Compare and Contrast Various Concepts - Research Paper Example

? BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS Compare and Contrast Various Research Concepts …………………. College/ ………….. …………. Introduction Information and knowledge are perhaps most valuable and powerful intangible assets of a business organization. If a business is gifted to find information with its ‘research process’ and to adopt effective ‘knowledge management’ practices to make use of the information it has collected, the business will certainly be able to build sustainable competitive advantages and stay long to survive in its marketing landscape. Research is thus vital to an organization to get access in to right information, on right time and about right events in right ways. Most business organizations spend relatively a good amount of its earnings on research, mostly through the ‘Research and Development’ departments. Knowing deeply about the world around the business, especially regarding competitors, customers, other relevant stakeholders, technology, economic and political environments etc, helps a business plan strategically and effectively to serve its people better. This piece of research paper explains various research concepts, based on reviewing the literatures and compares and contrasts these different concepts. This paper addresses basic concepts of business research, applied and basic research, manager and the consultant researcher, hallmarks of scientific research etc. Business Research Research is a process of seeking information to find solution to a problem after thoroughly studying and analyzing situational factors (Sekaran, 2003, p. 42). Managers or specialized team assigned by the managers in most organizations engage in studying and analyzing organizational issues in order to find better solutions to it and help the organization run smoothly. A business organization cannot take decisions on important issues unless the manager or any other body assigned for it investigate the relevant information more deeply, mainly by collecting information on particular aspects that the business is interested on them. The information thus collected can be used to make judgment regarding right solution to the problem. Research normally includes a number of difficult processes such as situation analysis, data collection, hypothesis development, quantitative or qualitative analysis and presenting the findings etc. Concepts of Basic and Applied Research Though research is normally conducted for large numbers of different purposes, literatures identify two different purposes for research, namely basic research and applied research. Research may be conducted for different purposes like assessing business performance, measuring financial strength, finding financial viability, recognizing human capital productivity, assessing the effectiveness of specific organizational programs like training, development etc. These are quite different examples for some issues or problems that a firm generally requires to find solution to and bring them under control. All these different types of purposes fall in to one of basic or applied research. Basic and Applied research: Compared and Contrasted A manager or researcher may undertake the research to solve a current problem that he currently faces in his organization. the problem he or the firm faces requires a timely and more often an immediate solution. Applied research is thus one that attempts to find solution to a current problem faced by the organization (Sekaran, 2003, p. 7). Basic research focuses on generating a knowledge base that can be used to comprehend a problem likely to occur in the organization in future. The organization does not currently face a problem, but it is very likely that it would face issues like financial or managerial in its future and therefore it requires to create information that can be used to analyze and solve the problems. Thomas, Nelson and Silverman (2010) described that the concept of research can be viewed through two different extremes- basic research and the applied research. Applied research tends to address immediate problems, to use so-called real world settings, to make use of human participants and to maintain limited control over the research setting (p. 5). In contrast, basic research deals with theoretical problems. Basic research uses laboratory as a setting, animals as subjects, controls different conditions and produces results that have relatively limited direct application (Thomas, Nelson and Silverman, 2010, p. 5). According to this illustration, basic research has relatively limited scope in application as the information collected or the results of research may not directly be applicable to the problem the organization faces in its future, whereas applied research is arranged only after studying the issue and real-conditions of the problem currently faced and therefore its results will be more applicable. George, Joll and Lynk (1992, p. 251) argued that Basic research is of greater importance because its findings will serve as inputs for further applied research projects with commercial outputs. Most business organizations invest heavily in R&D in order to equip them with sufficient information and knowledge base that have relatively long-term use and dependability. Applied research has more reasonably immediate commercial application to one particular technology, product and industry, basic research is mainly concerned with the advance of scientific knowledge. Concept of Research as a scientific investigation Many literatures have defined and described research as a scientific investigation. Cooper and Schindler (2003, p. 13) stressed that research and scientific investigations are almost similar in nature. As history shows, science has its own beginnings in pragmatic problems of real life. Research is quite narrowly defined as it is restricted to either pure or basic research. Scientific research is a systematic, controlled and empirical investigation of natural phenomena which is controlled and guided by theory and hypotheses that relate to the presumed relations among those phenomena. In scientific investigation, observations are controlled and explanations are ruled out. A research process comprises of naturally different steps including observation, preliminary data gathering, secondary data collection, theory formulation, hypothesizing, scientific data collection, data analysis etc. The research can be found to have incorporated with various hallmarks of scientific research or scientific investigation that are purposiveness, rigor, testability, precision, confidence etc.. Both basic and applied researches are closely related to the concept of scientific investigation. As Sekaran (2003, p. 21) found, applied research may be or may not be generalized to other organizations, due to differences that may exist in such factors as size, nature of work, characteristics of employee and organizational structure etc. applied research