The UK Retail Sector - Assignment Example

?Dissertation methodology College: Methodology The methodology part of any research is significant as it determines if theset objectives are achieved. The methodology section outlines how the research intends to achieve research objectives and obtain answers for the research questions. The researcher should ensure that the chosen methodology is effective and appropriate to the research. This is because an inappropriate research methodology leads to wastage of resources such as time and effort. Thus, secondary methodology would be most appropriate to the purpose of the proposed research. Secondary research involves using collecting information on a phenomenon under study from existing resources of databases. Secondary research is cheaper relative to primary research. In addition, it takes less time to collect and analyze data in secondary research compared to primary research. Secondary data analysis enables a research to analyze data from large samples. This kind of analyses would be difficult when conducting a primary research due to time and financial constraints (David & Sutton 2004, p.69; Hulley 2007, p. 207). Researchers sometimes utilize primary and secondary research methods in the same study. The information collected from secondary sources in some cases is sufficient to answer all the research questions in a study. This is particularly true for studies that many researchers have analyzed the research topic extensively and the researcher may not add any new insights into the field by conducting a primary research. In addition, sometimes secondary data is the only source of information on a research topic especially when a researcher is not able to conduct a primary research. Secondary data is useful in a research for providing a foundation or background information on the research problem. In this case, secondary data shapes the expectations of a researcher and provides the current level of knowledge on the topic under study (Wrenn, Stevens & Loudon 2006, p. 71; Webb 2002, p. 32). In the proposed study, the information from secondary sources will be sufficient to answer all the research questions. Extensive research has been conducted by independent researchers and those working under government agencies on UK’s retail sector. It is possible for the researcher to conduct a primary research on the UK’s retail sector. However, such a research would be tedious because the retail sector is large. For the researcher to obtain a sample that would be a true representation of the entire retail sector, different organizations in different industries would be involved in the study. A large sample would be required and this is costly in terms of time spent in collecting and analyzing data from a large sample as well as resource requirement. Researchers use secondary data as a source of exploratory information on their research topics. This exploratory information helps a research in designing research instruments for a primary research. For instance, a researcher may use the exploratory information as a guide to formulating questions in a questionnaire or for focus groups. The nature of existing secondary data on a research topic can help a researcher in making a decision on the most appropriate research design to use in his or her studies. For instance, secondary data may indicate past attempts by other researchers to conduct primary research on a topic and their success or failure. If past researchers have ruled out the possibility of conducting a primary research in a certain filed, secondary data will help a researcher to save time and resources by adopting a secondary research design (Wrenn, Stevens & Loudon 2006, p. 72). The existing literature on UK’s retail sector indicates the significance of the sector to the economy as well as its magnitude. The retail sector is large and consists of very many significant industries. Past researches and government publications indicate its trend over the years including its performance during the financial crisis. This information has helped the researcher to settle on a secondary research design especially due to its large size. The information and insights from secondary resources will be helpful in future in case the researcher decides to conduct a primary research on a section of UK’s retail sector. The existing literature will be useful in designing research instruments and research planning. In addition to providing guidance in preparing research instruments and choosing a research design, secondary data acts as a standard for evaluating primary data (Wrenn, Stevens & Loudon 2006, p. 72). Secondary data can guide a researcher in formulating hypothesis or different areas in the field of interest that a researcher can explore. Once the hypotheses are formulated, the researcher can then decide on whether to use a primary or secondary research design. This implies that a researcher can use secondary data to formulate hypothesis or define the scope of research for a secondary research design. Secondary data also informs a researcher on the existing level of knowledge in the field on interest. Thus, a researcher does not waste time and resources analyzing something that another researcher has already analyzed. This means that if a researcher decides to go straight to primary research without considering secondary, he or she may end up with similar findings as past researchers and thus add no new insights (Wrenn, Stevens & Loudon 2006, p. 72). The researcher has explored the existing literature on the UK’s retail sector to determine the current level of knowledge on the sector. A brief preview of this literature indicates that most of the existing literatures simply describe the sector and its performance over the years. There is no primary research that had been conducted to determine the factors that enable this sector to survive the financial crisis. However, analyzing different literatures will help the research to understand what factors were in place during the financial crisis and how each factor affected the retail sector. Secondary data on the UK’s retail