Chapter no .

1


Introduction to Research
 What is research?

Research, a somewhat intimidating
term for some, is simply the process of
finding solutions to a problem after a
thorough study and analysis of the
situational factors.
 Business research

Business research can be described as
a systematic and organized effort to
investigate a specific problem
encountered in the work setting, which
needs a solution .
 Definition of business
research:

Business research can be defined as an
organized, systematic, data-based, critical,
objective, scientific inquiry or investigation
into a specific problem, undertaken with the
purpose of finding answer or solutions to it.
In essence, research provides the necessary
information that guides managers to make
informed decisions to successfully deal with
problem.
 Types of business research:
applied and basic

 Research can be undertaken for two different
purpose. One is to solve a current problem faced by
the manager in the work setting, demanding a timely
solution.
 For example , a particular product may not be selling
well and the manager might want to find the reasons
for this in order to take corrective action.
 The other is to generate a body of knowledge by
trying to comprehend how certain problems that
occur in organization can be solved, this is called
basic research.
 Types of business research:
applied and basic

 Some organization may, at a later stage, apply the
knowledge gained by the findings of basic research
to solve their own problems. For instance a university
professor may be interested in investigation the
factors that contribute to absenteeism as a matter of
mere academic interest.
 After gathering information on this topic from several
institutions and analyzing the data, the professor
may identify factors such as inflexible work hours,
inadequate training of employees, and low morale as
primarily influencing absenteeism.
 Types of business research:
applied and basic

 Later on, a manager who encountered absenteeism
of employees in his organization may use this
information to determine if these factors are relevant
to that particular work setting.
 In sum a research done with the intention of applying
the results of the findings to solve specific problems
currently being experienced in an organization is
called applied research.
 Research done chiefly to make a contribution to
existing knowledge is called basic, fundamental, or
pure research.
 Applied research
example:

 Apple’s iPod fueled the company’s success in resent
year, helping to increase sale from $5 billion in 2001
to $32 in a fiscal year 2008. Growth for the music
player averaged more than 200% in 2006 and 2007,
before falling to 6% in 2008. One reason for this
decrease in sale is that iPod owners see little or no
reason to upgrade, especially with the crumbling
economy. As a result some analysts believe that the
fourth quarter of 2008 will be the first quarter since
the iPod was introduce in 2001 that sale will decline
from the year-earlier quarter.
 Applied research example:

What's more, they believe that the number of
iPod sold will drop 12% in 2009, to about 48
million units. “The reality is there’s a limited
group of people who want an iPod or any
other portable media player.”
One analyst says, “ so the question
becomes, what will apple do about it?”
 Basic or fundamental research
example:

 Right from her days as a clerical employee in a bank,
Sarah had observed that her colleagues, though
extremely knowledgeable about the nuances and
intricacies of banking, were exerting very little effort
to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of bank in
the areas of customer relations and service. They
took the minimum amount of workload, availed
themselves of long tea and lunch breaks, and
seemed unmotivated in their dealing with the
customers and the management.
 Basic or fundamental research
example:

 Sarah herself was very hard working and enjoyed her
work with the customers. She always used to think what a
huge waste it was for talented employees to goof off
rather than to work hard and enjoy their work. When she
left the bank and did her dissertation for her PhD, her
topic of investigation was job involvement, or the ego
investment of people in their jobs. The result of her
investigation was that the single most important
contribution factor to job involvement is fit or match
between the nature of the job and the personality
predisposition of the people engage in performing it.
 Chapter no 2.


Scientific investigation
 Scientific Investigation

 We explained that both basic and applied research are often carried out in
a scientific way. It is therefore important to understand what the term
scientific means.
 Scientific research focuses on solving problems and pursues a step-by-step
logical, organized and rigorous method to identify the problems, gather
data, analyze them, and draw valid conclusions from them.
 Scientific research is not based on hunches, experience, and intuition
(though these may play a part in final decision making), but is purposive
and rigorous.
 Scientific research also helps researchers to state their findings with
accuracy and confidence. This helps various other organizations to apply
those solutions when they encounter similar problems.
 Scientific investigation tends to be more objective than subjective, and
helps managers to highlight the most critical factors at the workplace that
need specific attention so as to avoid, minimize, or solve problems.
 The hallmarks of scientific
research

 Purposiveness
 Rigor
 Testability
 Replicability
 Precision and confidence
 Objectivity
 Generalizability
 Parsimony
 1. Purposiveness

 The manager has started the research with the a
definite aim or purpose. The focus is on increasing
the commitment of employees to the organization, as
this will be beneficial in many ways.
 An increase in employee commitment will translate
into less turnover, less absenteeism, and probably
increased performance levels, all of which will
definitely benefit the organization. The research thus
has a purposive focus.
 2.Rigor

 A good theoretical base and a sound methodological
design add rigor to a purposive study. Rigor
connotes carefulness and the degree of exactitude in
research investigation. Lacks the rigor for the
following reason:
1. The conclusions are incorrectly drawn because
they are based on the response of just a few employees
whose opinion may not be representative of those of
the entire workforce.
 2.Rigor

2.The manner of framing and addressing the
question could have introduced bias or
incorrectness in the responses.
3.There might be many other important
influence on organizational commitment that
this small sample of respondents did not or
could not verbalize during the interviews, and
the researcher has therefore failed to include
them.
 3.Testability

