Advance Research Methods

Scientific Research
Given that theories and observations are the two pillars of
science, scientific research operates at two levels: a theoretical
level and an empirical level.
The theoretical level is concerned with developing abstract
concepts about a natural or social phenomenon and
relationships between those concepts (i.e., build theories),
while the empirical level is concerned with testing the
theoretical concepts and relationships to see how well they
reflect our observations of reality, with the goal of ultimately
building better theories.
Depending on a researchers training and interest, scientific
inquiry may take one of two possible forms: inductive or
deductive.

In inductive research, the goal of a researcher is to infer

theoretical concepts and patterns from observed data.

In deductive research, the goal of the researcher is to test

concepts and patterns known from theory using new empirical
data.

Hence, inductive research is also called theory-building

research, and deductive research is theory-testing research.
 Types of Scientific Research
Scientific research projects can be grouped into three types:
exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory.
Exploratory research is often conducted in new areas of
inquiry, where the goals of the research are: (1) to scope out
the magnitude or extent of a particular phenomenon,
problem, or behavior, (2) to generate some initial ideas (or
hunches) about that phenomenon, or (3) to test the
feasibility of undertaking a more extensive study regarding
that phenomenon.
Descriptive research is directed at making careful
observations and detailed documentation of a phenomenon of
interest. These observations must be based on the scientific
method (i.e., must be replicable, precise, etc.), and therefore,
are more reliable than casual observations by untrained
people.
Explanatory research seeks explanations of observed
phenomena, problems, or behaviors. While descriptive
research examines the what, where, and when of a
phenomenon, explanatory research seeks answers to why and
how types of questions. It attempts to connect the dots in
research, by identifying causal factors and outcomes of the
target phenomenon.

Hypothesis Testing is undertaken to explain the variance in

the dependent variable or to predict organizational outcomes
 Concepts, Constructs, and Variables
Explanations require development of concepts or
generalizable properties or characteristics associated with
objects, events, or people.
While objects such as a person, a firm, or a car are not
concepts, their specific characteristics or behavior such as a
persons attitude toward immigrants, a firms capacity for
innovation, and a cars weight can be viewed as concepts.
A construct is an abstract concept that is specifically chosen
(or created) to explain a given phenomenon. A construct
may be a simple concept, such as a persons weight, or a
combination of a set of related concepts such as a persons
communication skill, which may consist of several underlying
concepts such as the persons vocabulary, syntax, and spelling.
However, in scientific research, a variable is a measurable
representation of an abstract construct. As abstract entities,
constructs are not directly measurable, and hence, we look for
proxy measures called variables.
 Title
Table of Contents
Introduction
Literature review
theoretical/conceptual framework
Research Methodology
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Recommendations
Implications
Limitations
Future direction
Reference s
 Title
Title reflects content of the thesis
Use concise but informative title
Avoid abbreviations
Leader-Member Exchange and Employee Turnover
Intention : Development and Testing of an
Integrative Model
Determinants and outcomes of Envy: A study of
Telecom professionals of Pakistan
Impact of Organizational justice on Employee
performance among the health professional of
Pakistan
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
Problem statement
Gap Analysis
Significance/rationale of the study
Research objectives
Research Questions
Delimitations of the study
 MOD

DV

MV
IV
DV

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IV MV DV

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 MOD

IV

DV

IV

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IV

DV
IV

IV

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 Power
Distance

Leader Intrinsic Employee

Member Motivation Turnover
Exchange Intentions

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 Introduction
Background of the Study
Provide an introduction about the topic of your
research
Give the context in terms of content of the research
project
Supply sufficient background information
Provide the rationale of the study
Choose references carefully to provide the most salient
background rather than an exhaustive review of the
topic.
Background of the Study
Existing studies for years have aroused and answered
the questions related to the role of the leaders,
leadership styles, the influence of charismatic leadership
etc yet the best role still have a lot of scope to be defined
and explained i.e. the role of a leader member exchange.
Out of the two exchange relationships that have
received the most attention in the recent years one of
the relationships is of supervisor-employee exchange
(conceptualized as leader-member exchange) (Cole,
Schaninger & Harris, 2002)
Problem Statement
Extant literature on disease related stigma has many loopholes/omissions. This includes

