2. Learning Outcomes
• Meaning, Characteristics and Purposes of Research
• What Business Research is
• Types of Business Research
• Why Study Business Research?
• Modes of Knowledge
• Approaches to Knowledge
– Scientific and non-scientific approaches
– Research Paradigms
– Styles of thinking
3. Introduction
• As a student of Research Methods, you will be wearing two
hats.
– One hat is that of a student who wishes to pass exams
• Learn enough about research methods to write your assignments and/or to
pass exam.
• Thus we must look at research methods from an academic perspective.
– But there is another hat, that of manager, research consultant or
practitioner
• Thus you will need to imagine yourself in the role of manager
– Needing to answer questions in real-time
– Carry out research to answer relevant questions
4. What are the differences between these
research roles (between your academic hat
and your business hat)?
6. What Research is NOT!!
• If you have ever used the phrase ‘research shows that’,
you will not be doing anyhow. Because research is not;
– Mere gathering or collection of information
– Mere transportation of information from one point to the other
– Merely rummage or poking for information
– A catch word used to attract attention
– Asking a few people in the street their views on a Government
policy, or a product or service, or current crisis
8. What Research IS!!
• Research is:
a systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and
interpreting information (data) to increase
understanding of a phenomenon about which
we are interested.
10. Characteristics of Research
• Originates with a question or problem
• Requires clear articulation of a goal
• Requires a specific plan for proceeding
• Usually divides the principal problem into more manageable sub-
problems
• Is guided by the specific research problem, question, or hypothesis
• Accepts certain critical assumption
•
• Requires the collection and interpretation of data
• Is, by its nature, cyclical or helical
12. Purposes of Research
• The three most common and useful purposes are;
– Exploratory
– Description
– Explanation
13. Exploration
• A great deal of social research is conducted to explore a topic or
familiarize oneself with a topic.
• This typically occurs when a researcher becomes interested in a
new topic or when the subject of study itself is relatively new.
• Exploratory studies are typically done for three purposes:
– to satisfy the researcher’s curiosity and desire for better understanding
– to test the feasibility of undertaking a more extensive study
– to develop the methods to be employed in any subsequent studies.
14. Description
• Another major purpose of research is to describe
situations and events
• The researcher observes and then describes what he
or she observed
• Example is: a product-marketing survey that
describes who uses, or would use, a certain product.
15. Explanation
• A third major purpose of research is to explain things
• For example:
Reporting the frequency of patronage of your product is
descriptive, but reporting why some people patronize
your product while others don’t is explanatory.
16. Summary of the three purposes
Exploratory Descriptive Explanatory
Familiarization of the essential facts,
context and issues
Provision of a catholic, favorably
precise situation
Testing of theoretical propositions
Development of broad state of affair
about a phenomenon
Getting hold of new information that
goes contrary to past information
Expatiating and augmenting an
explanation of a theory
Formulating and concentrating on
questions in regards to future study
Developing a set of classification types
or groups
Extension of theory to fresh concerns or
topics
Creating new issues, concepts or
propositions
Systematic clarification of series of
steps
Confirming or disconfirming an
explanation or proposition
Establishing the viability of carrying out
a study
Recording a causal procedure Connecting issues with a wide-ranging
principle
Creating approaches for measuring and
getting hold of future information
Reporting on the background, profile,
activities of a phenomenon in its natural
setting
Establishing the best explanation
among the numerous explanations.
18. What is Business Research?
• Managers in firms constantly engage themselves in studying and
analyzing issues and thus, are involved in some form of research
activity as they make decisions
• Sometimes managers make good decisions and the problems get
solved
• Sometimes managers make poor decisions and the problems persist
• However, the difference in making good decisions and poor decisions
lies in how managers go about decision-making process
19. What is Business Research?
• Good decision making fetches yes answer to the following
questions.
– Do managers identify where exactly the problem lies?
– Do they correctly recognize the vital factors in the situation needing
investigation?
– Do they know what types of information are to be gathered and analyzed?
– Do they know how to make use of information gathered and draw appropriate
inferences to make the right decision?
– Do they know how to execute the results of this process to solve the problem
• Thus, this is the essence of research and to be successful manager, it
is important for you to know how to go about making the right
decision by being knowledgeable in Business research.
20. What is Business Research?
• Business research can be described as a systematic and organized effort to
investigate a specific problem encountered in the work setting that needs
solution.
• For example:
– Consumer preferences
– Reduction in Employee performance or productivity
– Advertising
– High production cost
– Employee turnover
– Behaviour of the stock exchange/Problems in accounting
• All business research is carried out to gather data, analyze, interpret
and report-that could make the company more successful.
22. Steps of Business Research
• To know where the problem areas exist in the organisation
• To identify as clearly and specifically as possible the
problems that need to be studied or resolved
• Gather information, analyze the data, and determine the
factors that are associated with the problem and solve it by
taking the necessary corrective measures.
24. Types of Business Research
• There are two types of Business Research.