sector has helped the researcher to define the specific area in the retail sector that will be analyzed in the proposed study. This definition has been facilitated by the identification of research gaps in secondary data. With this clear definition on the scope and purpose of the study, the researcher is assured that the proposed study is significant and will add value to the existing literature on the retail sector. One major shortcoming of relying on secondary data in a research is that the information found may not fit the purpose of the current study. This is because primary research is conducted for a certain purpose and to meet certain objectives. The objectives and purpose of primary research may not be in line with those of the secondary research. When the objective and purpose of past primary research is irrelevant to the proposed secondary research, a researcher may be forced to conduct a primary research. In addition, sometimes secondary data on certain variables is in the wrong intervals or measurements. Consequently, a researcher cannot compare data from different secondary sources. The primary research might also be unreliable if past researchers did not use proper samples that are true representatives of the population (Wrenn, Stevens & Loudon 2006, p. 73). The research instruments used in past primary researches may be unreliable or inaccurate in analyzing primary data. Therefore, if a researcher relies on such primary researches to answer research questions, the findings of the secondary research will also be inaccurate (Wrenn, Stevens & Loudon 2006, p. 72). Since the researcher will rely on secondary data for the proposed study, only reliable and credited primary researchers will be considered in the study. Any primary research that does not pass a reliability test will not be used to analyze the UK’s retail sector. Government publications will be used to analyze any statistical data that may be needed in the study. This is because government authorities use consistent methods of measuring and reporting on national variables. Therefore, it is easy for a researcher to compare data on across regions or in different years. In secondary research, the researcher may make reviews on previous findings of past primary researches. A synthesis of these findings generates new ideas on the topic of study and the research can publish the synthesized data in a new form. Secondary research can be conducted from an office, library or at home and this give the research freedom to collect as much information as possible on the research topic. The internet offers vast information and links to databases. Thus, a researcher has a wide range of resources to use in secondary research (Gratton & Jones 2010, p. 8). Given the advantages of secondary research, the researcher will use secondary research in the proposed study to analyze the UK retail sector. Secondary data assists a researcher in defining the target population, sample size, and ways of classify data. Classifying data based on existing secondary data ensures that primary data is congruent with the existing knowledge on a subject. Some of the factors that a researcher should consider when deciding on whether to use secondary or primary data include the cost, quality, relevance , biasness, accuracy, sufficiency and accessibility of secondary data. If secondary data is insufficient to answer all the research questions, a researcher should consider conducting a primary research (Webb 2002, p. 33). In the proposed research, it has been established that secondary data will be sufficient to answer all research questions. The research will conduct an analysis on all secondary sources of data to ensure that they are free from bias and inaccuracies. The accuracy of secondary data can be determined by the kind of research instruments used, the sample size and its representation of the population, data analysis methods, and the inclusion of raw data. A large sample is in most cases a better representative of the population. The researcher may limit the analysis to studies that include a large sample consisting of different industries in the retail sector. This will ensure that the information analyzed represent the actual state of UK’s retail sector. The inclusion of raw data in the final report helps other researchers to conduct reliability tests and determine if the research is unbiased. This is because other researchers can evaluate the full research process and confirm that the findings are accurate. Where a primary research involves more than one researcher, users of its findings should determine if all persons were supervised. Supervision ensures that field agents report accurate data. The limitations of a primary research and the recommended strategies of improving future researches can also the users to determine its level of accuracy (Webb 2002, p. 33). Webb (2002, p33)’s insights on how to use secondary data are very useful to the researcher. The author’s point of view provides a benchmark of analyzing secondary sources to determine the most appropriate sources that shall be used in the final research. The secondary research will include studying scholarly articles, journals, books, technical reports, literature review articles, and magazines for the relevant information. Government publications will also be helpful in acquiring information especially on official statistics on the retail sector. The main information being researched for will be for the key factors, which helped the UK’s retail sector survive the financial crisis. Therefore, the resources used in this research will be limited to those that analyze the UK retail market during the financial crisis. The factors will guide the data collection and analysis procedures in the proposed study. The researcher will ensure that the resources and information used in the proposed study are from credited and reliable sources. To this extent, the researcher will consider the purpose of every publication to determine its relevance to the study as well as its quality. The purpose and objectives of the proposed study will help the researcher to