Advanced research methods (mal 655)

Advanced Research Methods
(MAL 655)
A Lecture to Master of Business Management Students
(2015/2016)
By
Mangasini A. Katundu (PhD)
Moshi Co-operative University, Tanzania

Key references:
• Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A.
(2007). Research Methods for Business
Students, Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall,
London. 623pp.
• Oso, W. Y. & Onen, D. (2008). A General
Guide to Writing Research Proposal
and Reports. A handbook for
Beginning Researchers, Second
Edition, Makerere University
Printerly, Kampala. 166pp.

The Nature of Business Research
• When listening to radio watching TV or reading a
daily newspaper it is difficult to avoid the term
“research”.
• The results of “research” are all around us.
• Debates about the findings of recent polls in
Tanzania for example inevitably includes
discussions on “research”, normally referring to
the way in which the data were collected.
• What these examples really emphasizes is the
wide range of meaning given to the term
“research” in every day life.

• Walliman (2001) argues that many of these
everyday uses of the term “research” are not
research in the true meaning of the world.
• He highlights ways in which the term is used
wrongly:
1.Just collecting facts or information with no clear
purpose;
2.Reassembling and reordering facts or information
without interpretation;
3.as a term to get your product or idea noticed and
respected.

• The first of these highlights the fact that,
although research often involves the collection
of information , it is more than just reading a few
books or articles, talking to a few people or
asking people questions.
• While collecting data may be part of the research
process, if it is not undertaken in a systematic
way, on its own and in particular with a clear
purpose, it will not be seen as research.

• Based upon this brief discussion we can already see
that research has a number of characteristics:
1.Data are collected scientifically;
2.Data are collected systematically;
3.Data are interpreted systematically;
4.There is clear purpose, to find this out.
• We can therefore define research as something that
people undertake in order to find out things in a
scientific and systematic way, thereby increasing
their knowledge.

• Using our earlier definition of research it
would seem sensible to define business
research as undertaking scientific and
systematic research to find out things about
business.
• Easterby-Smith et al. (2002) argue that three
things combine to make business research a
distinctive focus for researchers:

1. The way in which managers (and researchers)
draw on knowledge developed by others
disciplines;
2. The fact that managers tend to be powerful and
busy people. Therefore, they are unlikely to allow
research access unless they can see personal
advantages;
3. The requirement for the research to have some
practical consequence. This means it either
needs to contain the potential for asking some
form of action or needs to take account of the
practical consequences of the findings.

theory in research
• A theory is a generalization about a phenomenon,
an explanation of how or why something occurs.
• Indeed, any statements that explain what is
measured or described any general statements
about cause or effect are theory based, at least
implicitly.
• A theory presents a systematic way of
understanding events, behaviors and/or situations.
• According to Kaplan (1964) A theory is a way of
making sense of a disturbing situation. Theories
represent tentative solutions to problems.

theory in research
• A theory is a set of interrelated concepts,
definitions, and propositions that explains or
predicts events or situations by specifying
relations among variables.
• Theories vary in the extent to which they have
been conceptually developed and empirically
tested; however, “testability” is an important
feature of a theory.

theory in research
• Stephen Turner has noted in his chapter on
“Theory Development,” social science theories are
better understood as models that work in a limited
range of settings, rather than laws of science
which hold and apply universally.
• Hawes (1975) noted that, the power of a theory is
its ability to connect events into a unifed web.
"What gives a theory its power is not the
declarative statements it consists of but rather the
relationship among those statements.

theory in research
• It is the form of the relationship among
statements rather than the individual statements
themselves that distinguish between theory and
description."
• Kim (1995) outlines FUNCTIONS OF THEORY as
involving to: DESCRIBE, EXPLAIN, PREDICT, or
CONTROL human phenomena in a variety of
contexts.

Types of theories
• These two broad types of theory:
1.explanatory theory and,
2.change theory.
• The two theories may have different emphases but
are complementary.
• For example, understanding why an employee
smokes is
one step toward a successful cessation effort, but
even
the best explanations won’t be enough by
themselves to
fully guide change to improve health.
• Some type of change model will also be needed.

Examples of theories
1. Theory of Reasoned Action
• Specifically, Reasoned Action predicts that
behavioral intent is created or caused by two
factors: our attitudes and our subjective norms.
As in Information Integration theory, attitudes
have two components.
• Fishbein and Ajzen (1980) call these the
evaluation and strength of a belief.

