L1 What is Business Research Flashcards
What is BR?
A series of well-thought out activities and carefully executed data analyses that help a manager
to avoid, solve, or minimize a problem.
Why should future managers know about BR?
- To perform –> solve smaller problems
- To steer –> interact with researchers/agencies
- To evaluate –> good vs bad research
Hallmarks of good BR
- Purposiveness
- Rigor
- Objectivity
- Parsimony
- Replicability
- Generalizability
Purposiveness
Research should start with a definite aim or purpose, and should have a purposive focus
Rigor
Carefulness, scrupulousness, degree of exactitude
- good theoretical base/foundation
- methodological design
- unbiased
- representative sample
Objectivity
drawing conclusions based on facts (actual data) and not own subjective ideas.
Parsimony
Simplicity: shaving away unnecessary details; explaining a lot with little
Replicability
Finding the same results if the research is repeated in similar circumstances.
- detailed description of design
Generalizability
Being able to apply the research findings in a wide variety of different settings
Difference between fundamental and applied research
Fundamental = objective of generating knowledge and understanding of phenomena and problems that occur in various organisational settings (basic of more theory, pure is more explanatory)
Applied = aimed at solving a currently experiences problem within a specific organisation
Deductive Research
- Top-down
- From theory to data
- developing hypotheses based on existing theories
Inductive Research
- Bottom-up
- From data to theory
- from observations to abstract generalisations and ideas
Seven-step deductive
- Write up
- Analyze data
- Collect data
- Choose research design
- Develop a theoretical framework
- Formulate problem statement
- Define the business problem
Seven-step inductive
7 = develop theory 3 = provide conceptual background
