Research Methodology - Essay Example

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY of Article Research Methodology The research methodology reflects the overview of how the researchwork will be conducted. It describes the processes and methods involved in data collection and data analysis and the overall philosophical approach of the research work. It also gives an overall idea to the reader on how the researcher has approached to answer the research questions. The research methodology is focused on the “research onion” which suggests that the research work is divided in to six stages and how each of them has been addressed in the research work. These six stages are research philosophy, approach, strategies, choices, time horizon and techniques and procedures. The stages will be discussed in details in the next sections and it will be discussed in regards to the research work. Research Philosophy The research philosophy focuses on the philosophical outlook of the researcher that influences the research work. The research philosophy determines the path in which the research work will be pursued. It can be roughly divided in to two segments, Objectivist approach and Subjectivist approach. The objective approach is associated with quantities research approach and it focuses on the positivism, scientific study and experimentalism. On the other hand the subjective approach is focused on the qualitative, interpretivism and voluntarism. This research work is based on the positivist approach where the research philosophy is strictly objectivist in nature. The positivism paradigm suggests that only the factual information is worthy of consideration for any research work. Positivism also indicates that the role of the researcher is quite limited to collection of raw data and its objective interpretation. There are no room for personal judgement or personal biasness. This principle is solely dependent on the quantifiable observation which requires statistical analysis to extract the required information to answer the research questions (Ryan 2006). In a positivist approach the researcher or observer who is conducting the research work is independent of the observation. He does not interact in any way with the observation process. The choice of study of research work is based on the “objective criteria” rather than on personal beliefs and interests. It studies the fundamental laws of human behaviour and how it is related to the topic of study rather than focusing on what is going on. The concept of the study needs to be “operationalised” so that it can be easily so that it can be easily interpreted in terms of quantitative figures. The overall positivism approach is based on set of predefined rules and definitions and follows an unbiased and impersonal voice. The positivism approach has allowed the researcher to proceed in a mechanistic approach of assessing the corporate social performance of different firms and industries. This approach will remove the room for any personal biasness which as a result will yield results of higher quantitative accuracy. Research Approach The research approach can be of two types, deductive approach and inductive approach. In a deductive approach the researcher works in a top down perspective where he starts with a predefined theory, forms a desired hypothesis and tries to find out whether the observation is in line with the theory or not. Here the researcher needs to test a specific hypothesis which helps to answer the research questions. On contrary the inductive approach can be also considered as a bottom up approach, where the researcher starts with a general observation and ends up in formulating a theory. Here the researcher makes his observation and tries to find a pattern, depending on which he develops a theory. This research work is based on a deductive approach where the research will try to find out whether or not the corporate social performance exhibits the desired characteristics as depicted in the theories. This approach will help to find out the relevance of the exiting theories by justifying them with observation. This as a result will offer a more relevant outcome which the readers can utilize to make personal judgements on the effectiveness of corporate social performance. Research Strategy The research strategy indicates the type of data collection process to be undertaken for conducting the research work. The process of data collection is one of the most important processes of a research work. It offers the researcher with the relevant data on which the analytical study will be made. The research study can be of following types, archival, survey and case study (Kumar and Phrommathed 2005). The archival and case study survey are the secondary research methods, whereas the survey is the primary research method. The primary data are collected from conducting surveys on a group of respondents and gather data from their responses. The primary data is considered to offer a clear reflection of the responses of the sample group. On the other hand the secondary data is gathered from secondary sources which have been created by some other researcher or entity. The research work will be conducted by using a secondary data collected from Bloomberg. The secondary data are the ones which have been collected from secondary sources and are usually historic in nature (Kothari 2011). Secondary can be collected from sources such as books, journal articles, credible websites and other online data bases. Depending on relevance of the data source, the researcher uses any one or all the available secondary data sources for the research work. This research paper will be conducted by using the Archival data gathered from Bloomberg. Bloomberg is a third party website that can be considered as a credible source of secondary data for the research work. Bloomberg offers quantitative data of financial performance of different firms all across the world. It mostly gathers its information from the financial statements and the annual reports of the companies. It also publishes several case studies on corporate incidents that can be used to draw significant conclusions on a particular topic of discussion. Bloomberg also published several sustainability reports of firms and industries and what trend they are following (Bloomberg 2015). Research Choices The research choices are based on the type data and analysis used to conduct the research work. There can be three types of research choices, Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed methods. The qualitative research is based on qualitative or descriptive data gathered from the data collection process. This type of data is mostly subjective and cannot be quantified (Flick, 2011). On contrary the Quantitative methods gather numeric data that can be analysed and can undergo calculations. The