Business Research

Introduction:
Research refers to a search of knowledge. Research is an art of scientific investigation.

Definitions:
“Research is the systematic and objective identification, collection, analysis, dissemination (distribution) and use
of information for the purpose of improving decision making related to the identification and solution of problems
and opportunities in any field.”

“Research is a careful investigation or inquiry especially through search for new facts in any branch of
knowledge.”

Objectives of the research:

The purpose of research is to discover answers to questions through the application of scientific procedures.
The main aim of research is to find out the truth which is hidden and which has not been discovered as yet.
 To gain familiarity with a phenomenon or to achieve new insights into it. Such research is known as
exploratory or formulative research studies.
 To portray accurately the characteristics of particular individual, situation or a group. (To determine the
frequency with which something occurs or with which it is associated with something else.
 To test a hypothesis of causal relationship between variables.
Importance of research (significance):

Research develops scientific and inductive thinking and promotes the habit of thinking and organization.
 Research provides the basis fro nearly all government policies in our economic system. The government
collects information on economic and social structure of the nation. Then, a diagnosis of events that are taking
place and analysis of the forces underlying them, and later a prediction of future developments by allocating the
nation’s resource etc. have to be done.
 Research is important is solving various operational and planning problems of business and industry.
Especially, operations research and marketing research are crucial in taking business decisions. Operations
research refers to the application of mathematical, logical and analytical techniques to the solution of optimization
problems. (Cost minimization and profit maximization.)
Marketing research is the systematic study of the facts relevant to any problem in the field of marketing.
 Research is important for social scientists in studying social relationships and in seeking answers to various
social problems.

Thus research is important for students, professionals, philosophers, thinkers, analysts, and intellectuals and for
all men and women. Research is the foundation of knowledge and an important source of providing guidelines for
solving different business, government and social problems.

Types of research: one classification:

 Basic research vs. applied research:
Basic research: it is called fundamental research, theoretical research or pure research. It is the research that
is intended to expand the boundaries of knowledge itself or to verify the acceptability of a given theory. It
addresses itself to more fundamental questions and not to the problems with immediate commercial potential. It is
mainly concerned with generalizations and with the formulation of a theory. Research studies concerning some
natural human behavior carried on with a view to make generalizations about human behavior is an example of
this. E.g.: to research on the theories of general performance behavior among managers.

Applied research: which is called decisional research, on the other hand, proceeds with a certain problems, and
it specifies alternative solutions and the possible outcomes of each alternative. This is the research undertaken to
answer about specific problems or to make decisions about a particular course of action or policy decisions. This
is prompted by commercial considerations. E.g. an organization is planning for a paperless office and networking
system for the company’s person computers may conduct a research to learn the amount of time its employees
spend at personal computers in an average week.

Scientific method: Both the types employ scientific method to answer the questions. The scientific method
refers to techniques and procedures that help the researcher to know and I\understand business phenomena.
This requires systematic analysis and logical interpretation of empirical evidence to confirm or disprove prior
conceptions.

Types of research: Second classification:

Classifying business research based on purpose or function allows us to understand how the nature of problem
influences the choice of research method. There are three types of research.

 Exploratory research
 Descriptive research and
 Causal research
 Exploratory research: initial research conducted to clarify and define the nature of the problem. This
is conducted to clarify ambiguous problems. Management may have discovered general problems, but research
is necessary to understand the dimensions of the problems. Exploratory studies provide information to use in
analyzing a situation. Usually exploratory research is conducted with the expectation that subsequent research
will be required to provide conclusive evidence. This research helps to crystallize a problem and identify
information needs for future research.

 Descriptive research: research designed to describe the characteristics of a population or a

phenomenon. Descriptive research seeks to determine the answers to “what, who, when, and where and how”
questions. Descriptive research often helps segment and target markets. For example, business researchers
conduct descriptive surveys to identify the characteristics of consumers who purchase frozen foods.

Simply describing a situation may provide important information and that in many situations is all that needed to
solve business problems- even though such research may not answer the “why” question.
Accuracy is paramount importance in descriptive research. Although errors cannot be completely eliminated,
good researchers strive for descriptive precision.

Unlike the exploratory research, descriptive research studies are based on some previous understanding of the
nature of the research problem. A variation to this is called diagnostic research, which is performed when
employees are asked questions such as “why do you feel that way?” these are analysis used to clarify research
findings, such as explanations respondents give for a behavior or attitude.

