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Overview of Research
Methods

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Introduction to the Course

• This course is designed to help students to undertake your
research project. As an MBA student or a practising manager, at
all points, you are required to conduct research.
• This course will provide a clear guide on how to undertake
research as well as highlighting the realities of undertaking
research, including the more common pitfalls.
• The course will provide you with the necessary knowledge and
skills to undertake a piece of research from first thoughts about
a potential research topic to writing your project report and
delivering an oral presentation.
• As such, you will find it useful not only on how to tackle your
research project but throughout your academic and work life.

Introduction to the Course

By the end of this course, you will:
• have been introduced to research philosophies and
approaches to reasoning;
• understand what it means to review the literature critically;
• have explored a range of strategies, techniques and
procedures with which you could collect and analyse data;
• considered how to report and present your research.

This means you will be able to make a series of informed choices

including:
• your research philosophy, approaches to reasoning,
• strategies, techniques and procedures that are most suitable
to your own research project and be able to justify them.
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Lecture One: Contents

Lecture One: Overview to Research Methods

• Definition/Meaning of research
• Reasons for carrying out research
• Characteristics of research
• Research processes
• Research approaches
• Overview of research in business and management

What is a Research?
In everyday speech ‘research’ is a term loosely used to describe a multitude
of activities, such as collecting information, delving into esoteric theories, and
producing new products. So how can true ‘scientific’ research be defined?
• The encyclopaedic Oxford English Dictionary defines it as: the systematic
investigation into the study of materials and sources in order to establish
Definition of facts and reach new conclusions; an endeavour to discover new or collate
Research old facts etc. by the scientific study of a subject or by a course of critical
investigation.
• Leedy (1989, p. 5) defines it from a more utilitarian point of view:
Research is a procedure by which we attempt to find systematically, and
with the support of demonstrable fact, the answer to a question or the
resolution of a problem.
• Kerlinger (1970, p. 8) uses more technical language to define it as: the
systematic, controlled, empirical and critical investigation of hypothetical
propositions about presumed relations among natural phenomena.

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What is a Research?
The question (What is Research?) appears to be a very simple question, but in
fact it can depend on who is asked the question and it often depends on the
subject of analysis.
• Research is a diligent search, studious inquiry or investigation or
Definition of experimentation aimed at the discovery of new facts and findings; or broadly,
it may relate to any subject of inquiry with regard to collection of information,
Research interpretation of facts, revision of existing theories or laws in the light of new
facts or practical ideas.
• Whereas more complex research would be, for example, investigating the
causes of human fertility decline in Africa, relatively simple research is
merely aimed at acquiring the most basic type of information—but it is still
research in a very real sense because it requires an individual to first identify
the problem, then understand the problem, know where to go for the
information, then know who to ask for the information and also to know what
questions to ask. Failure to go through any of these basic steps will result in
the research ‘problem’ remaining a research problem.

What is a Research?
A more academic approach to the question of ‘what is research?’ results in
a more complex answer.
• Fundamentally, research is undertaken in order to enhance our
knowledge of what we already know, to extend our knowledge about
aspects of the world of which we know either very little or nothing at all
Definition of and to enable us to better understand the world we live in.
Research
• We can define a number of types of research studies that are aimed at
achieving different knowledge outcomes:
§ Descriptive research
§ Explanatory research
§ Predictive research

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What is a Research?
1. Descriptive research is aimed at simply describing phenomena and is
not particularly concerned with understanding why behaviour is the way
it is. This type of research is very useful for setting out baselines or
‘templates’ of how we think the world is. It is often the starting point of a
research project into phenomena (known as an exploratory study) of
Definition of which we know very little. For example, it aims to describe social
Research systems, relationships between events, providing background
information about the issue in question as well as stimulating
explanations.
2. Explanatory research is deeper in the sense that it will describe
phenomena and attempt to explain why behaviour is the way it is. In
other words, it enables us to understand the very nature of what we are
actually looking at. This type of research aims at explaining social
relations or events, advancing knowledge about the structure, process
and nature of social events, linking factors and elements of issues into
general statements and building, testing or revising a theory.

What is a Research?
3. Predictive research takes research one step further and is an attempt
not only to explain behaviour but also to anticipate future behaviour
given a change in any of the explanatory variables relevant to a
particular phenomenon. If we can understand physical or human
Definition of phenomenon then we will be in a much better position to predict its
Research future path and possibly even to change it. This type of research is
very important to governments in the design and application of policy.