• There are two important changes. First,
Reasoned Actions adds another element in the
process of persuasion, behavioral intention.
Rather than attempt to predict attitudes, as does
Information Integration theory (and several
others), Reasoned Action is explicitly concerned
with behavior.
• However, this theory also recognizes that there
are situations (or factors) that limit the influence
of attitude on behavior.

• For example, if our attitude leads us to want to go
out on a date but we have no money, our lack of
money will prevent our attitude from causing us to
go on a date.
• Therefore, Reasoned Action predicts behavioral
intention, a compromise between stopping at
attitude predictions and actually predicting
behavior.
• Because it separates behavioral intention from
behavior, Reasoned Action also discusses the
factors that limit the influence of attitudes (or
behavioral intention) on behavior.

• The second change from Information Integration
theory is that Reasoned Action uses two
elements, attitudes and norms (or the
expectations of other people), to predict
behavioral intent.
• That is, whenever our attitudes lead us to do
one thing but the relevant norms suggest we
should do something else, both factors influence
our behavioral intent.

• For example, John’s attitudes may encourage
him to want to read a Harry Potter book, but his
friends may think this series is childish.
• Does John do what his attitudes suggest (read
the book) or what the norms of his friends
suggest (not read the book)?
• Specifically, Reasoned Action predicts that
behavioral intent is created or caused by two
factors: our attitudes and our subjective norms

2. Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by Ajzen
(1991)
• TPB is much more appropriate in predicting and
understanding people’s intentions to engage in
various activities.
• Main postulation: Human behaviour is planned.
• It explains intentions by means of attitudes,
perceived behavioural control, and subjective
norms.

1. Attitudes refer to the degree to which a
person has a favourable appraisal of the
behaviour.
2. Subjective norm refers to the perceived social
pressure to perform the behaviour.
3. Perceived behavioural control refers to the
perceived ease of performing the behaviour
and to the perceived control over the outcome
of it.

• The theory of planned behaviour assumes that
rational considerations govern the choices and
behaviours of individuals.
• Specifically, behaviour is determined by the
intentions of individuals, their explicit plans or
motivations to commit a specific act.
• E.g. the degree to which significant individuals,
such as parents, spouses, or colleagues,
condone this act, called subjective norms, also
affects intentions.

• The perceived importance of these parents,
spouse, or colleagues affects the extent to which
their approval will shape intentions.
• TPB is open to the influence of exogenous factors
that may play a role in the development of
beliefs and attitudes.

Limitations of the TPB
• There are several limitations of the TPB, which
include the following:
It assumes the person has acquired the
opportunities and resources to be successful in
performing the desired behavior, regardless of the
intention.
It does not account for other variables that factor
into behavioral intention and motivation, such as
fear, threat, mood, or past experience.
While it does consider normative influences, it still
does not take into account environmental or
economic factors that may influence a person's
intention to perform a behavior.

Limitations of the TPB
It assumes that behavior is the result of a
linear decision-making process, and does not
consider that it can change over time.
While the added construct of perceived
behavioral control was an important addition
to the theory, it doesn't say anything about
actual control over behavior.
The time frame between "intent" and
"behavioral action" is not addressed by the
theory.

3. Random Utility Models (RUM)
• RUMs are very widely applied marketing
models, especially to the sales of frequently
purchased consumer packaged goods.
• The main assumption is that choice is a
discrete event.
• What this means is that choice is all-or-
nothing.

• The consumer, as a rule, cannot leave the
supermarket with 0.3432 cans of Coke and
0.6568 cans of Pepsi.
• They will tend to leave with 1 can of their
chosen brand, and 0 cans of their not chosen
brand.
• Thus, choice is not a continuous dependent
variable.
• Based on assumptions of this theory, logistic
regression models were developed.

research paradigms
• Paradigm = world view, perspective.
• Theories emanate from a paradigm.
• Paradigm (The importance of Socioeconomic
Context)
• Theory (mega, macro and micro theories).
• Macro Level theory = are theories whose scope
is society at large or at least large portions of it.
E.g. struggle between social classes.
• Micro-level theory = have smaller scope e.g.
explaining a specific conflict.
•

Inductive Reasoning (Qualitative
Approach)

Deductive Reasoning (Quantitative
Approach)

ethical and political issues in business
research
• When most people think of ethics (or morals),
they think of rules for distinguishing between
right and wrong, such as the Golden Rule ("Do
unto others as you would have them do unto
you"), a code of professional conduct like the
Hippocratic Oath ("First of all, do no harm"), a
religious creed like the Ten Commandments
("Thou Shalt not kill..."), or a wise aphorisms like
the sayings of Confucius.