 Causal research: research conducted to identify cause-and–effect relationships among variables

when the research problem has already been narrowly defined. The main goal of causal research is to
 identify cause and effect relationship among variables. Exploratory and descriptive research normally is precede
causal studies. In causal studies, it is typical to have a relationship to be explained, such as a prediction about
the influence of price, packaging, advertising and the like. Causal research attempts to establish that when we
do one thing, another will follow.
A typical causal study has management change one variable (e.g. training) and then observes the effect on
another variable (e.g. productivity).

Types of research: Third classification:

 Reporting
 Descriptive
 Explanatory and
 Predictive.

 Reporting: this is the most elementary level of the research. Here the research is made only to provide an
account or summation of some data or some statistics. The data is usually readily made available. It requires
knowledge and skill with information sources and gatekeepers of information sources.
An entrepreneur might plan to acquire one out of six companies that are potential candidates. The researchers
might examine the following. Company’s annual reports, articles in business, journals company’s ads etc.
Such type of research requires identification of the correct source of information. This source is known as
gatekeepers. Some criticize that reporting studies are not research. But investigative reporting is common in
business establishments.

 Descriptive: these studies try to discover answers to questions who, what, when, where and how. The
researcher attempts to describe or define a subject, by creating a profile of problems, people or events.

Such studies involve the collection of data and creation of distribution of the number of times the researcher
observes a single event or characteristic (known as research variable) or relation of two or more variables.
Organizations that maintain database of their employees, customers and suppliers can conduct descriptive
studies using internal information.
But such studies cannot explain “why” an event occur or why the variables interact the way they do.

 Explanatory: this type of the research goes beyond description and attempts to explain the reasons for the
phenomenon. These types of researchers answer the questions, why and how. Here the researcher uses
theories or hypothesis to explain the force that caused certain phenomenon to occur. The researcher tests the
hypothesis by analyzing the relationship between process and results.

E.g.: a company that faces the problem of sales decline may assume that this is due to the ineffective selling
skills of sales executive. (Hypothesis). The researcher tests this hypothesis by finding out the relationship
between these two.

 Predictive: this goes little beyond the explanatory studies. The researcher provide an explanation for an
event after it has occurred; it is desirable if he can predict when and in what situation the event can occur.
Prediction is found in studies conducted to evaluate specific course of action or to forecast current and future
values. If an event can be explains and predicted, then we can control that event. Being able to dicatat3 the
outcome of an event is called control.
Other types:
 Descriptive vs. analytical research
 Quantitative vs. qualitative research
 Conceptual vs. empirical research etc.

 Descriptive vs. analytical research:

Descriptive research or ex post facto research includes surveys and fact-finding enquiries of different kinds.
The major purpose of descriptive research is description of the state of affairs, as it exists at present. The main
characteristic of this method is that the researcher has no control over the variables; he can only report what has
happened or what is happening. E.g. frequency of shopping, preferences of people etc.
This is also used by researchers to discover causes even when they cannot control the variables. The methods of
research in descriptive research are survey methods of all kinds, including comparative and co relational
methods.

Analytical research use facts or information already variable, and analyze these to make a critical evaluation of
the material.

 Quantitative vs. qualitative research:

Quantitative research is based on the measurement of quantity or amount. It is applicable to a phenomenon that
can be expressed in quantity. Qualitative research, on the other hand, is concerned with qualitative phenomenon
that involves quality.

Criteria for good research:

Whatever be the types of research, it is important that they meet the common ground of scientific research
methods. Following are the criteria of good research:

 The purpose of the research should be clearly defined and common concepts be used.
 The research procedure should be described in sufficient detail to permit another researcher to repeat for
further advancement, keeping the continuity of what has already been attained.
 The procedural design of the research should be carefully planned to yield results that are as objective as
possible.
 The researcher should report with complete frankness, flaws in the procedural design and estimate their
effects upon the findings.
 The analysis of data should be sufficiently adequate to reveal its significance and the methods of analysis
used should be appropriate.
 The validity and reliability of the data should be checked carefully.
 Conclusions should be confined to those justified by the data of the research and limited to those for
which the data provide an adequate basis.
 Greater confidence in research is warranted if the researcher is experienced, has a good reputation in
research and is a person of integrity.
Research methodology: is the systematic way\y to solve the research problem. It may be understood as
science of studying how research is done scientifically. It is necessary for the researcher to know not only the
research methods or techniques but also the methodology, i.e., how to apply particular research techniques.

Research methodology has many dimensions and research methods do constitute a part of the research
methodology. Research methodology implies not only the research methods but also considers the logic behind
the methods we use in the context of our research study and explain why we are using a particular method or
technique any why we are not using others so that research results are capable of being evaluated either by the
researcher himself or others.