In practice, most research work will include aspects of all three research
types, although the third one is often the most difficult and problematic.

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What is a Research?
All knowledge is created by research.
This brings us to two concepts of Epistemology and ontology.

Research: Epistemology: is concerned with how we know things and what we can
Epistemology regard as acceptable knowledge in a discipline. In the study of social (and
any other) sciences there is a choice between two ways of acquiring
vs Ontology knowledge:
§ Empiricism – knowledge gained by sensor y experience (using
inductive reasoning)
§ Rationalism – knowledge gained by reasoning (using deductive
reasoning)
The relative merits of these approaches have been argued ever since the
Ancient Greeks – Aristotle advocating the first and Plato the second.

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What is a Research?
Another polarization in the pursuit of knowledge has appeared more
recently, and relates to the status of scientific methods and human
subjectivity:
1. Positivism – the application of the natural sciences to the study of
social reality. An objective approach that can test theories and
Research: establish scientific laws.
Epistemology It aims to establish causes and effects.
vs Ontology 2. Interpretivism – the recognition that subjective meanings play a
crucial role in social actions. It aims to reveal interpretations and
meanings.
3. Realism – (particularly social realism) – this maintains that
structures do underpin social events and discourses, but as these
are only indirectly observable they must be expressed in theoretical
terms and are thus likely to be provisional in nature. This does not
prevent them being used in action to change society .

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What is a Research?
Ontology: is about the theory of social entities and is concerned with what
there exists to be investigated. Bryman (2004) identifies two opposing
theoretical attitudes to the nature of social entities:
• Objectivism – the belief that social phenomena and their meanings
Research: have an existence that is not dependent on social actors. They are
facts that have an independent existence.
Epistemology
• Constructionism – the belief that social phenomena are in a
vs Ontology constant state of change because they are totally reliant on social
interactions as they take place. Even the account of researchers is
subject to these interactions, therefore social knowledge can only be
inter determinate.
The objectivist approach will stress the importance of the formal properties
of organizations and cultural systems, while the constructionist approach
will concentrate more on the way that people themselves formulate
structures of reality, and how this relates to the researcher him/herself.

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Why is Research Conducted?

Research is conducted for a number of reasons, which in turn depend on
the objectives of any particular ‘research problem’. Of course, there are
particular reasons for undertaking research at various levels to discover
something new.
Why do we
conduct As discussed earlier, it may be to:

Research? • find out something we do not already know or

• enhance our understanding of phenomena that we already know
something about.
In the business arena, however, research tends to be undertaken in order
to achieve one or more of the following objectives:

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The Nature of Research

When browsing social media, listening to the radio, watching television,
listening to the radio or reading a daily newspaper it is difficult to avoid the
term ‘research’.
The results of ‘research’ are all around us. A debate about the findings of a
What is the recent poll of people’s opinions inevitably includes a discussion of
‘research’, normally referring to the way in which the data were collected.
Nature of
• Politicians often justify their policy decisions on the basis of ‘research’.
Research Newspapers report the research findings of academics and
Conducted organisations. Documentary programmes tell us about ‘research
findings’ and advertisers may highlight the ‘results of research’ to
encourage you to buy a particular product or brand.
• However, we believe that what these examples really emphasise is the
wide range of meanings given to the term ‘research’ in everyday
speech.

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The Nature of Research

Many of these everyday uses of the term ‘research’ are not research in the
true meaning of the word. As part of this, he highlights ways in which the
term is used wrongly:
• just collecting facts or information with no clear purpose;
• reassembling and reordering facts or information without
What is the interpretation;
Nature of • as an activity with no or little relevance to everyday life;
Research • as a term to get your product or idea noticed and respected.

Conducted
Based upon this brief discussion we can already see that research has
several characteristics:
• The purpose, to find out things, is stated clearly.
• The information / data are collected systematically.
• The data are interpreted systematically.

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The Nature of Research

We can therefore define research as a process that is undertaken in a
systematic way with a clear purpose, to find things out.
Two phrases are important in this definition: ‘systematic way’ and ‘to find
out things’.
What is the 1. ‘Systematic way’ suggests that research is based on logical
Nature of relationships and not just beliefs (Ghauri et al. 2020). As part of this,
Research your research will involve an explanation of the method or methods
used to collect the data, will argue why the results obtained are
Conducted meaningful and will explain any limitations that are associated with
them.
2. ‘To find out things’ suggests there are a multiplicity of possible
purposes for your research. It is therefore an activity that has to be
finished at some time to be of use.