assess the quality of data collected. The researcher will also ascertain the credentials of each author before using their findings or ideas in the proposed research. The credentials of authors will help in determining the authenticity and reliability of findings of a primary research before using them to make judgments or conclusions in the secondary research. Identifying the appropriate resources to use in secondary research is sometimes tedious and time consuming due to the large number of resources available. The date of publication will help the researcher in sorting the resources to use in this study. This is because the proposed research aims at analyzing the retail sector in UK during the financial crisis. Therefore, resources published before the financial crisis will be irrelevant to this study. The content and scope of a resource will also be used to eliminate irrelevant resources. Referencing and intended audience will also be used to eliminate inappropriate resources for the research. The researcher will create data matrices prior to conducting the secondary research to simplify the data analysis process. Secondary data is diverse in terms of varying ideas and volumes of information to be analyzed in a study. Thus, creating data matrix beforehand will help the researcher to classify the collected data for analysis. It is advisable to start with secondary data before proceeding to collect primary data in a study. A researcher should first exhaust all secondary sources before proceeding to conducting a primary research. This is because secondary data contains qualitative and quantitative data and is readily available as well. A researcher is flexible when using secondary data to shift from type of analysis or source of information to another. This flexibility is lost in a primary research. In addition, sometimes secondary data is of a higher quality than the kind of primary data that a researcher would collect. This is because some past researchers have more experience, skills, and required resources to conduct a comprehensive research (Armstrong n.d., p. 30). Armstrong (n.d.)’s point of view is applicable to the proposed research. Research on the entire retail sector in the UK requires enough resources and research skills that a student may not have. Thus, the information collected by past researchers may be of a higher quality than what the researcher would collect in a primary research. For instance, government statistics on the retail sector are more reliable and of high quality than what the research would obtain from the field. The government has access to machinery for collecting real time on all sectors in the country including the retail sector. Armstrong (n.d. p. 30) continues to indicate that secondary data allows a researcher to compare data from various sources before making a conclusion on the research topic. Such comparisons are limited in primary research where a researcher can only compare information from different respondents or categories of respondents. In the proposed study, the research will be in a position to compare various points of views of the factors that enable the UK retail sector to be successful even in the midst of global crisis. The information of different author’s point of view is readily available especially from electronic databases and resources. Webb (2002, p. 33) indicates that secondary data indicate the challenges or limitations that past researchers encountered when conducting a primary research in the field of interest. This information is important to a researcher as it helps them to prepare in advance for similar challenges or develop alternative strategies of conducting a research to avoid the challenges outlined. For instance, if past researchers experienced hostility from respondents when conducting primary research, a new researcher may use such information to design the most appropriate way of approaching the same respondents. The researcher may also decide to rely on secondary data instead of conducting a primary research in a hostile environment (Webb 2002, p. 33). Secondary data sometimes requires processing to fit into the proposed study. The researcher is also unaware of the conditions under which the primary research was conducting unless if such information is revealed by the publishers. This discourages some researchers from relying on secondary data especially if the required data processing takes a long time (Collins 2010, p. 120). The limitations of processing secondary data prior to using it in a research do not apply to the proposed research. This is because the data that will be used in the study does not require any form of processing. One of the advantages of secondary data is that it allows a research to analyze the situation in inaccessible settings. Past researchers may have had the privilege of accessing such settings before and their findings will help a researcher to understand the real situation in those settings. In addition, sometime organizations limit access to their databases to their employees and if an employee conducts an internal research in such an organization, the findings of such research will help external users to analyze the organization (Collins 2010, p. 120; Christ 2008, p. 21). Secondary data will help the researcher to access information on all industries in the retail sector. References Armstrong, J n.d. Undergraduate dissertation- an analysis of quality assurance in the food industry Christ, P 2008, Know this: marketing basics, Know This Media, Dunedin Collins, H 2010, Creative research: the theory and practice of research for the creative industries, AVA Publishing, Worthing David, M & Sutton, C, D 2004, Social research: the basics, SAGE, Thousand Oaks Gratton, C & Jones, I 2010, Research methods for sports studies, Taylor & Francis, United Kingdom Hulley, S, B 2007, Designing clinical research, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia Webb, J, R 2002, Understanding and designing market research, Cengage Learning EMEA Wrenn, B., Stevens, R, E & Loudon, D, L 2006, Marketing research: text and cases, Routledge, London Read More