Business Research Introduction Flashcards
What is Business Research?
The systematic and objective process of collecting, recording, analysing and interpreting data for aid in solving managerial problems
What is the problem definition?
Problem background and problem statement.
What is the problem background?
- what is the problem?
- why is it a problem?
- for whom is it a problem?
What is the problem statement?
- always a question
- does not include potential causes
- it is answered in the conclusions and recommendations
What are the 4 types of variables?
- Dependent
- Independent
- Intervening
- Extraneous
What is a dependent variable?
The problem
What is an independent variable?
The cause
What is the relationship between the dependent and independent variable?
We impact the independent variable to measure what happens to the dependent variable
Types of research methodologies
- Experimental research
- Quasi-experimental research
- Phenomenological research
- Analytical surveys
What is Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research
- Highly structured ‘laboratorylike’ methods
- Generation of hypotheses
- Control of variables
- Accurate (quantitative) measures
- Generalization to population
What are the characteristics of Experimental Research?
- Experimental and control group
- Subjects randomly assigned
- Manipulation of independent variable
What is a control group?
The base line variable, the norm
What are the characteristics of Quasi-Experimental Research?
- Subjects are not randomly assigned - you take two naturally occurring groups
- The independent variable is not manipulated but rather differences in the levels of the independent variable are observed.
- Does not eliminate the problem of confounding variables.
What is Phenomenological Research?
Producing thick descriptions of people’s experiences and perspectives within their natural settings.
- Qualitative research
What are Analytical Surveys?
- Highly structured
- Random selection
- Aim is to generalize to the population
What are the 4 types of studies?
- Exploratory
- Descriptive
- Explanatory
- Interpretive
What are exploratory studies?
- Seek to explore what is happening and to ask
questions about it. - Useful when not enough is known about a
phenomenon.
What are descriptive studies?
They seek to ‘draw a picture’ of a situation, person or event or show how things are related to each other. However, they cannot explain why an event has occurred.
What are explanatory studies?
An explanatory study sets out to explain and account for the descriptive information.
- Ask why and how questions
What are interpretive studies?
- Interpretive studies seek to explore people’s experiences and their views or perspectives of these experiences.
- Interpretive studies are, typically, inductive in nature and often associated with qualitative approaches to data gathering and analysis.
What is an inductive research approach?
A theory-building process starting with observations of specific instances, and seeking to establish generalisations about the phenomenon under investigation.
- You start with observations and then build theory based on that.
What is a deductive research approach?
Concerned with developing a hypothesis based on existing theory, and then designing a research strategy to test the hypothesis.
