Assignment for you

 

The nature of business research

If you have ever used the phrase “research shows that…” in an assignment or conversation, you will not be doing this again! Understanding Research Methods helps us to be specific about the research we discuss and to make sure that research comes from a valid source and was collected and analyzed appropriately. Many surveys are conducted every day throughout the world to prove a particular point, to support an ideological argument, or just to sound authoritative. We hear them and see them in the news media all the time. Some of this “research” is a “vox pop” where someone, often a journalist, has asked a few people in the street their view of a Government policy, or a product or service, or a current crisis. This is quite different from the kind of business research we are discussing in this chapter.

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In business, and for academic research, the questions we ask must be valid and fair, relating directly to our need for information, in other words, our research must have a clear objective purpose, we are not collecting information for its own sake. Web-based survey research software (e.g., Survey Monkey, etc.) makes it simple to construct and administer surveys, and many of these are poorly worded and designed, or they may not fit the data protection law in your country.

We must also collect that information (data) fairly and systematically. For example, we should think about who we ask for information, and how they will understand our questions. If we cannot ask everyone involved, then we must be able to justify why we ask only a certain section of that population. When using sampling, we should ask “to whom can the results be statistically generalized?”

We must also analyze our data with great care in a systematic way. The rigor of our analysis will have a major effect on whether our research results are valid or not. If we are trying to determine which of a range of new technologies to invest in, then it will be very important that we don’t skew our results towards technology or application created by someone we know, or that we don’t miss out on certain relevant technologies, as these inaccuracies will lead to a poor investment decision.