less research on disease like HCV and its associated issues including stigma. In addition

the literature has also not clearly delineated the workplace implications of stigma

generally and HCV stigma specifically. The stigma research is also deficient of an

integrated model of internalized and social stigma at workplace. Moreover the majority

of studies focused samples from developed countries while HCV is threatening lives of

millions of people in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan who are working in the

organizations but surprisingly the literature does not specifically provide solution to the

problem being faced by HCV infected employees at workplace in countries like Pakistan.
Gap Analysis

Theoretical /Conceptual gap

Contextual gap
Theoretical /Conceptual gap
According to Bento, White and Zacur (2012) stigma
studies regarding its affects at workplace is very
deficient. Although its high prevalence results in a
number of negative effects (Judge & Cable, 2011) but
still there is dearth of literature on stigma at workplace
and especially when it comes to HCV stigma because
very little attention has been given towards this
issue.
Contextual gap
In previous studies of stigma, there has not been
direct assessment across cultural contexts
(Kalichmanet al., 2005; Reidpath, Brijnath, &
Chan, 2005). Brohan, Slade , Clement ,
Thornicroft (2010) argued that a logical
assessment about the stigma research shows that
only 5 out of 57 studies have been performed on
Asian population which shows that in Asia the
research on stigma has been highly neglected.
Hofstede (1980) and Triandis (1995) argued it as a
main error in existing literature that there is lack
of context specific research
Significance of the study
Who will be benefited from the study?
Organizations
Academic researchers
Research Questions
Question 1 : Does leader-member exchange has significant
negative relationship with employee turnover intention?

Question 2: Does leader member exchange has significant positive

relationship with intrinsic motivation?

Question 3: Does intrinsic motivation has significant negative

relationship with employee turnover intentions??
Question 4 : Does intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship
between leader member exchange and employee turn over
intentions?

Question 5: Does power distance moderates the relationship

between leader-member exchange and intrinsic motivation such
that when power distance is high the relationship between
leader member exchange and intrinsic motivation becomes
weaker and when it is low the relationship becomes stronger.
Research Objectives
To find out the associations between the leader member
exchange, intrinsic motivation and employee turnover
intentions in public sector organizations of Pakistan.
To find out the leader member exchange in high power
distance culture.
Delimitation
It is the limitation of your study or topic
Literature Review & Hypothesis
Theoretical Frame work
 Power
Distance

Leader Intrinsic Turnover

Member Motivation Intentions
Exchange

34
APA Formatting
 Type of Scales
A scale is a tool or mechanism by which individuals are
distinguished as to how they differ from one another on the
variables of interest to our study.
Nominal scale
Ordinal scale
Interval scale
Ratio scale
 Nominal scale

A nominal scale is one that allows the researcher to assign

subjects to certain categories or groups.
 Ordinal Scale
An ordinal scale not only categorizes the variables in such a
way as to denote differences among the various categories, it
also rank or order the categories in some meaningful way.
 Interval scale
An interval scale allows us to perform certain arithmetical
operations on the data collected from the respondents
 Ratio Scale
The ratio scale not only measures the magnitude of the
difference between points on the scale but also taps the
proportion in the differences.
Ratios scales are usually used in organizational research when
exact numbers on objective(as opposed to subjective) factors
are called for
The responses to the questions could range from 0 to any
reasonable figure
 Examples
1.How many other organizations did you work for before joining
this system?
2.Please indicate the work experience you have in each of the
following categories:
-below 3 years of
-between 3 and 6
-over 6 years and but under 12
-12 years and over
3.How many retail outlets do you operate?