Research Process:
Problem Definition, Research Design, Field Work, Data Analysis and Interpretation, Report Presentation

 Problem definition:
Problem definition allows a researcher to set the proper research objectives. The first step in marketing research
process is to define the problem chosen fro investigation.” A problem well defined is half solved.” If the problem is
defined vaguely, then the research results may be completely useless for the management and research effort of
the investigator is futile exercise.
In order to define a problem properly, we should determine the nature of research. After understanding the nature
of the problem a preliminary analysis may be carried out for the following techniques,
Situation analysis and,Informal investigation.
Situation analysis means the circumstances under which the research is being conducted. Six categories of
information can be used in preliminary investigation, the product, the company, industry and competition, the
market, the channel of distribution, the sales of organization and, the advertising and sales promotion policies.
Informal investigation refers to the discussion with a few selected customers, dealer, top management
personnel of the company, and other parties concerned with the problem. The informal investigations may be
designated as the pilot study. There are two purposes to carry out the informal investigation; to develop and
select the hypothesis to be used fro the final study, and to estimate the complexity involved in market place
problems.

 Research design:
The next step is to develop a research design. Research design is the framework, which provides guidelines for
the rest of the research process. It is map of blueprint according to which the research is to be conducted. The
research design specifies the methods for data collection and data analysis. The researcher specifically pinpoints
that to carry out research properly. Research design includes the following:
Data collection methods, Research instruments, Sampling plan

 Data collection methods:

There are two types of data: secondary and primary. The secondary data refer to those data, which are
gathered for some other purpose and are already available in the firm’s internal records and commercial,
trade or government publications. On the other hand, primary data do not exist already in records and
publications. The researcher has to gather primary data afresh for the specific study undertaken by him.
It is always good that the researcher attempts to look into the sources of secondary data before starting to
collect primary data. It has often being observed that firms had wasted a lot of time and money on collection
of primary data, while the secondary data were already available.
Of course, it is essential to collect primary data if the secondary data is not sufficient. The primary data can
be collected by three methods.
 observation, we observe the actions of the respondents, either directly or indirectly.
The experimentation method involves the creation of controlled environment where some variables are
allowed to vary and cause and effect relationship is studied.
Survey method involves gathering of a wide range of valuable information on overt behavior of the consumer
viz, attitudes, motive, and opinions.
 Research instruments: The researcher while collecting the information is looking for a good research design
and suitable research instruments. When observation method fro data collection is used, the researcher may
make use of instruments, viz, camera, tape recorders, VCRs, tally sheets etc. In experimentation method also
same instruments can be used.
Whereas, in survey method, questionnaire is the instrument most frequently used and yields the most
satisfactory results.
Sampling plan: The first step in sampling plan is to decide the universe or population.
The researcher must answer the following questions.
 What sampling unit should be studied? What should be the sample size?
 What sampling procedure should be used? What contact method should be used?

 Fieldwork: once the researcher has finished the problem definition and research design, he must conduct
the actual data collection operation. This sis called fieldwork. This stage is most expensive and most prone to
errors. The most common problems faced during fieldwork are, respondents not at homes, refusal to cooperate,
respondent bias, interviewer bias etc.

 Data analysis: in order to extract meaningful information from data collected the data analysis and
interpretation is carried out. The data are first edited, coded, and tabulated for the purpose of analyzing them.
The analysis is aimed at giving inferences of association or differences between the variables present in the
research. The analysis can be conducted by using simple averages and measures of dispersion.
Alternatively, the collected data may be analyzed by using diagrams, graphs, charts, and pictures. Data may
be cross-tabulated to provide useful relationships among the variables involved. To conduct more
sophisticated analysis, correlation or regression analysis may be applied. Furthermore, various statistical
tests, like, t, F, Z, X2 etc, may be applied. The most complicated and sophisticated analysis is to attempt
multivariate analysis on the available data using advanced statistical tools viz, multiple regression analysis,
multiple correlation analysis, discriminant analysis, factor analysis, canonical analysis, and cluster analysis.
Finally, meaning of the data may be extracted from the analysis thus conducted.
 Report preparation:
After the collected data is analyzed and interpreted, the job of marketing researcher is to present research
results in the form of systematically typed printed report. A scientifically designed format must be used for
research report presentation and result presentation.
The report format might be in the following sequence.
Title page, table of contents, preface, foreword (introduction) and need for the study with review of literature,
statement of objectives and hypotheses, research methodology, containing - research design, data collection
instruments used, sampling design, data collection methods, sampling plan, field work, scheme of analysis
and interpretation of data, limitation and scope of the study – actual analysis and interpretation of data,
findings, conclusions can recommendation and appendices containing - copies of questionnaire, details of
sample and validation, data tables not directly related to the study etc. - and bibliography.