Consumer Behaviour in Cambodia - Dissertation Example

It is necessary for a researcher to make certain assumptions regarding the nature of reality that is to be studied (Daniel, 2010). Apart from that, assumptions are also made about the knowledge produced and the research perspective. Figure 1The figure above summarizes the approaches that can be used by the researchers in a research study. The approaches have been summarized in the form of epistemology, ontology, theory, perspective, techniques, and methods. Each of these different approaches entails a different way of performing the research.

In general, there are two research philosophies namely interpretivism and positivists (Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 2006; Guba and Lincoln, 2005).Positivism is a philosophy of research that is based on the view that sociology must use natural methods (Tobin and Joseph, 2006). However, that does not mean only the use of experiments as there are several problems associated with experiments. The biggest one comes in the form of ethical violations. The researcher who believes in positivist philosophy believes that research works must be conducted with the help of quantitative methods.

They principally aim to measure the social structures (Mehrens and Lehmann, 1987). On the other hand, interpretivism or anti positivists take the other way round. According to their point of view, human being perceives and reflects on that basis and scientific studies are not appropriate for the study of society. They also believe that unlike objectives human being has the ability to alter their behavior. Hence, the inference is that in order to understand the social action, it is necessary to understand the meaning and reason people perceive about the environment around them (Abbott, 2010; Connaway and Powell, 2010; Gordon, 2007; Snieder and Larner, 2009; Wilson, 2010).

Another important finding of the study is that researchers who follows interpretivism philosophy believe that social research must be conducted with the help of the qualitative method (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009; Browne, 2006). This study seeks to investigate the consumer behavior pattern of Cambodia and hence it clearly points out the fact that it requires the collection of qualitative data. Therefore, this study will adopt interpretivism philosophy in order to address the study.3.

3 Research Approach There are two research approaches namely deductive research approaches and inductive research approaches (Lee and Khoa, 2013; Crowther and Lancaster, 2012). In the deductive approach, the researchers mainly start exploring a generalized topic and ultimately shed light on the specific area of concern (Asheim, 2006). The objectives of the study are fulfilled with the help of deducing the existing theories. This is often known as the top-down approach or the waterfall model. The conclusion is drawn logically from the premise (Orb, Eisenhauer, and Wynaden, 2000).