– Applied Research
– Basic or Fundamental Research
25. Types of Business Research
Applied Research
• To solve current problems faced by the manager in
the work setting
• For example:
– Voltic sales increased by 200% from 2001 to 2008, but
the sales decreased by 10% in 2009. What is the reason
for this decrease?
– The question is: What will ABL (manufacturers of Voltic)
do to this problem?
26. Types of Business Research
Basic Research
• To generate a body of knowledge about how to solve problems that
could happen in companies
• For example:
– University lecturers engage in basic research in an attempt to
understand and generate more knowledge about various aspects
of businesses such as
• How to increase employee productivity
• How to increase the effectiveness of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
• How to increase market share of a product
27. Types of Business Research
• The difference between Applied Business Research and
Basic or Fundamental Business Research
Type of Business
Research
Basic Applied
Non-
Specific
Specific
29. Why study Business Research?
• It provides the knowledge and skills needed to solve problems
and meet the challenges of decision-making - in all the
functional areas of business.
• Three factors necessitate the use of the scientific approach to
decision making in business:
– 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.
30. Why study Business Research?
• The decision-making environment in business has become increasingly
more complex and the following factors demand that managers have
more and better information as a basis for decision making:
– There are more variables to consider in every decision
– More knowledge now exists in all fields of management
– Competition is more intense and businesses are under pressure to reduce costs
and focus on their core competencies.
– Workers, shareholders, customers, and the general public want greater roles in
decision making and demand that they are better informed than ever before.
– Computer power has made it easier to analyze data to deal with complex
managerial problems.
– The number of tools and techniques available for conducting research have
increased.
31. Why study Business Research?
• The value of acquiring research skills. The acquisition of research skills can benefit
you in the following ways:
– If you are a manager, you can base your decisions on research information instead of intuition
and guesswork.
– If you are a subordinate employee, you may be required to conduct research as part of your
job.
– If you are a manager, you may have to depend on research information provided by
consultants and research specialists in which case you must be able to evaluate the quality of
research reports. Also, consultants may present research proposals to you and you must be
able to understand and evaluate the proposals.
– If you are a manager, you will have to depend on secondary sources of data (for example,
economic reports) and you must be able to evaluate the validity and reliability of those reports.
– You may be a research specialist working in research environments such as ISSER or as an
employee of a consulting firm that conducts research for business clients.
33. Modes of Knowledge
• There are three modes of knowledge
– Mode 1 Knowledge (Gibbons et al., 1994)
– Mode 2 knowledge (Gibbons et al., 1994)
– Mode 3 Knowledge (Huff and Huff, 2001)
34. Modes of Knowledge
Mode 1 Knowledge
• It is created by academics for an academic purpose to
further and add to what is known.
• It has to do with basic research and tends to be built on
foundations of what was know before.
– Discuss what is known before you start yours or consider how
that knowledge might be further discussed
• Who wants Mode 1 Knowledge? Usually other academics
• An example of Mode 1 knowledge could be the concept of
Corporate Social Responsibility
35. Modes of Knowledge
Mode 2 Knowledge
• Practical applied knowledge and comes from collaborating with
practitioners or policy-makers
– For example, managers in organisations
• Who wants Mode 2 Knowledge? People making business
decisions or developing policy as well as academics interested
in applied research.
• Example is how to compute depreciation on capital investment
with a particular country’s accounting standards and how this
might be used in conjunction with business strategy objectives
of expansion.
36. Modes of Knowledge
Mode 3 Knowledge
• This is knowledge, which is neither produced specifically for
academic purposes nor for direct application to practical needs, but
for understanding the bigger picture in relation to society’s survival
and the ‘common good’
• An example could be: the impact of institutional structures on
investor confidence in Africa.
– This kind of information does not have specific immediate practical value, yet it
could be of profound importance to African countries, investors and business
organisations.
38. Research Paradigms
• A Paradigm is a cluster of beliefs, which guide researchers to decide
what should be studied and how results should be interpreted
(Kuhn, 1970)
• It represents a worldview that defines for its holder, the nature of
the world, the individual’s place in it, and the range of possible
relationships to that world and its parts (Guba and Lincoln, 1994)
• The beliefs are basic in the sense that they must be accepted simply
on faith; there is no way to establish their ultimate truth
• Paradigms are held by researchers to be inconsistent with each
other, in other words, if you hold one paradigm, you cannot also hold
a different one.
39. Research Paradigms
• There are four fundamental principles (4) in research that interact to
shape the type of paradigm a researcher should adopt. These are;
• Ontology- What is the form and nature of reality or the assumptions
about how this world is perceived by individuals.
• Epistemology- The nature of knowledge or assumptions about the
best manner in which this world can be inquired
• Methodology - Divulge how the world is to be examined. How can the
researcher go about finding whatever he/she believes can be known
• Axiology- Deals with the role and voice of the investigator and the
research participants.