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The Nature of Research

• The two phrases in this definition: (systematic way’ and ‘to find out
things) will undoubtedly be true for your research project, which will
What is the have a specific deadline.
Nature of • Purposes are often stated as describing, explaining, understanding,
Research criticising and analysing.
Conducted • Crucially, it also emphasises you have a clear purpose or set of
‘things’ that you want to find out, such as the answer to a question or
number of questions or the solution to a problem.

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Business & M’gt Research

Using our earlier definitions of research we can define business and
management research as: ‘undertaking systematic research to find out
things about business and management’.
Ongoing debate within the literature has explored the transdisciplinary
The Nature of nature of business and management research, its relevance and utility to
society, the importance of rigorous methods and, more recently, the need
Business & for responsible research in business and management.
Management • Trans disciplinarity: Business and management research is a
Research transdisciplinary nature revealing how it draws on knowledge from a
range of other disciplines such as sociology, psychology and
economics, which have differing underlying assumptions.
• In other words, using knowledge from a range of disciplines enables
business and management research to gain new insights that cannot be
obtained through using these disciplines separately.

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Business & M’gt Research

• Relevance and Utility: Debates about the relevance and utility of
management research highlight a belief that it should have the potential
for some form of practical consequences. In other words, it should be
relevant to and have the potential to impact upon business and
The Nature of management practice.
Business & • Here it has been argued that such research should complete a virtuous
circle of theory and practice through which research on managerial
Management practice informs practically derived theory. Thus, business and
Research management research needs to engage with both the world of theory
and the world of practice.
Consequently, the problems addressed should grow out of interaction
between these two worlds rather than on their own. This suggests that
managers are less likely to allow research access unless they can see the
utility for their organisations.

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Business & M’gt Research

• Rigour: Alongside the relevance debate has been a concern for rigour
in both quantitative and qualitative methods.

The Nature of • Within this, theoretical rigour refers to the clarity and thoroughness
with which the research as reported is grounded in existing
Business & explanations of how things work.
Management • Although part of the same dimension, methodological rigour refers
Research to the strength and quality of the research method used in terms of
the planning, data collection, data analysis and subsequent
reporting; and therefore the confidence that can be placed in the
conclusions drawn.

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Business & M’gt Research

The Nature of
Business &
Management
Research

Basic Vs Applied
Research:

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Who Does Research?

A very wide array of organisations and individuals do research. The following
is just a small sample of the type of organisations/individuals who conduct
research:
• Government departments
Who • Private companies
• Consultancy companies
Conducts • Academics
Research? • Voluntary organisations
• Advertising agencies
• Market research companies
• And of course you, students!

The types of research each of the above undertake (descriptive, explanatory

and predictive) will totally depend on the nature of the research ‘problem’ they
are confronted with.

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The Research Process

• Research is a multi-stage process that you must follow to undertake and
complete your research project. In the research process, there is described
as a series of stages through which you must pass.
• The precise number of stages varies, but they usually include formulating
Steps in and clarifying a topic, reviewing the literature, designing the research,
Conducting collecting data, analysing data and writing up.
Research? • Unfortunately, this is very rarely true, and the reality is considerably messier.
While research is often depicted as moving through each of the stages just
outlined, one after the other, this is unlikely to be the case.
• In reality some stages will overlap, and you will probably revisit each stage
more than once. Each time you revisit a stage you will need to reflect on the
associated issues and refine your ideas. Alongside this you will need to
consider ethical and access issues during the process.

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The Research Process

Steps in Conducting
Research?

• In this course we shall appreciate the research

process as a series of linked stages and gives the
appearance of being organised in a linear manner.
• As part of this process we believe it is vital that you
spend time formulating and clarifying your research
topic. This we because research questions that
your research must answer, or an aim your
research will address.

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The Research Process

The Research
Cycle?

• In research, we go through a process of

organising, planning, conducting, analysing and
reporting on research called the scientific
method.
• This is a suitable approach for research at any
level (Masters or PhD). It helps you get your
research completed in a timely manner.
• The research cycle is the application of the
scientific method as displayed on the right,
which is drawn from Popper’s (1979).