 The researcher might hypothesize that those
employees who perceive greater opportunities for
participation in decision making will have a higher
level of commitment. This is a hypothesis that can be
tasted when the data are collected.
 Scientific research thus lends itself to testing logically
developed hypotheses to see whether or not the data
support the hypotheses that are developed after a
careful study of the problem situation.
 4.Replicability

Our hypotheses have not been
supported merely by chance,
but are reflective of the true
state of affairs in the population.
 5.Precision and confidence

 Precision refer to the closeness of the finding to “reality”
base on the sample.
 In other words precision reflects the degree of accuracy
or exactitude of results on the basis of the sample, to
what really exist in the universe.
 For example if I estimated the number of production days
lost during the year due to absenteeism at between 30
and 40, as against the actual figure of 35, the precision of
my estimation compares more favorably than if I had
indicated that the loss of production days was somewhere
between 20 and 50. You may recall the term confidence
interval in statistics', which is what is referred to here as
Confidence.
 5.Precision and confidence

 Confidence refers to the probability that our estimations
are correct. That is, it is not merely enough to be precise,
but it is also important that we can confidently claim that
95% of the time our result will be true and there is the
only 5% chance of our results being wrong. This is known
as the confidence level.
 In social science research, a 95% confidence level –
which implies that there is only 5% probability that the
findings may not be correct – is accepted as a
conventional level, and is usually referred to as a
significance level of 0.05 (p=0.05).
 6.Objectivity

 The conclusions drawn through the interpretation of
the results of data analysis should be objective; that is,
they should be based on the facts of the findings
derived from actual data, and not on our own
subjective or emotional values.
 The more objective the interpretation of the data, the
more scientific the research investigation becomes.
Though managers or researchers might start with
some initial subjective value and beliefs, their
interpretation of the data should be stripped of
personal value or bias.
 7.Generalizability

 Generalizability refers to the scope of applicability of
the research findings in one organizational setting to
other setting.
 For instance, if a researcher's findings that
participant in decision making enhances
organizational commitment are found to be true in a
variety of manufacturing, industrial, and service
organization, and not merely in a particular
organization study by the researcher, then the
generalizability of the findings of other organizational
setting is enhanced.
 8.Parsimony

 Simplicity in explaining the phenomena or problems that
occur, and in generating solutions for the problems, is
always preferred to complex research frameworks that
consider an unmanageable number of factors.
 For instance, if two or three specific variables in the work
situation are identified, which when changed would raise
the organizational commitment of the employees by 45%,
that would be more useful and valuable to the manager
than if it were recommended that he should change ten
different variable to increase organizational commitment
by 48%.
 The hypothetico-deductive
method

The hypothetico-deductive method,
popularize by the Austrian philosopher Karl
Popper, is a typical version of the scientific
method.
The hypothetico-deductive method, provides
a useful, systematic approach to solving
basic and managerial problems.
Seven-step process in the hypothetico-
deductive method

Identify a broad problem area
Define the problem statement
Develop hypotheses
Determine measures
Data collection
Data analysis
Interpretation of results
 1.Identify a broad problem
area

A drop in a sale, frequent production
interruptions, incorrect accounting results,
low-yielding investments, disinterestedness
of employees in their work, customer
switching, and the like, could attract the
attention of the manager and catalyze the
research project.
 2.Define the problem
statement

 Scientific research start with a definite aim or
purpose. To find solutions for identified problems, a
problem statement that states the general objective
of the research should be developed.
 Gathering initial information about the factors that are
possibly related to the problem will help us to narrow
the broad problem area and to define the problem
statement.
 3.Develop hypotheses

 In this step variables are examined as to their
contribution or influence in explaining why the
problem occurs and how it can be solved. The
network of association identified among the variable
is then theoretically woven, together with justification
as to why they might influence the problem.
 A scientific hypothesis must meet two requirements.
The first criterion is that the hypothesis must be
testable.
 3.Develop hypotheses

 A famous example of a hypothesis that God created
the earth.
 The second criterion, and one of the central tenets of
the hypothetico-deductive method, is that a
hypothesis must also be falsifiable.
 According to Karl Popper, this is important because
a hypothesis cannot be confirmed; there is always a
possibility that future research will show that it is
false.
 4.Determine measures

Unless the variable in the theoretical
framework are measured in someway, we will
not be able to test our hypothesis.to test the
hypothesis that unresponsive employees
affect customer switching, we need to
operationalize unresponsiveness and
customer switching.
 5.Data collection

After we have determined how to
measure our variable, data with respect
to each variable in the hypothesis need
to be obtained. These data then from
the basis for data analysis.
 6.Data analysis

 The data gathered are statistically analyzed to see if
the hypothesis that were generated have been
supported.
 For example, to see if unresponsiveness of
employees affects customers switching, we might
want to do a correlational analysis to determine the
relationship between these variables.
 7.Interpretation of data

 Now we must decide whether our hypothesis are supported or not by
interpreting the meaning of the results of the data analysis.
 For instance, if it was found from the data analysis that increase
responsiveness of employees was negatively related customer
switching, then we can deduce that if customer is to increased, our
employees have to be trained to be more response.
 Based on the deductions, we are able to make recommendations on
how the customer switching problem may be solved( at least to some
extent); we have to train our employees to be more flexible and
communicative.
 Even if the hypothesis is not supported our research effort is still
worthwhile. Hypotheses that are not supported allow us to refine our
theory by thinking that why it is not supported. We can then test our
refine theory in future research.
 

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