Common Research Methodology in Your Field (Business and Management Studies)

1. Common Research
Methodology
in Your Field
(Business and
Management
Studies)
Boon Cheong CHEW
21st October 2021

2. The Process of Research Design
1.Research Design
2.Research methodological choices
3.Research strategies
4.Time horizons

3. The Research Onion

4. Research Design
• A research design is a general plan of how one will
answer research questions.
• It includes clear objectives derived from the research
question,
• It displays the sources from which data will be collected
and
• It will explain how these data will be collected.

5. Research Design
The research design needs
• Clear objectives derived from the research question
• To specify sources of data collection
• To consider constraints and ethical issues
• Valid reasons for your choice of design

6. Classification of the research design
• Exploratory research
• Descriptive studies
• Explanatory studies

7. Research Design: Exploratory
-This kind of study is a valuable way to ask open
questions to discover what is going on and gain new
insights about a subject of interest.
-Conducting exploratory research is useful when one
wishes to understand something or wants to assess
new phenomena.

8. Research Design: Descriptive
-The purpose of this design is to acquire an accurate
profile of happenings, people or situations.

9. Research Design: Explanatory
• When performing this kind of study one wishes to
determine causal relationships between certain
variables.

10. Research Methodological
Choices
• Qualitative
• Quantitative
• Multiple methods

11. Multiple research methods
Research choices
Saunders et al, (2009)
Figure 5.4 Research choices

12. Research Methodological
Choices: Qualitative
Qualitative
-collect and analyse non-numerical data.
-associated with an interpretive philosophy, because
researchers need to make sense of the phenomenon
being studied.
-referred to naturalistic research since it needs to be
conducted in a natural setting, in order to gain trust,
participation and access to meanings and in-depth
understanding.

13. Research Methodological
Choices: Qualitative
Qualitative
• can either be started with an inductive and deductive
approach.
• Interviewees’/participants’ meanings are studied
using qualitative data collection techniques and
analytical procedures.
• to develop a conceptual framework.
• usually associated with action research, case study
research and ethnography.

14. Research Methodological
Choices: Quantitative
Quantitative
-collect data or a procedure to analyse data that
generates or uses numerical data.
-associated with positivism.
-associated with a deductive approach
-focus is on using data to test a theory/theories.
-explores the relationships between variables after
which they are measured numerically and analysed
using statistical techniques.

15. Research Methodological
Choices: Multiple Methods
Multiple methods
A-Mixed methods: many management and business
research designs are likely to combine qualitative and
quantitative elements.
-this is because some data derived from qualitative
method can be analysed quantitatively
-this method may use either an inductive or a deductive
approach. Frequently both approaches are used.
B-Multi method: more than one data collection
technique is used but this is restricted to either
qualitative or quantitative methodology only.
•

16. Multiple research methods
Reasons for using mixed method designs:
• Triangulation
• Facilitation
• Complementarity
• Generality
• Aid interpretation
• Study different aspects
• Solving a puzzle

17. Research Strategies
• A research strategy is defined as the various steps a
researcher has to take to answer his research
questions and achieve his research objectives.

18. Research Strategies
Mostly
Quantitative
Mostly
Qualitative
Both
Experiment Archival
Research
Case study
Survey Grounded
theory
Action
Research
Narrative
Inquiry
Ethnography

19. Research Strategies
An experiment will involve
• Definition of a theoretical hypothesis
• Selection of samples from know populations
• Random allocation of samples
• Introduction of planned intervention
• Measurement on a small number of dependent
variables
• Control of all other variables

20. Research Strategies
A cAn experiment
ssiment strategy
Saunders et al, (2009)
Figure 5.2 A classic experiment strategy

21. Research Strategies
Survey: key features
• Allows collection of quantitative data
• Data can be analysed quantitatively
• Samples need to be representative
• Gives the researcher independence
• Structured observation and interviews can be used

22. Research Strategies
Case Study: key features
• Provides a rich understanding of a real life context
• Uses and triangulates multiple sources of data
• A case study can be categorised in four ways and
based on two dimensions:

23. Research Strategies
Action research: key features
• Involves practitioners in the research
• The researcher becomes part of the organisation
• Promotes change within the organisation
• Can have two aims – the aim of the research and the
needs of the sponsor
• Solving real industrial problems

24. Research Strategies
The action research spiral
Saunders et al, (2009)
Figure 5.3 The action research spiral

25. Research Strategies
Grounded theory: key features
• Theory is built through induction and deduction
• Helps to predict and explain
behaviour/phenomenon
• Develops theory from data generated by
observations
• Is an interpretative process

26. Research Strategies
Ethnography: key features
• Aims to describe and explain the social world
inhabited by the researcher
• Takes place over an extended time period
• Is naturalistic
• Involves extended participant observation

27. Research Strategies
Archival research: key features
• Uses administrative records and documents as
the principal sources of data
• Allows research questions focused on the past
• Is constrained by the nature of the records and
documents

28. Credibility of research findings
Important considerations
• Reliability
• Validity
• Generalisability

29. Credibility of research findings
• Reliability – a reliable research is reproducible,
meaning that the data collection techniques and
analytic procedures would produce the same findings
if they were repeated by some one else or another
time. In order to be reliable one has to work in a
structured and methodological way.
• Construct validity – the extent to which the research
measures actually measured what the researcher
intended them to assess.
• Internal validity – this is the case when the research
displays a causal relationship between two variables.
• Generalisability – Concerned with questions such as:
“Are the research findings generalised?”, “Would a
researcher find the same in other relevant settings?

30. Credibility of research findings
Important considerations
• Logic leaps: making a conclusion based on a
very few/minimal amount facts or information
• False assumptions: making an assumption that
something is true or will happen without any real
proof.

31. Reference
• Saunders, M., Lewis, P and Thornhill, A. 2019.
Research Methods for Business Students. Peason
Education Limited.