Practical and Philosophical Issues Arising from Carrying out a Research Project in the Business Field - Term Paper Example

I. Introduction If you are interested in being attentive to the people around you, of experiencing their experiences, then your research topic or question should be those that attempts to take out the point of views of individuals in your study. Some concerns which would animate a qualitative research are: What is the going in here? What is the interactive process that is being carried out? How do they perform it? What is its significance to them? How do they deduce what it implies to others? How do we understand and record how they behave, what knowledge do they reveal to us, and how they explain their behaviours? Therefore, the research question steers your research design. Your worldview decides on your research topic. One you have made a decision regarding your research topic that requires a qualitative approach, you can start making preferences for your research orientation: ethnography, a case study, phenomenology or analysis, and others; and the different qualitative research methods that you will use: focus groups, document research, interviews, critical incident analysis, and others. Through understanding the various points of view that researchers use to assist them in conceptualising the nature and operation of the business world, we will be able to appreciate why business researchers prefer certain research methods for their investigations. This, consequently, will assist in locating business students’ point of view as well as update their knowledge regarding the set of methods that fall within the realm of the qualitative research approach. Most importantly, carrying out a business research requires a clear understanding of its practical and philosophical implications; these will be discussed inclusively in the paper. II. The Aims of the Research Formulating in interesting and workable business research topic is hardly ever a direct, coherent process for the reason that good ideas come from a diverse array of business management theories, experience and previous findings. Unless a business research topic links to something that greatly interests you, whether intellectually, socially, politically, or merely because you have always desired to probe deeper into the topic, it is improbable that you will have a great time doing and writing you business research project, or even complete it with enthusiasm (Marcoulides 1998). In formulating aims or objectives for business research projects, students should take into account the general area of business research: the availability of academic or scholarly literature; individual interests and experiences; professionals; the objectives of research funders; the academic head (Marcoulides 1998). Having scanned through the available academic literature, discussed about your insights and ideas and deliberated upon them, it is likely that you already have at this point identified a quite general research topic and aim that you would like to realise through qualitative research. The research topic could be as general as consumer behaviour of adolescents. Though, this is too broad a topic to be workable, hence the next step is to narrow down you research topic as well as your research aims. Nonetheless, what you are attempting to do at this point is to decide on a research question that is researchable and convenient, and for which you can use to build up a single, dominant research aim or objective that will direct the course of the research. For example, the area of consumer behaviour among adolescents could be narrowed down to an investigation of adolescent culture and the importance of consumption, or interaction with youth markets, or factors affecting college students’ buying behaviour, and others. Later on, you will go back out once again so as to establish your research aims into its wider context, relating the topic with available relevant literature, and linking it to past empirical researches and also theoretical paradigm (Schwab 2005). III. The Literature Review The literature review in business research does not end with the preliminary research and analysis, but it goes on throughout your research, similar to data gathering and analysis. After your business research proposal has been approved upon by your adviser or research board, you should immediately begin reviewing the related literature. What you are attempting to accomplish is to establish your research topic in its broader context and present a critical review of the business phenomenon and current research in the subject matter. The literature review which you bring together at this point is not as wide-ranging as that for a conventional, quantitative research wherein you are eager in analysing or reviewing all of the existing literature in the business field before starting your data gathering. Instead, in a qualitative method of research, the primary objective of reviewing the literature is to search for previous studies and the research methods used by other researchers so as to show the demand for your own study. Apparently, you are developing the work you carried out in the initial review phase. Even though the literature offers direction for your research, you should refuse to be pushed in a particular direction merely because the majority has followed that direction. It should be kept in mind that your own data and information should fix on the direction and approach of your research topic; they have main concern over the research of others (Silverman 1997). IV. Ethical Considerations When gathering information through human contact and interaction, it is essential to rigidly take into consideration ethical concerns because there are intrinsic dilemmas and difficulties associated to the inductive and holistic character of qualitative research in business studies. Since research is at first inductive, it is not consistently likely for you to totally inform respondents in advance regarding the possible implications and outcomes of the research, or even the specific areas you plan to investigate since changes take place as your research progresses (Saunders & Thornhill 1997). These ethical concerns are very important in maintaining access to a particular research sites. The humanistic or holistic character of qualitative research in business studies implies that you are engaged in a relationship with respondents, in a number of instances this can turn out to be fairly close, and it is your character, experiences and points of view, along with your relationship with participants that determines which information are gathered and how you analyse and interpret them. Hence, as you find a way between the false impression of objectivity and the edges of subjectivity, you will repeatedly confront a host of ethical concerns. Among ethical concerns are those relating to the meddling attribute of research and the wellbeing