Lecture 1 Flashcards
Business research
A systematic process of testing hypotheses through carfully executed data analyses that are aimed to help a manager solve, avoid or minimize a problem
Business research does/is 3 things
Is a systematic process
Tests hypotheses
Business reseach entails collecting and analyzing data
meant to help managers make better decisions
Three most common cognitive biases
confirmation bias
Availability bias
What you see is all there is (WYSIATI) bias
confirmation bias
Refers to the tendency to only consider informatino that agrees with your preexisting beliefs. You cherry pick the information you consider
Availability bias
Cognitive bias in which you make a decision based on readily available information, even though it may not be the best information to inform your decision
what you see is all there is
When deciding whether there is a relationship between an event and an outcome, we tend to notice what is present but we often forget to consider what is absent.
Evaluating business research
To judge to what extend academic and popular press articles can be trusted as a basis for your decisions
to delegate business research
To interact effectively with your firms in-house research department and/or external research agencies that will conduct research studies for you
To perform business research
you should be able to perform research studies yourself to solve the smaller problems that you will encounter in your future jobs
Inductive research approach
researchers first collect data, next they try to find a pattern in these data, after which they develop a theoretical framework based on this pattern
Deductive research approach
Researchers first hypothesize relationships between variables based on theory. These hypotheses are then tested using data
What is the aim of inductive and deductive research?
inductive research aims at developing a theory
Deductive research aims at testing a theory
two major types of equivalences (international studies)
Translation equivalence
Metric equivalence
Translation equivalence
One person translates the original text/questions. Then another person translates the text back into the original language. After comparing the two files in the original language, adjustments can be made in case of discrepancies
Metric equivalence
Use a pictorial scale, this especially cancels out differences in level of education between countries or standardizing the response to each variable within each country sample and performing the analyses on the standardized variables
Three types of equivalences needed to be established in international research
Construct equivalence
Sampling equivalence
Metric equivalence
Construct equivalence
are we studying the same phenomena/concepts in different countries
Sampling equivalence
Are the samples used in different countries representative within countries and comparable across countries
types of observation
Participant vs nonparticipant observer
Concealed vs unconcealed observation
structures vs unstructured observation
Participant vs nonparticipant observation
The researcher either observes the behavior from participants from the outside or acts as a group member while observing participants
Structured vs unstructured observation
Structured means the data is gathered in a structured way. The researcher knows what he is looking for and writes it down when specific behavior is performed. Unstructured means the research is writing down all the behavior of participants, since he does not know what he is looking for
Spillover
Treatment of other participants - Employees might talk to each other. An employee in the non manipulation group might become aware of the possible 3% bonus and hence the results might be biased. As such, the different effect on employee productivity for informed vs non-informed groups is not soley affected by the information provision manipulation
Non compliance/failure to treat
Entrails that subjects so people of the sampling dont receive treatment
