WHY STUDY RESEARCH

Provides you with the

knowledge and skills you
need to solve the
problems and meet the
challenges of a fast-
paced decision-making
environment.
 Definition
We define business research
as a systematic inquiry whose
objective is to provide
information to solve managerial
problems.
 Predicament in the cases
 1.
In CHILDCO senior VP must decide as to
whether an acquisition of a toy maker should
be made. If yes, which one of the six

 NUCMED – physicians must decide as to

whether to join the proposed managed health
care plan of their primary insurers.
 Predicament in the cases
 Colorsplash– whether or not to implement
the new inventory management system

 AtYork – President to propose to the BoD

–whether to fund the development
retirement community

 In
real life management dilemmas are
not so CLEARLY DEFINED
 Factors in Scientific Decision
Making
 The
manager’s increased need for
more and better information.

 Theavailability of improved techniques

and tools to meet this need.

 Theresulting information overload if

discipline is not employed in the
process.
 New Roles of Business
 Historically -economic role

 Response to the social and political

mandates of national public policy

 Explosive technology growth

 Continuing
innovations in global
communications.
 Other Issues
Other knowledge demands have arisen
from
 Problems with mergers
 Trade policies
 Protected markets
 Technology transfers
 Macroeconomic savings-investment
 Need For Better Information
 Thereare more variables to consider in
every decision.

 More
knowledge exists in every field of
management.
 Need For Better Information
 Globaland domestic competition is more
vigorous, with many business down sizing to
refocus on primary competencies, reduce
costs, and make competitive gains.

 The quality of theories and models to explain

tactical and strategic results is improving.
 Need for Information
 Workers, shareholders, customers and the
general public are demanding to be
included in company decision making;
they are better informed and more
sensitive to their own self-interest than
ever before.
 Need for Information
 Organisations are increasingly practicing

data mining, learning to extract meaningful

knowledge from volumes of data contained

within internal databases.

 Need for Information
 Computer advances have allowed
businesses to create the architecture for
data warehousing, electronic storehouses
where vast arrays of collected, integrated
data are ready for mining
 Need for Information
 Thepower and ease of use of today’s
computers have given us the capability
to analyze data to deal with today’s
complex managerial problems.

 Techniques of quantitative analysis

take advantage of increasingly
powerful computing capabilities.
 Need for Information
 Thenumber and power of the tools used
to conduct research have increased,
commensurate with the growing
complexity of business decisions.

 Communication and measurement

techniques within research have been
enhanced.
 Essence of Research
Try answering these questions:

(1) What is the decision-making dilemma

facing the manager?

(2) What must the researcher accomplish?

Defining the dilemma is paramount and

difficult.
 Types of Study

 The different types of study can be

classified as
 Reporting
 Descriptive
 Explanatory
 Predictive.
 Reporting study
 Onlyto provide an account or summation of some
data or to generate statistics

 Task can be simple or difficult subject to data

availability

 Requires skill in identifying info sources

 Requires little skills in analyzing

 CHILDCO
 What info should be evaluated in order to
value a company.

 Knowledge can be acquired in courses

like Financial Management, Marketing,
Accounting

 Info
sources- business articles, annual
reports
 Do Reporting Studies qualify as
research?
 Purists
claim they do not. But carefully gathered data
has great value.

 Research design need not be complicated to be called

as ‘research’
 Do Reporting Studies qualify as
research?
 Asentry level managers you will asked to
perform reporting studies

 Excellent for new employees to become

familiar with employer and industry
 Descriptive study
 Discovers
answers to questions- who,
what, when where and maybe how

 Creatinga profile of a group of problems,

people or events.

 Involves
collection of data and also
examining relationship between the
research variables.
 NUCMED
 Present data to reveal who is associated
with the insurer

 Who uses managed healthcare programs

 General trends in imaging technology

 Technology use patterns etc;

 Characteristics of descriptive
studies
 Mayor may not have the potential to make
powerful inferences

 Organisationthat have extensive data

bases of customers, suppliers, employees
can conduct descriptive studies
 Characteristics of descriptive
studies
 Many firms do not mine their data for
decision-making

 Is versatile and very popular across

disciplines
 Explanatory study
 Goes beyond descriptions and tries to
explain reasons for the phenomenon

 Co relational study if it involves

relationships between variables

 Usestheories to explain occurrence of a

phenomenon.
 Colorsplash
 Ifthe problem was paint stockouts was the
result of inventory management, owner asks
for warehousing and shipping details- will be
a descriptive study

 Explanatory – if problems in processes could

be linked to sales losses due to inability to
make timely deliveries

 Tests hyp by modeling last years business

using relationship between processes and
results
 Predictive
 Usesexplanation after event has occurred to make
predictions for the future.

 Rooted in theory

 Involves inference making

 Prediction of proposed retirement facility for

alumni
 Reporting Study
A reporting study may be made only
to provide an account or summation
of some data or to generate some
statistics.

A reporting study calls for knowledge

and skill with information sources and
gatekeepers of information sources.
 Descriptive Study
A descriptive study tries to discover
answers to the questions who, what,
when, where, and, sometimes, how.

 Involvesthe collection of data and the

creating of a distribution of the number of
times the researcher observes a single
event or characteristic (known as a
research variable).
 Organisations and Descriptive
Studies
Organisations might have enough

data base but not mine them for

decision - making
 Explanatory Study
 An explanatory study goes beyond

description and attempts to explain the

reasons for the phenomenon that the

descriptive study only observed.

 Co relational study
 Research that studies the relationship
between two or more variables is also
referred to as a co relational study

 Uses theories or at least hypotheses to

account for the forces that caused a
certain phenomenon to occur
 Predictive Studies
 Predict
when and in what situations the
event will occur.

 Predictionis found in studies conducted to

evaluate specific courses of action or to
forecast current and future values.

 Ableto control a phenomenon once we

can explain and predict it.
 Pure Research and Applied
Research
 Appliedresearch has a practical problem-
solving emphasis

 Rectifying an inventory system that is

resulting in lost sales

 An
opportunity to increase stockholder
wealth through acquiring another firm.

 PureResearch does not offer immediate

solutions
Definition of Scientific Research
Scientific research is

a ‘systematic, controlled, empirical, and

critical investigation of natural phenomena

guided by theory and hypotheses about the

presumed relations among such

phenomena’
 What is Good Research?
Good research generates
dependable data, that can be
used reliably for managerial
decision making.
Characteristics of Good Research
 Purpose clearly defined

 Research process detailed

 Research design thoroughly planned

 Characteristics of Good Research
 High ethical standards applied

 Limitations frankly revealed

 Findings presented unambiguously


 Conclusions justified

 Researcher’s experience reflected

 Advantages of Research Skills

 Manager as research-based decision

maker- intuitive judgement is less reliable

 Subordinate employee as researcher- can

be a career boosting activity.
 Advantages of Research Skills
 Manager as research services buyer or
evaluator- evaluate research proposals
 Manager as evaluator of secondary data
sources.
 Research specialist-financial analysis,
marketing research, operations research,
public relations and human resources
management.
 STYLES OF THINKING
 Research is based on reasoning

 Drawing supportable generalizations from

limited data is the product of extending the
inference process to statistical testing

 Researchers must, therefore, identify

those sources of high quality and high
value that will produce the best results