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.

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 Definition
• We define business research
as a systematic inquiry whose
objective is to provide
information to solve managerial
problems.

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 Factors in Scientific Decision
Making
• The manager’s increased need for more
and better information.

• The availability of improved techniques

and tools to meet this need.

• The resulting information overload if

discipline is not employed in the process.
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 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.
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 Other Issues
Other knowledge demands have arisen from
• Problems with mergers
• Trade policies
• Protected markets
• Technology transfers
• Macroeconomic savings-investment

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 Need For Better Information
• More variables to consider in every
decision.
• More knowledge exists in every field of
management.
• Global and domestic competition is more
vigorous
• The quality of theories and models to
explain tactical and strategic results is
improving.
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 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.
• Organisations are increasingly practicing data
mining, learning to extract meaningful knowledge
from volumes of data contained within internal
databases.
• 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

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 Need for Information
• The power 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.
• The number 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.
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 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.

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 Types of Study

• The different types of study can be

classified as
• Reporting
• Descriptive
• Explanatory
• Predictive.

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 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.

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• A descriptive study tries to discover
answers to the questions who, what,
when, where, and, sometimes, how.
• Involves the 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).

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 Organisations and Descriptive
Studies
Organisations might have enough

data base but not mine them for

decision - making

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 Explanatory Study
• An explanatory study goes beyond description
and attempts to explain the reasons for the
phenomenon that the descriptive study only
observed.
• 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

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 Predictive Studies
• Predict when and in what situations the event
will occur.

• In business research, prediction is found in

studies conducted to evaluate specific
courses of action or to forecast current
and future values.
• Able to control a phenomenon once we can
explain and predict it.
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 Pure Research and Applied
Research
• Applied research 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.
• Pure Research does not offer immediate
solutions
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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’
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 What is Good Research?
• Good research generates
dependable data, that can be
used reliably for managerial
decision making.

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 Characteristics of Good Research
• Purpose clearly defined

• Research process detailed

• Research design thoroughly planned

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 Characteristics of Good Research
• High ethical standards applied

• Limitations frankly revealed

• Findings presented unambiguously

•
• Conclusions justified

• Researcher’s experience reflected

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 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.

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• Manager as research services buyer or
evaluator- evaluate research proposals
sane orgn of time and money.
• Manager as evaluator of secondary data
sources.
• Research specialist-financial analysis,
marketing research, operations research,
public relations and human resources
management.
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 Scientific Research
• Direct observation of phenomena.
• Clearly defined variables, methods and
procedures.
• Empirically testable hypotheses.
• The ability to rule out rival hypotheses.
• Statistical rather than linguistic justification
of conclusions.
• The self-correcting process.
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 Deduction
• Deduction is a form of inference that purports to
be conclusive
• the conclusion must necessarily follow from the
reasons given.
• For a deduction to be correct, it must be both
true and valid:
• Premises (reasons) given for the conclusion
must agree with the real world (true).
• The conclusion must necessarily follow from the
premises (valid).
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 Induction
• To induce is to draw a conclusion from
one or more particular facts or pieces of
evidence.

• The conclusion explains the facts, and the

facts support the conclusion

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