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The Research Process

1. Formulate: For research to be any good, a great deal of time and effort must
be devoted to the initial understanding of the problem to be modelled. In this
phase, the research problem is identified. The variables and emotive issues
are also identified. The literature is extensively reviewed to identify how
others have undertaken similar research, what variables they have used and
What is in a measurements.
Research • Hypotheses or propositions are formed as to how the variables might
Cycle? influence one another. For example, if we were attempting to predict the
monthly sales of a particular product in a national market we might consider
the following model:
Monthly sales of Product X = a + b1 Price (X) + b2 Price (Y) + b3 Income
+ b4 Advertising
• Some ideas on successful problem-solving can be found in the soft systems
methodology literature. In particular, it clearly sketches out key questions of
the research problems.

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The Research Process

2. Generate a Hypothesis: Conventional hypothesis statements help guide the
analysis. They take the form of the null hypothesis (H0), that there is no effect
or relationship, compared to the alternative hypothesis (Ha), that there is an
effect or a relationship. To consider the previous example, one would write:
• H0 : Monthly Sales levels of X are not significantly different between high
What is in a levels of advertising expenditure and low levels.
Research • Ha : Monthly Sales levels of X are significantly higher when advertising
expenditure is high.
Cycle?
3. Collect Data: If one can assume for the moment that the speculative model
is acceptable, then data for independent and dependent variables is
collected. In the example; the independent variables are the monthly price of
X, monthly price of Y, income groups and advertising expenditure. The
dependent or response variable is the actual monthly sales of product X.
An independent variable is a variable that is expected to influence the
dependent variable.

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The Research Process

4. Explore the Data: This data is then explored, often using very simple tools,
such as scatter plots of sales against each of the independent variables.
Another reason for this exploration of the data is to catch any oddities that
exist in the data, such as abnormally high sales (e.g., due to Christmas) or
data-entry errors.
What is in a
Research 5. Analyse and Model: Assuming that relationships exist and there are no
Cycle? problems in the data, the data is then analysed to explicitly answer the
research questions and accept or otherwise reject the hypothesis. Statistical
methods might be used such as analysis or the analysis might be qualitative
in nature. In either case, a model can be formed on how relationships have
been found to work and this would allow ‘what if’ investigations to be made.
Again, the models can be statistical or they might be schematic, drawing
attention to the nature of how themes might affect an outcome.

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The Research Process

6. Reliability and Validity: How reliable the data is in terms of how well it was
collected, measured and free from bias and corruption should be assessed.
What was the degree of subject–researcher interaction? Was the subject
being led or were they trying to please the researcher?
What is in a Assessment of validity hinges around the degree to which the researchers
are measuring what they set out to measure—it relates back to the research
Research design and the theoretical underpinning of the measures and how well the
Cycle? measurement was conducted.
A question often asked is “what alternative explanations are there for the
findings?” How well the research stands up to this scrutiny is a measure of
the quality of the research and this is a vital stage.

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The Research Process

Problems With the
Research Process

The research process can be thought of

as a series of screens through which
progressively less of the data passes;
much data passes through the
collecting screen (e.g., a questionnaire)
or is reflected away (conscious
decisions not to take part) and what
does pass through can be distorted,
and that which reaches the final user
may be of little use.

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The Research Process

The first screen represents the data collection phase, where valuable data is
often missed, some being reflected by the measurement system, as would
be the case with a poorly designed questionnaire.
On passing through the screen, the data can be distorted (refracted) due to
Problems measurement and transcription errors. E.g, suppose the data input to a
With the computer was to be ‘12345’ but the operator actually input ‘12435’: a
transcription error has occurred.
Research
This is a very easy mistake to make, which, if not detected, is capable of
Process undermining any data analysis you may undertake. This error can be
repeated at the modelling stage and lead to misinterpretation at the report
stage and, finally, those who read the report absorb even less of the original
message.
And if the types of errors discussed have been made, the reader might even
get an entirely wrong message!

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The Research Process

• There are also elements of choice within research that are often
subjective and can be at the whim of the researcher.
• Here, decision-makers choose the variables to enter into the model. The
list of potential variables is often more a matter of the imagination than
Problems anything else. Once the variables are listed, they are often selected
With the subjectively (see White 1975).
Research • The points raised in this chapter are really the subject of the forthcoming
topics where you will be introduced to various research tools. This will
Process allow you to conduct good research on your own, and critically appraise
research done by others. Before mov- ing on, try the exercises below to
check your understanding of this chapter.

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