What might be special about business research?
If we contrast to research in business with, for example, chemistry research, one particular issue is clear: business research is not a single pure academic discipline like chemistry. If we conduct research in the field of chemistry, we will certainly have to know a lot about chemical concepts, the laws of chemistry, and the history of scientific development in chemistry as well as the context of current chemical research. There will be much to learn about the field before we could become successful researchers in that field, contributing to new knowledge.
However, in business, the issues are not so narrowly focused. We will need to understand things about a range of stakeholders; for example, managers, staff, customers, and owners, about business entities such as companies and partnerships and co-operatives, about economies and how they affect business operations, about products and services, and how they vary over time, how they can be produced efficiently, about money and what regulates its availability, how it produces profit, and Governments and how their policy affects business operations, customers’ income and needs, etc.
We can see that business is an umbrella term for many different things, and involves several different academic disciplines, such as mathematics, psychology, sociology, physics, economics, politics, history, and language. So, when we research business or management, we will be drawing on several different disciplines and domains. Business research is multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary.
Business research can also be conducted at different levels. We may want to find a way to predict when a particular project might move to the next stage of the product life cycle. This could involve a substantial piece of work involving customers, competitors, and markets as well as product strategies for resource use, marketing, and sales. We could try some trend analysis and aim to forecast future growth or decline in sales of our product against the competition, we could do some desk research into government policy affecting this market, we could interview experienced managers in the field to find out their subjective views about the product’s predicted life. This is a complex piece of research since there are so many variables and stakeholders involved in influencing a product’s life cycle.
Alternatively, we may want to find out how sales have changed over a period
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