requires to be organized systematically so that problems can be identified, data are scientifically collected and they can be effectively analyzed as well. Scientific research can be illustrated as a complex process that is undertaken to understand, explain or predict a phenomena through successfully investigating the relevant issues and finding answers to these issues. More specifically, research involves deciding on the problem to be studied, identifying the critical variables that are likely to impact the situations and formulating relevant theories, collecting necessary data on the variables of interest, through analyzing them to help find better conclusions to them. Comparing and contrasting various Hallmarks of Scientific Research 1- Purposiveness Generally, there is a best way for the research to be conducted. The researcher must follow a particular method that is best suited to the specific problem to be solved or investigated. Selecting the best method for the research actually comes from the purpose of the research and this details what the term ‘purposiveness’ means (Morse and Richards, 2002, p. 24). The choice of research method is largely influenced by his familiarity with the method and its applicability, resources available to him, data to be investigated or the data that are already available etc. Research has almost always a specific purpose focus. For instance, if the manager would like to investigate employees’ commitment, he may have to investigate many variables like employee performance, skills-training given to them, absenteeism etc. the main purpose behind the research is assessing employee commitments, but it may require to investigate in to a number of very different variables too. 2- Rigor As compared to purposiveness of the research, rigor is another important element that helps a researcher add more values to the results he is likely to produce with his research. A good conceptual base and effective methodological design and structure would be able to add rigor to a purposive research. Rigor helps a research become more purposive. It is because, as Sekaran (2003, p. 26) noted, rigor brings carefulness, scrupulousness and a degree of exactitude in scientific research. Gaining exact results and articulating more accurate findings are critical to scientific research. Rigor is highly valued as far as research is concerned because it is associated with the worth of research outcomes and studies are critiqued as means of judging rigor. In qualitative research methods, rigor is associated with openness, scrupulous adherence to a specific philosophical perspective, accurateness in gathering data and consideration of all data in the subjective theory development phase (Burns and Grove, 2005, p. 55). For instance, when a manager conducts a small research by asking some of his employees regarding their job satisfaction in their workplace, and he reaches certain conclusions purely based, the approach to this investigation is quite unscientific. It is because of that these conclusions may be incorrectly drawn because they are based on the replies of some of his employees and their responses may not purely represent the opinions of other employees as well (Sekaran, 2003, p. 26). 3- Testability As far as scientific investigation is concerned, the hypotheses developed or the conclusions made from the research must be testable by applying certain statistical tests to the data collected. Chi-square test and t-test are some of the very commonly used tests in scientific research methods. The hypotheses developed must be made available to proper tests in order to assess whether the data can support the hypotheses developed after carefully studying the problem for investigation. 4- Replicability Purposiveness and Rigor add more values to the research, likewise, replicability too adds greater values to a good research as a research that has replicability is more likely to be more accurate. Some times, the results of a research will have greater applicability as it gained more faith and dependability and therefore the research itself or its findings can be repeated in other similar circumstances as well (Sekaran, 2003, p. 23- 24). Replicability is thus one of the important hallmarks of the concept of scientific research. Being replicable is one of the significant tenets of an effective scientific research because it helps a researcher obtain almost similar findings. Replicability of a research occurs when a researcher adopts same procedures with similar settings and systems of the research used by another researcher, and this helps him obtain almost similar findings (Holloway, 1997, p. 137). As Langbein and Felbinger (2006, p. 33) found, replicability behaviour of a research helps the manager or any one who conducts the research make empirical claims more defensible and clearly objective. A research that lacks replicability is often considered to be personal opinion and causal observation. 5- Precision and Confidence A good research, more specifically a research that fulfills the conditions of purposiveness, rigor, objectivity and replicability will certainly enhance precision and confidence as well. As compared to other hallmarks of scientific research, precision and confidence are also extremely important elements that add more values to a research. Precision is the size or level of the plus or minus interval around the population parameter under consideration where as confidence is the degree of percentage level of certainty that the actual mean is within the plus or minus interval around the mean (Wrenn, Stevens and Loudon, 2006, p. 188). Accuracy, closeness of the research to the reality and exactness are some of the determining factors of precision and confidence. If a research is more purposive and more rigor and it has both replicability and testability, surely the researcher will feel greater precision and confidence. According to Sekaran (2003, p. 24), precision refers to the closeness of a research or its findings to the reality based on the sample selected for the research. As he noted, precision reflects the level of accuracy and exactitude of the results of a research purely based on the sample. Confidence refers to the probability that the researcher’s estimates are correct. 