41. Types of Research Paradigms
Positivism
• Truth is out there to be discovered through a scientific approach
• A single reality exists that people cannot see
• A fact is a fact; it cannot be interpreted
• Reality is external to our consciousness
• Only knowledge generated using scientific method is valid
42. Types of Research Paradigms
Interpretivism
• Reality is in here (in people’s minds and collectively constructed)
• Reality is socially constructed through the lived experiences of
people
• Truth is created and there is more than one truth; depends on
humans’ interpretations of their world
• knowledge is subjective or Intersubjective and includes viewpoint
43. Types of Research Paradigms
Critical Postmodernism
• Reality is here and now, and is molded by ethnic, cultural, gender,
social and political values and mediated by power relations
• Reality is constructed within social-historical context
• Human beings have the capacity to wield control over social
arrangements and institutions; create a new reality
• Human beings who are oppressed are able to emancipate
themselves and challenge the status quo
• knowledge is emancipatory, created via critically questioning the
manner in which things ‘have always been done’
45. Principles and Research Paradigms
Positivism Interpretivism Critical Postmodernism
Ontology
•reality is out there; waiting to
be explored
•a fact is a fact; it cannot be
interpreted
•Reality is in here (in people’s minds and
collectively constructed)
•reality is socially constructed through the
lived experiences of people
Reality is here and now, and is
molded by ethnic, cultural, gender,
social and political values and
mediated by power relations
Epistemology
•Only things that can be
observed are worthy of study
•Knowledge is objective and
only knowledge created using
scientific approach is valid
•truth is created and there is more than one
truth; depends on humans’ interpretations of
their world
•There are several ways of knowing apart
from the scientific technique
•knowledge is emancipatory, created
via critically questioning the manner
things ‘have always been done’
•knowledge is material and is subject
to modification
Methodology
Seeking causality, laws and
relations through:
Quantitative:
Experiments, Quasi-
experiments, field
experiments and surveys
Seeking meanings and interpretations via:
Case studies, discourse analysis, ethical
enquiry, life history study, narrative study,
hermeneutic enquiry, heuristic enquiry
Seeking reflection, emancipation and
problem solving through:
Action research, discourse analysis,
participatory research, critical
analysis, feminist enquiry, case study
and reflective phenomenology
Axiology
•No place for prejudice,
values, feelings, perceptions,
hopes or expectations of
either investigator or
research participants
•Relationship between the researcher and
participants is intense, prolonged and dialogic
(deep insights via interaction)
•Bias, feelings, hopes, expectations,
perceptions and values are central to the
research process
•Researcher’s pragmatic values
regarding social justice are central to
the study
•Goal is to create societal change by
emancipating citizens to take action
47. Styles of thinking and sources of knowledge
• The way we go about doing research and our acceptance or rejection
of research results depends on our “styles of thinking” about
knowledge – how we know.
• This could be;
– Untested Opinion
– Self-evident truth
– Method of authority
– Literary
– Scientific method
– Postulation
48. Styles of thinking and sources of knowledge
Untested Opinion
– Untested opinions take some forms as “this is the way it has
always been done”; someone expresses the opinion that the
world will come to an end and some people accept without
questioning.
– Superstition, myth, tradition, intuition, guesswork, and
unsubstantiated beliefs are all forms of untested opinion
49. Styles of thinking and sources of knowledge
Self-evident truth
– There are certain “truths” that we take for granted and
are so obvious that you don’t even have to think about the
reverse or other alternative propositions.
– Statements like “Don’t know women are like this ….. and that, or
“everybody knows that men are better managers than women”
often guide us in dealing with everyday issues and problems.
– But our casual observations and conclusions which we think are
self-evident truths may not really be so.
50. Styles of thinking and sources of knowledge
Method of Authority
– Sometimes we rely on persons of authority (kings, great
people, lecturers) and books of authority as sources of
knowledge to guide is.
– Often when someone of authority makes a declaration,
we may accept without questioning because we assume
that person is knowledgeable and cannot be wrong.
The various Holy Books are sources of knowledge,
and generally believers do not question anything in
the holy book.
51. Styles of thinking and sources of knowledge
Literary Style
• Literary style refers to a style of thinking where “ a person, a
movement, or a whole culture is interpreted, but largely in terms of
the specific purposes and perspectives of the actors, rather in terms
of the abstract and general categories of the scientist’s own
explanatory scheme” (Kaplan, cited in Cooper and Schindler, 2001, p.
33).
– For example, most of what we know in child psychology came
from …………single case study.
– Similarly, the Hawthorne Study and Abraham Maslow’s theory of
motivation was based on the single case study.
52. Styles of thinking and sources of knowledge
Postulational Style
• The postulational style of thinking depends on building model for
solving problems through the establishment of necessary conditions,
fundamental theorems, logical assumptions, logical arguments,
assertions, and claims – which are postulates.
• In business, there are mathematical models for pricing and inventory
control; investment decisions.
• Another example is the use of computer simulations – in marketing,
product and process designs