research
• This is the most common way of defining
"ethics": norms for conduct that distinguish
between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
• Most people learn ethical norms at home, at
school, in church, or in other social settings.
Although most people acquire their sense of
right and wrong during childhood, moral
development occurs throughout life and human
beings pass through different stages of growth
as they mature.

research
• Ethical norms are so ubiquitous that one might
be tempted to regard them as simple
commonsense.
• On the other hand, if morality were nothing
more than commonsense, then why are there so
many ethical disputes and issues in our society?
• One may also define ethics as a method,
procedure, or perspective for deciding how to
act and for analyzing complex problems and
issues.

research
• There are several reasons why it is important to
adhere to ethical norms in research. First, norms
promote the aims of research, such as knowledge,
truth, and avoidance of error. For example,
prohibitions against fabricating, falsifying, or
misrepresenting research data promote the truth
and avoid error.
• Second, since research often involves a great deal of
cooperation and coordination among many
different people in different disciplines and
institutions, ethical standards promote the values
that are essential to collaborative work, such as
trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness.

research
• For example, many ethical norms in research, such
as guidelines for authorship, copyright and
patenting policies, data sharing policies, and
confidentiality rules in peer review, are designed to
protect intellectual property interests while
encouraging collaboration.
• Most researchers want to receive credit for their
contributions and do not want to have their ideas
stolen or disclosed prematurely.
• Third, many of the ethical norms help to ensure
that researchers can be held accountable to the
public.

research
• Ethics are necessary to deal with research
misconduct, conflicts of interest, the
human subjects protections, and
animal care and use in order to make sure
that researchers who are funded by public
money can be held accountable to the public.

ethical and political issues in business research
• Most Universities in the world have developed
policies and code of conduct for researchers.
Example:
1.The Sokoine University of Agriculture: Code of
Conduct for Research Ethics (MoCU is currently
using the SUA policy meanwhile developing its
own)
2.The University of South Africa (UNISA): Policy on
Research Ethics.
The Tanzania Commission for Science and
Technology (COSTECH) requires that “every
research institution in Tanzania MUST have code of
ethics for researchers”

Alternative to Research/
Non-Scientific way of knowing (Inquiry)
1. Authority
2. Tradition
3. Common sense
4. Media myths
5. Personal experience

Non-Scientific Inquiry Cont.
1. Authority
• When you accept something as true just
because someone in a position of authority
says it is true or it is an authoritative
publication, you are using authority as basis of
knowledge.
• Parents, Teachers, Books.

2. Tradition is a special case of authority-the
authority of the past. It means you accept
something as being true because “it’s the way
things have always been.
• 3. Common Sense: You rely on what everyone
knows and what “just makes sense”. It is about
ordinary reasoning. It can originate from
tradition

• 4. Media Myths: Media tends to perpetuate
the myths of a culture.
• 5. Personal Experience: If something happens
to you, if you personally experience it or see it,
you accept it as true.

Errors in non-scientific Inquiry
1. Inaccurate Observation:
2. Overgeneralization:
3. Selective Observation:
4. Made Up information:
5. Illogical Reasoning:
6. Premature Closure of Inquiry

Research/ Scientific Inquiry
• Scientific Inquiry: offers protection against
the errors we make in casual inquiry.
• How Does it avoid the errors of non-scientific
inquiry?
• Science avoids the errors of casual inquiry by
making observation a careful and deliberate
activity.

Research/ Scientific Inquiry
• In casual observation we tend to jump to
general conclusions on the basis of only few
observations.
• Science avoids overgeneralization through
replication, the repeating of studies.
• Casual observation may ignore evidence that
contradicts our preferred conclusions.
• Science avoids this by setting in advance the
observations to be undertaken.

Foundations of Science
• Science is characterized as logical-empirical.
• Science has two pillars:
1.Logic or rationality
2.Observation or empirical evidence
• Research as a science of finding out is, thus,
based on logic and empirical evidence.

Variables & their Levels of
Measurements
• Samples are made up of individuals, all
individuals have characteristics. Members of a
sample will differ on certain characteristics.
Hence, we call this variation amongst individuals
variable characteristics or variables for short.
• Simply: variable is a logical set of attributes or
• a symbolic name associated with a value and
whose associated value may be changed.

