Good Researcher Contd…,
• Good research is logical: This implies that research
is guided by the rules of logical reasoning and the
logical process of induction and deduction are of
great value in carrying out research.
• Induction is the process of reasoning from a part to
the whole (specific to general) whereas deduction is
the process of reasoning from some premise to a
conclusion which follows from that very premise
Inductive Reasoning
(General to specific).
• In fact, logical reasoning makes research more
meaningful in the context of decision making

Deductive Reasoning
 Criteria for Good Researcher Contd…,
• Good research is empirical: It implies that research is related basically to
one or more aspects of a real situation (facts) and deals with concrete
data that provides a basis for external validity to research results.
• Good research is replicable: This characteristic allows research results to
be verified by replicating the study and thereby building a sound basis for
decisions.

http://muet-crp.yolasite.com/resources/Criteria%20of%20Good%20Research.pdf
Induction Vs Deduction
• Inductive method consists of studying several individual cases and
drawing a generalisation. It has two processes: observation and
generalisation
• It is reasoning from the particular to the general

• Deduction is the process of applying a general accepted principle to a

specific individual case falling under the general principle
• It is reasoning from the general to the particular
Inductive Example
• "The coin I pulled from the bag is a penny. The second coin is a penny.
A third coin from the bag is a penny.
• Therefore, all the coins in the bag are pennies.“

• Indians in USA are highly intelligent, Indians in UK are equally

intelligent (with a score)

• All Indians are intelligent

Deductive examples
• "All men are mortal. Harold is a man. Therefore, Harold is mortal."

• For deductive reasoning to be sound, the hypothesis must be correct.

It is assumed that the premises, "All men are mortal" and "Harold is a
man" are true.

• Therefore, the conclusion is logical and true. In deductive reasoning, if

something is true of a class of things in general, it is also true for all
members of that class
 Relationship between Manager
and a Researcher
• In an organization most of the times a manager doesn’t either find talent or
time to do the research on his own
• Hence a researcher is hired or appointed as consultant and the research work is
delegated
• This would work well if the business decisions are research driven and both the
parties are cooperative
• However, the separation of the research user (the manager) from the research
conductor (the researcher) can pose problems in data analysis, interpretation,
findings, conclusions and recommendations.
• In an organizational setting, the researcher should look on the manager as a
client and an effective working relationship between the researcher and the
manager could be achieved only when both fulfil their respective obligations
and over come the barriers if any
Obligations of the Manager
1. Specify the decision problems clearly and fully instead of
specifying the information requirement as per their
knowledge
2. Provide adequate data and information to the researcher
3. Grant access to company’s information gate keepers
Obligations of the Researcher

1. To develop good research designs that will provide

answers to important business questions
2. They should not only provide the analysis and the
results but also should share the implications
3. Conduct the research without any bias
 Conflicts between Managers and Researchers
• Conflicts arise between what the manager wants and what the researchers
provide.
• The decision makers want certainty and simple explicit recommendations
while the researcher can offer only probabilistic interpretations
• The lack of knowledge about research and research techniques of the
managers puts the manager under tremendous pressure because the
researcher is able to provide answers which the manager is not able to
• Also, this lack of knowledge acts as a hindrance in providing the data and
information that are requested by the researcher as the manager might not
understand the relevance of the data and information being requested.
• A knowledgeable manager understands the research design, process and
its requirements better. The researcher should also consider the
organization’s culture and the political situations and act accordingly.
The Research Process
The step in Research Process
• The management decision problem
• Defining the research problem
• Formulation of the working hypotheses
• Construction of the research proposal
• Formulating the research design
• Sampling considerations
• Collecting the data for the study
Contd
• Data analysis and interpretation of findings
• Formulating the research design
• Sampling considerations
• Collecting the data for the study
• Data analysis and interpretation of findings
• Research reporting
• Management decision process
 Research Problem
• Research Problem is defined as the gap or uncertainty in the
decision maker’s existing book of knowledge which inhibits
efficient decision making.

• The research problems could be simple and easy to

comprehend or could be complex to understand the
relationship between the variables, the cause and effects etc.
 Process of Defining a Research Problem
Frame the
research
Determine the questions and
relevant research
Decide the Unit variables for objectives
of Analysis the research
Isolate and
identify the
Understand problem, not
the background the symptoms
Find out the of the problem
decision
maker’s
Objectives

Finally, the decision problem becomes a research problem or research question

Understanding the background of the problem
• Discussion with experts
• Review of existing literature
• Organization analysis
• Qualitative analysis – Case studies, Focus groups,
observations etc