researcher can conduct statistical analysis and can interpret the data to derive relevant information required to answer the research questions (Winter 2000). This method is particularly used for answering certain research questions which can only be answered by numerical data. It also allows the researcher to follow an objective and unbiased approach which clearly reflects his observation (Kumar and Phrommathed 2005). The decision to choose a quantitative over a qualitative research approach is mostly dependent on the type of research question that the researcher is trying answer. This research work will be conducted by collecting quantitative data from Bloomberg regarding the financial and corporate performances for different firms. This data will provide a firm ground on which the research work will be conducted. Time Horizon The tome horizon depicts the amount of time devoted to the research work. This can be of two types, longitudinal and cross sectional. The longitudinal study takes a long time to conduct a particular research work that can extend up to several years. In this type of research the researcher takes ample amount of time to conduct the data collections process from several sources and ensures that the analysis of data is done accurately. The cross sectional research on the other hand takes relatively short period of time to conduct the research work. This research work has followed the cross-sectional method, which as a result has allowed the researcher to complete his research work within the stipulated period of time (Rossi et al 2013). Since most of the data has been collected from the secondary sources so it has taken lees time to complete the study. Data Analysis This is the most vital stage of the entire research work, as this stage yields the relevant information required for the researcher to answer the research questions and meet the research objectives. The success of the research work is dependent on the data analysis stage. In this stage the researcher analyses the gathered data by using statistical tools and other descriptive methods such as charts or graphs to make a better understanding of the data, so that a relevant conclusive statement can be made from the research work (Punch 2013). In case of quantitative research, the researcher mostly uses statistical tools and formulae to analyse the numeric data and derive meaningful information from them. In this research work the data analysis has been conducted by using statistical tools like SPSS and Excel to analyse the numerical data collected from Bloomberg to derive to a conclusive statement that will answer the research questions. It will help the researcher to identify the correlation between the corporate social performance and the financial performance of the firms, thereby proving the relevance and importance of the CSR activities. Research Rationale This research methodology will help the researcher to gather relevant quantitative data for the research work on the corporate social performance. It is focused on a positivist paradigm which will help to achieve on an objectified research analysis. All the factual data collected from Bloomberg will be used for quantitative analysis of the corporate social performance of the firms. The quantitative approach has been chosen mostly because it offers an unbiased approach to the research. Moreover, gathering secondary data from Bloomberg will be much easy for the researcher as compared to collecting primary data from individual firms. Thus the secondary data will help the researcher to conduct its research in a more time efficient manner. This research methodology will help to ensure that the research work is being progressed in the desired manner and is quite relevant in terms of its authenticity. Limitations of the Research Every research work faces with some limitations that prevent the researcher to conduct the research in a desired fashion. These limitations can be based on data collection or limitations in terms of resources and time availability (OLeary 2013). In this research work the researcher also faced certain pertinent limitations and constraints. The research work is based on the secondary data published on the third party website Bloomberg. Bloomberg may not have all the necessary financial data of the companies that is required to make the data analysis. Moreover, in several cases the data are irrelevant for the research work as it can be used to relate with the corporate social performance of the firms. Moreover, the quantitative data available can be too old to bear any practical relevance for the research. Since this research work is only limited to secondary data so its prospects are limited. This research could have yielded a better output if a primary research would have been conducted. The researcher also faced certain time constraints without which the research work could have done more efficiently and it would have increased the accuracy of the results. Ethical Considerations A research work can be faced with certain ethical issues. However, the researcher has ensured that the research work has been conducted by following all the necessary regulations and ethical practices (Rossi et al 2013). This research has been conducted solely by the researcher and no help from outside has been taken, except for the technical guidance from the concerned faculties. All the rules and regulations of the university have been followed and the researcher has also ensured that it has given acknowledgment to all the concerned entities that has taken part in this research work. He has also made sure that the research work has not been copied from any previous publication and that there are no forms of plagiarism in it. The researcher has also ensured that the collected data have not been tampered or manipulated in any way to yield desirable results. Reference List Bloomberg. “Bloomberg.” Bloomberg. 2015. http://www.bloomberg.com/ Flick, Uwe. Introducing research methodology: A beginners guide to doing a research project. Sage, 2011. Kothari, Chakravanti Rajagopalachari. Research methodology: methods and techniques. New Age International, 2011. Kumar, Sameer, and Promma Phrommathed. Research methodology. Springer US, 2005. OLeary, Zina. The essential guide to doing your research project. Sage, 2013. Punch, Keith F. Introduction to social research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches. Sage, 2013. Rossi, Peter H., James D. Wright, and Andy B. Anderson, eds. Handbook of survey research. Academic Press, 2013. Ryan, Anne B. "Post-positivist approaches to research." Researching and Writing your Thesis: a guide for postgraduate students (2006): 12-26. Winter, Glyn. "A comparative discussion of the notion of validity in qualitative and quantitative research." The qualitative report 4, no. 3 (2000): 4. Read More