Variables Cont.
Types of variables: All variables can be grouped
into two major categories:
• Qualitative-e.g. Gender, Religion, region, etc
• Quantitative-discrete (e.g. number of children,
number of cars, etc ); continuous (e.g. weight,
height. Temperature, etc).
• The two groups may be further sub-divided into
sub-groups as follows:

Variables Cont.
1. Dependent variable (s)
2. Independent variable (s) (or Manipulated variable)

Variables Cont.
3. Intervening variable
A variable that explains a relation or provides a
causal link between other variables.
Also called by some authors “mediating variable” or
“intermediary variable.”
Example: The statistical association between income
and longevity needs to be explained because just
having money does not make one live longer.
Other variables intervene between money and long
life. People with high incomes tend to have better
medical care than those with low incomes. Medical
care is an intervening variable. It mediates the
relation between income and longevity.

Variables Cont.
4. Dummy Variables
Created by recoding categorial variables that
have more than two categories into a series of
binary variables. E.g., Marital status, if originally
labelled 1=married, 2=single, and 3=divorced,
widowed, or separated, could be redefined in
terms of two variables as follows: var_1:
1=single, 0=otherwise. Var_2: 1=divorced,
widowed, or separated, 0=otherwise.

Variables Cont.
5. Continuous variable
• A variable that is not restricted to particular
values (other than limited by the accuracy of the
measuring instrument). E.g., reaction time,
neuroticism, IQ.
• Equal size intervals on different parts of the
scale are assumed, if not demonstrated.
• Synonym for interval variable.

Variables Cont.
6. Dichotomous variable: Synonym for binary
variable.
7. Discrete variable: Variable having only integer
values. For example, number of years spent
schooling.
8. Control variable: An extraneous variable that
an investigator does not wish to examine in a
study.
9. Thus the investigator controls this variable.
Also called a covariate.

Variables Cont.
• What are variables you would consider in buying a second
hand car?
• Brand/make (Suzuki, Toyota, Rover, Nissan, Wagen, Isuzu,
BMW, etc )
• Type (2WD, 4WD)
• Engine Size: (x<1000cc; x>1000cc;1500cc<x<2700cc, etc)
• Color (Champagne gold, navy blue, silver, white, black, pearl,
etc)
• Gear (AT, MT, Auto-Manual)
• Age (x> 10 years, x<10years, etc)
• Engine type (EJ, 3S, 1AZ, 1JZ, 1MZ, etc )
• Price
• Seats (2, 5, 7, 8, etc)

Level of measurements
1. Nominal-objects or people are categorized
according to some criterion (gender, job category,
etc) non-numeric
2. Ordinal-categories which are ranked according to
characteristics e.g. income (low, moderate, high)
non- numeric
3. Interval-contains equal distance between units of
measurement but no zero (calendar year,
temperature ) numeric
4. Ratio-has an absolute zero and consistent
intervals (distance, weight) numeric.

This graph show speed as a function of
time. Time is the independent variable;
speed is the dependent variable.

Research Topic Cont.
• Is the subject to be researched, analysed and
interpreted.
• It is a thematic statement of what the research
is all about.
• It may arise as a problem to be solved or as an
issue to be better understood.
• It may involve the conditions in which the
researcher wants to improve, difficulties to be
eliminated or questions for which immediate
answers are required.

• Typically, a researcher will select a research
topic by identifying a wide area of interest or
concern (research area) and then narrow that
area to a manageable set of research questions.
• A good research topic will focus the direction of
the research and position the central concept
for the researcher at an early stage.
• A research topic should have a subject and an
object, and should define the variables and the
population to be investigated.

• Sources of Research Topics:
i. Personal experience (personal observation of
certain relationships for which no satisfactory
explanations exists),
ii.Deduction from existing theories,
iii.Formal needs assessment,
iv.Literature sources (the most common source
where researchers review journal papers,
research reports, dissertations and theses,
etc.

• When writing the topic make sure:
It is not more than 20 words including
punctuations, the shorter the better,
It shows clearly the population to be studied,
It shows the subject (IV(s)) and the Object (DV),
It shows clearly where the study will be
conducted,
Do not end with a period,
Write using UPPER case,
Align at the centre,

A good title must be fully explanatory when
standing alone,
A good title must avoid titles that serve no
purpose such as; methods, results, a study of, an
investigation, a survey, views, identification of,
an assessment of, comparative analysis of, to
determine, an analysis of, etc.
Simply, all action verbs must be avoided in the
title. They make a title look like an objective.
Avoid brackets,
Avoid abbreviation eg. SACCOS

End of introductory Lectures,
thanks

Advanced research methods (mal 655)

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