Research design:

Research design involve series of rational making choices that explain the way that
the requisite data can be gathered and analyzed to arrive at a solution

Purpose of study :
Studies can be of different types: exploring things, describing them, or testing
ideas. Case studies are also used to solve problems or learn more about a topic by
looking at similar situations in organizations. The type of study depends on how
much we already know about the topic. When we're just starting to explore, it's
more flexible. As we learn more and start describing things, our methods get more
detailed. Finally, when we test ideas, we're trying to see if our guesses are right and
answer our research questions.

1.Exploratory Study: When we don't know much about a situation or how

similar problems were solved before, we do an exploratory study. This means doing
a lot of initial work to understand what's happening before we set up a detailed
investigation.

Exploratory studies help us understand problems better when there haven't been
many studies in that area. We might need to interview a lot of people to figure
things out before doing more detailed research.

Some exploratory studies collect data through interviews or observations, not just
questionnaires. When we see patterns in this data, we can create theories and test
them later. For example, Henry Mintzberg interviewed managers to learn about their
work, which led to theories about managerial roles and activities.
We also do exploratory studies when we know some facts but need more
information to build a good theory. For instance, if we're studying factors affecting
women's progress in organizations, we might interview successful women to
understand all the important factors.

In short, exploratory studies help us understand topics better and build theories and
test hypotheses based on what we find.

2: Descriptive study : A descriptive study helps us understand and

describe specific characteristics in a situation. For example, it could be about a
class, where we describe things like the number of senior and junior students, their
genders, ages, semesters left until graduation, and the business courses they've
taken.

In organizations, descriptive studies are often done to describe employees'

characteristics like age, education, job status, and how long they've worked there,
especially among specific groups like Hispanics or Asians. They're also done to
understand what practices organizations follow, like using flexible manufacturing
systems or having a certain debt-to-equity ratio.

The goal of descriptive studies is to give researchers a detailed picture or profile of

the things they're interested in, whether it's about individuals, organizations,
industries, or other areas. This information can be crucial before making any
changes. For example, if most companies in an industry use just-in-time systems to
save money, another company should consider if it's feasible for them too. Or if a
study shows the need for flexible work hours for parents with young children, that's
something to seriously consider.

Descriptive studies help us understand groups better, think carefully about

situations, generate ideas for more research, and sometimes make simple decisions
based on the data collected.

3: Hypothesis testing : Studies that test hypotheses often try to show how
certain things are related, compare different groups, or see if factors are connected
in a situation. For instance, they might explain how one thing changes when another
thing changes, or they might predict what will happen in organizations based on
their research.

In simple terms, hypothesis testing in studies aims to explain why things vary in a
certain way or predict what will happen in organizations.

Types of investigation :
A manager needs to decide if they need a study to show cause and effect or just to
find relationships. A causal study proves what causes something, like if changing
one thing solves a problem. But if the manager just wants to know what factors are
connected to the issue without proving cause and effect, they need a correlational
study.

In a causal study, the researcher finds what definitely causes a problem. They can
say if one thing causes another. But often, problems in organizations are caused by
many factors that affect each other. In this case, the manager might want to know
the important factors related to the problem, not just what causes it.

When a researcher wants to find the cause of a problem, it's called a causal study.
When they want to find the important factors related to a problem, it's a
correlational study. Sometimes, certain types of correlational analyses can also
show cause-and-effect relationships. The choice between a causal or correlational
study depends on the research questions and how the problem is defined.

Study setting :
Organizational research can happen in two types of environments: natural settings
where work happens normally, and artificial settings created for research.
Correlational studies usually happen in natural settings, while rigorous causal
studies often occur in controlled lab settings.

In natural settings, correlational studies are called field studies .When researchers
manipulate things in these natural settings to see cause and effect, they're called
field experiments. For instance, a manager might adjust salaries in different units
to see how it affects performance.

To be absolutely sure about cause and effect, researchers create controlled lab
settings where they control everything precisely. These are called lab
experiments. Let us give another example to understand the differences among a
field study (a noncontrived setting with minimal researcher interference), a field
experiment (noncontrived setting but with researcher interference to a moderate
extent), and a lab experiment (a contrived setting with researcher interference to an
excessive degree).

Unit of analysis :
The unit of analysis is about how we group data for analysis later on. For example, if
we want to know how to boost employees' motivation overall, we focus on each
individual employee. We look at data from each person and treat each response as
its own data point. If we're studying interactions between two people, like in families
or at work, then pairs of people become the focus, called dyads.

When we're interested in how well groups work together, we look at data at the
group level. For instance, if we're comparing different departments, each
department becomes a unit for analysis.

Our research question decides the unit of analysis. If we're studying how groups
make decisions, we look at things like group size and structure, not individual
decisions. We want to understand the dynamics in different groups and what
influences their decisions.

As we move from individuals to pairs, groups, organizations, and even nations in our
research questions, the unit of analysis also changes accordingly. Lower levels are
included within higher levels. So, if we study buying behaviors, we collect data from
individuals. For group dynamics, we study multiple groups, and for cultural
differences among nations, we collect data from different countries.

Individuals and groups have different traits, like structure or attitudes.

Understanding these differences helps decide how we collect and analyze data. The
unit of analysis is crucial because it guides how we collect data, the sample size,
and even which variables we consider.

Time horizon :
Cross sectional : A study can collect data just once, maybe over days, weeks, or
months, to answer a research question. These studies are called one-shot or cross-
sectional studies.

Longitudinal studies: Sometimes, researchers need to study people or

things at different times to answer their questions. For example, they might
study how employees act before and after a change in top management to
see what changes happened. When data are collected at different times like
this, it's called a longitudinal study.