6- Objectivity The findings or c0nclusions made from the interpretation of data analysis and its results must be objective. A research can be said to be objective only when it is based on the facts of the findings made from actual data. Researcher’s subjective or emotional values thus have little influence on the accuracy and exactitude of the findings and conclusion (Sekaran, 2003, p. 24). If the research is highly objective, there would be closer and more positive relation between the hypotheses that has been developed and the findings of the data analysis or research itself. Similar to all other hallmarks of the scientific research, objectivity is also an important element that adds values to the research. Objectivity is an important component of science and also of scientific investigation. Quantitative approaches to research provide objectivity so that hypotheses are tested by applying statistical criteria to the measures being considered (Hair, Celsi and Money, 2011, p. 146) Pellissier (2008, p. 24) observed that objectivity and honesty should guide the qualitative endeavor in a research. A qualitative researcher often finds it difficult to achieve objectivity, because the data collection and the analysis are determined by the researchers themselves. Objectivity in research also has been viewed as an important code of ethics. Fayolle (2007, p. 212) argued that researchers are currently held to an old code of ethics, that reflects objectivity and detachment so that research would never be contaminated. If research is conducted with out proper adherence to this code of ethics, the research would be more likely to lack integrity 7- Generalizability A research that has fulfilled the conditions of purposiveness, rigor, confidence, objectivity and replicability may not always enhance generalizability because it doesnot directly influence the level of accuracy and exactitude of a research. A research that has generalizability will be applicable to other organizational settings as well. The findings of the research thus can be generalized. Suppose, a researcher has conducted a study within his organizational setting regarding the job satisfaction in different leadership styles and the findings of this research can directly be compared, applied and evaluated from other organizational or industrial settings and this can be considered for other organizations too, then the research has enhanced generalizability. Generalizability is a characteristic of a proposition. It is the degree of confidence that a particular proposition is correct and thus can be applied to the entire theoretical domain (Dul and Hak, 2007, p. 47).In research techniques, probability sampling tends to provide more generalizability as compared to that of non-probability sampling. Though non-probability sampling does not provide generalizability, they offer convenience and timely information (Sekaran and Bougie, 2009, p. 298). 8- Parsimony Good research should also follow parsimony that means a simpler solution to a problem is better than a complex solution (Hair, Celsi and Money, 2011, p. 40). A research that provides simple solutions to explain the phenomenon or the exact research problem can be said to have fulfilled parsimony. Concepts of Hypothetico-Deductive Method As far as research is considered as a scientific investigation, hypothetic-deductive method is one of the primary methods used in scientific investigation. With relation to this theoretical perspective, deduction and induction are of greater importance in research. These two concepts are detailed, compared and contrasted below: Comparing and Contrasting of Induction and Deduction A research is an attempt to find answers to a problem and this can be enhanced either by the process of induction or by deduction. Deduction is a research process by which the researcher arrives at a reasoned conclusion by logically generalizing a fact which is known already. But, induction is a research process that a researcher observes certain phenomenon and based on this the researcher arrives at specific conclusions (Sekaran, 2003, p. 27). Ghauri and Gronhaug (2005, p. 14) described that there are mainly two ways for a researcher to observe and faithfully record what is seen with no bias and prejudice. These two ways are induction and deduction. Induction is a general conclusion from the empirical observations, whereas deduction is purely based on logic and researcher bases his research process on logical reasoning and logical assessment. Induction comprises of observation, findings, theory building etc. Concepts of Seven steps involved in Hypothetico-deductive method Hypothetico-deductive method comprises of seven steps, they are 1) Observation, 2) Preliminary information gathering, 3) Theory formulation, 4) Hypothesizing, 5) further scientific data collection, 6) data analysis and 7) Deduction. Observation occurs when the researcher senses some changes that are occurring or a specific environment is getting changed due to some new behaviors, attitudes and feelings etc. When the researcher finds that the phenomenon he observed is of importance in his field of study would go to second step, which is preliminary data gathering by seeking of information in detail. When he collects the information required, he goes to theory formulation by which he integrates all the information in a specific logical manner in order to conceptualize factors that are responsible for the problem. Next step is hypothesizing by which the researcher certain testable hypotheses are generated (Sekaran, 2003, p. 31- 34). Once hypotheses are developed, the researcher would focus to obtain each variable in the hypotheses. The hypotheses are required to test further through further scientific data collection as well. After this, the researcher will have to analyze the data statistically to find out whether the hypotheses that are generated can be supported or not. In doing so, the researcher may make use of correlation analysis. The researcher next attempts to arrive at a conclusion by interpreting the meaning of the results of the data that were analyzed (Sekaran, 2003, p. 33- 35). When comparing and contrasting all the above seven steps involved in hypothetic-deductive method, it can be understood that the research goes through a continuous process. The successful completion and execution of one process helps the researcher reaches the next and thus to complete the process of research. Concepts of Ethics and Business Research Ethics is an extremely significant concept in business. When it comes to business research, the process of seeking information and using it for problem solving or decision making must be ethically planned and processed. In business research, ethics refers to specific code of conduct or a societal norm that is expected from the society in conducting the research (Sekaran, 2003, p. 17). Ethics is one of the most considerable elements of a good research. A research can be successfully done and its target can be achieved only if it fulfilled certain ethical codes that are expected from a researcher, such as refraining from bias and prejudice in gathering data, pure data analysis, personal interest being avoided etc. Conclusion This piece of research paper has highlighted various research concepts and analyzed its significance in business research. This paper has compared and contrasted various research concepts such as basic and applied researches, research as scientific investigation and its hallmarks including purposiveness, rigor, confidence, parsimony etc. The paper has also compared and contrasted seven steps involved in hypothetic-deductive method. 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