PART 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 4 THE BUSINESS RESEARCH PROCESS

Types of Business Research
- Exploratory
- Descriptive
- Causal

Exploratory Research:
- Initial research conducted to clarify and define the nature of a problem
- Provides greater understanding of a concept or crystallizes a problem rather than
providing precise measurement
- Used when researcher has limited amount of knowledge or experience about the
research issue
- Conducted to clarify ambiguous situations or discover potential business
opportunities.
- Provides insights – the domain of discovery in philosophy of science terms – and
often sets the groundwork for further investigation
- Use as a guide and refine subsequent research efforts
- Particularly useful for new product development
Descriptive Research:
- Identifying the characteristics of an observed phenomenon or
- Exploring possible correlations among two or more phenomena
- Most perception and attitude studies fall under this category
- Describes the characteristics of objects, people, organizations or environments.
- Some understanding of the nature of the problem
- Addressing Who, what, when, where and how questions
- Describe market segment.
- Much of business information is based on descriptive research.
Causal Research:
- Conducted to identify cause and effect relationship
- Allows causal inferences to be made; seeks to identify cause-and-effect relationships.
- The only research that establishes cause-and-effect relationships.
- Most commonly, causal research takes the form of experiments such as test
markets.
- Causality
o How a change in one event will change another event of interest.
 Eg: how will implementing a new employee training program
change job performance
o Causal research attempts to establish that when we do one thing, another
thing will follow.
Uncertainty Influences the Type of Research
Exploratory Research Descriptive Research Causal Research
Amount of Highly ambiguous Partially defined Clearly defined
Uncertainty Unaware of problem Aware of problem Problem clearly
Characterizing defined
Decision
Situation
Key Research Research Question Research Question Research Hypothesis
Statement
When Early stage of decision Later stages of decision Later stages of
conducted? making making decision making
 Discovering new
ideas
 Diagnosing a
situation
 Setting priorities and
screening
alternatives
Usual Research Unstructured Structured Highly Structured
Approach
Nature of Discovery oriented, Can be confirmatory Confirmatory
Results productive, but still although more research oriented. Fairly
speculative. Often in is sometimes still conclusive with
need of further needed. Results can be managerially
research. managerially actionable results
actionable. often obtained.
Types  Content Analysis  Correlation studies
 Phenomenology (of perception,
 Case study beliefs, attitudes
 Ethnography and behaviors)
 Grounded theory  Developmental
study studies
 Survey research
o Person-
administrated
surveys
o Computer-
administrated
surveys
o Self-
administrated
surveys
o Mix-mode
surveys
 Observation data
collection
o Direct vs Indirect
o Disguised vs
Undisguised
o Contrived vs
Natural
 o Human vs
Mechanical

Linking decision statements, objectives, and hypotheses

Decision Statement/ Research Objectives Hypotheses
Questions
What should be the Forecast sales for product Sales will be higher at $5.00 than at
retail price for product X at three different prices. $4.00 or at $6.99.
X?
In what ways can we Identify the top factors Cleanliness is related positively to
improve our service that contribute to customers’ service quality service
quality? customers’ perceptions. perceptions.
Crowing is related negatively to
customers’ service quality
perceptions.
Should we invest in a Determine how much role Role conflict is related positively to
training program to conflict influences job satisfaction.
reduce role conflict employee job satisfaction.
among our
employees?