of the respondents. Unless you have responded and behaved honestly and in a responsible way, your research will remain unethical. Moreover, unless you have dealt with ethical concerns clearly in your research proposal, your business research project will be deficient in professionalism. Ethical concerns should be well thought-out, in advance of your actual data collection. They must be clearly laid out in your research proposal and afterwards in the methodology part of your dissertation. Even though you have catered to the more apparent concerns of confidentiality and anonymity, and guaranteed that no harm to respondents has been planned through your research project, it is unwise to commence on your actual data collection without thinking first about ethical concerns for the reason that you will stumble upon an ethical problem (Duboff & Spaeth 2000). The realisation of high values of ethics in the business research projects should be an important objective of any research assignment. V. Method of Data Collection It is improbable that you will be successful in collecting information from everyone who is related with your research topic; resources such as time and money will prevent this. Moreover, unless the population research sample is quite insignificant in size, say a group of individuals or an assembly of advertisements which you plan to investigate, you wouldn’t know adequately about its features to be able to conclude accurately who is involved in it. Hence, you should gather evidence from a segment of the population wherein you are interested. Sampling assessment is initiated during the early phases of research. These rests on the emphasis and research topic yet integrate the context for your study and the group of individuals from which to extract your sample population. Do not forget to ascertain that the individuals and locations are accessible and available. To a certain extent, communications that are computer-mediated help surpass a number of the difficulties of sampling in an expansive or remote geographical stretch since interviews can be carried out online or through phone. Likewise, busy individuals are frequently eager to be interviewed in the phone or in the Internet but not face-to-face (Cabel & Phillips 1961). VI. Analysis and Interpreting Data When you are done with the data collection, you will be overwhelmed by the vast quantity of information and data that you have amassed from even a small-scale research. Over a limited duration of time, it is probable that you will have obtained a variety of field notes, emails, transcripts of interviews, and company reports and documents. Data analysis is the method of consolidating, structuring and giving sense and meaning to these heaps of unprocessed data. Frequently researchers engaging upon for the first time on a research using the qualitative approach do not completely understand what is awaiting them when they provide time and effort to analyse their data. Qualitative analysis in business research is difficult, complicated, extensive and quite time-consuming. If you chose quantitative research, it would be normal to initiate both the data gathering and analysis procedures with a rigidly organised collection and analysis plan. This would not permit you to consider anything strange which could emerge and which could cause you to have second thoughts over your general research scheme (Saunders & Thornhill 1997). On the other hand, qualitative research permits you to be flexible at all phases of the research procedure for the reason that it is inductive and deductive at the same time. At first it is inductive. This implies that, to start with, patterns, theses and groupings stem from the data apart from being required to them prior to the process of data collection and analysis. Afterwards the procedure of qualitative research has turns out to be deductive because, as your business research project unfolds, you build up working recommendations and concepts which you verify over the subsequent phases of data collection and analysis. This could even entail looking for new information that verifies your proposals. There is a continuous interaction, hence, between data collection and analysis, which is the explanation why qualitative research is frequently defined as repetitive. VII. Conclusion Whether you are planning a research piece which intends to acquire financial sponsorship from an outside research committee, or whether you are a business student structuring your research or dissertation, a research proposal will be expected from you; this serves as a structure for action, and also as a way of conveying your motives and interests to those who either apportion funds for research or provide approval so you can go ahead with your research plan. The research proposal lays out the exact feature of the business research project, and the manner it is to be carried out. Preliminarily, you draft a short, overall structure of your proposed research. This could be two pages long and is aimed at providing your adviser, academic institution or business organisation idea of the field on which you are planning to concentrate upon. You afterwards build this up with an adviser into a more formal file of approximately 10-pages long. Drafting a research proposal can consume substantial amount of time, perhaps a month for an undergraduate research proposal, to almost a year for a dissertation proposal. Research committees demand very comprehensive and in depth proposals before they allot financial supports to individuals or research groups. Whether you are drafting a business research proposal to be evaluated by a prospective adviser, members of review council, or a sponsoring committee, your research proposal should include practical and philosophical considerations. Since qualitative research is resilient, some of the physical and philosophical aspects of qualitative research in business studies discussed here are only suggestive; you could choose to organise your research proposal distinctively, depending on the aims and objectives of your research. Lastly, qualitative research in business studies should conform to quality and ethical standards. References Cabell, R. W. & Phillips, A. (1961), Problems in Basic Operations Research Methods for Management, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Duboff, R. & Spaeth, J. (2000), Market Research Matters: Tools and Techniques for Aligning your Business, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Marcoulides, G. A. (1998), Modern Methods for Business Research, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Saunders, M. & Thornhill, L.P. (1997), A Research Methods for Business Students, Harlow, England: Prentice-Hall. Schwab, D. P. (2005), Research Methods for Organizational Studies, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Silverman, D. (1997), Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, London: Sage. Read More