Research in Business
| Author | Jensen Zhao |
| Pages | 640-643 |
Page 640
In the competitive global economy of the twenty-first century, managers are challenged to make tough business decisions, such as how to keep an annual growth rate of 20 percent, how to increase employee productivity, how to improve product quality, how to cut down costs, and how to reduce the employee turnover rate. To make such decisions correctly, managers need research, which is a systematic inquiry that provides scientific findings and conclusions to guide business decisions.
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Figure 1
Five interrelated phases of the business research process
Good business research is a scientific approach that meets the following criteria:
The problem of the research should be explicitly stated.
The need for the research should be well justified.
The purpose of the research should be clearly defined.
The research method should be selected according to the nature of the problem and designed scientifically to ensure a valid and reliable outcome.
The research procedures should be described in sufficient detail to permit other researchers to replicate the research.
The limitations of the research design and procedures should be reported.
The analysis and interpretation of data should generate findings that reveal the evidence of scientific measurements.
The research conclusions should be drawn based on the findings, and the recommendations should be based on the conclusions.
Business research methods refer to the ways researchers gather the evidence needed to make the right decisions. Common business research methods include case studies, the Delphi method, experiments, surveys, and content analysis.
Case studies examine a single, salient business situation or organization by collecting key facts and analyzing them in light of business functions, theories, and best practices. The goal is to generate possible solutions to problems experienced in that particular situation or organization. The case study begins with an explicit problem statement. Based on the problem statement, researchers decide what data need to be collected for analysis. For example, a company case study usually needs to collect both quantitative (e.g., financial and sales figures) and qualitative (e.g., management memos and reports) data to perform the following analyses:
Industry analysis to understand its growth, market structure, and competition
Product/service analysis to evaluate the company's market share, product/service portfolio, marketing strategies, and competitive advantage
Financial analysis to assess the company's profitability, liquidity, leverage, performance, and growth potential
Management analysis to examine the top-management strategies, short- and long-term objectives, organizational structure, and decision styles
These functional analyses enable researchers to identify the...
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