Topic 2: The business Research Process Flashcards

1
Q

Why is business research undertaken?

A
  • To reduce uncertainty
  • Focus decision making
  • Scan environment for opportunities
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2
Q

What are the 3 types of business research?

A
  • Exploratory (Most ambiguous)
  • Descriptive
  • Causal (Least ambiguous)
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3
Q

Describe exploratory research

A
  • Clarify ambiguous situations
  • Discover potential business opportunities
  • Not an end unto itself
  • Can guide further in-depth business research (Descriptive or causal)
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4
Q

Describe descriptive research

A
  • Describes characteristics
  • Paints situational picture (who, what, when, where, how)
  • Done after researcher has firm grasp of situation being studied
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5
Q

Describe causal research

A
  • identifies cause & effect relationships
  • Most valuable form of research for manager as it increases control
  • Most expensive form of research
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6
Q

3 requirements for a causal inference? (Causality)

A
  • Temporal Sequence (Cause must occur before effect)
  • There must be correlation between cause & effect
  • Nonspurious association (No other variable must be responsible for covariation of cause & effect) (control other variables)
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7
Q

3 levels of causality

A
  • Absolute causality (Cause is necessary and sufficient by itself to induce effect)
  • Conditional causality (Cause is necessary but not sufficient to induce effect; other additional conditions necessary)
  • Contributory causality (Cause is neither sufficient nor necessary to induce effect, but it still can induce effect)
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8
Q

Stages of the business research process

A
  1. Define the research objectives
  2. Plan the research design
  3. Plan the research sample
  4. Gather the data
  5. Organise and analyse the data
  6. Draw conclusions and prepare report
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9
Q

What are the 4 basic techniques for descriptive & causal research?

A
  • Survey
  • Experiment
  • Secondary data
  • observation
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10
Q

Describe Positivism

A
  • Derived from Natural sciences
  • social world is external, viewed objectively
  • research is value-free
  • researcher is independent
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11
Q

Describe interpretivism

A
  • Social world is constructed & given meaning by people
  • researcher is part of what is observed
  • research is driven by interests
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12
Q

Deduction vs Induction?

A

Deduction attempts to be conclusive.
Deduction is valid if conclusion MUST be true if premises are true
Induction is use of hypotheses to attempt fact explanation.
Induction is not necessarily true and must be tested.

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13
Q

What are the different types of research variables?

A
  • Independent variable (IV): Variable you change/manipulate
  • Dependent variable (DV): Variable you measure
  • Moderating variable (MV): 2nd independent variable moderating relationship between IV & DV.
  • Intervening variable(IVV): mechanism through which IV affects DV
  • Controlled variable (CV): variable that remains constant to eliminate spurious association
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