Business Research: Modern Era and Early Examples

Business Research in the Modern Era

• Business research seeks the truth by discerning facts to inform decisions.
• It helps in evaluating opportunities by providing both positive and negative data.
• Everyday decisions, like choosing a movie, involve elements of business research.
• Business research relies on asking questions and research to predict important outcomes.
• Formal research training in business is recent; business research is as old as commerce.

Early Examples of Business Research

• Investors in 500 B.C.E. gathered data to modify goods for specific markets.
• Merchants used information for product differentiation and market segmentation.
• Wine merchants researched to appeal to markets and created imitations of higher-quality wines.
• Athenians produced Tyrrhenian crockery based on Etruscan tastes determined through research.
• Frederick Taylor used motion picture technology for worker productivity, and General Electric used consumer research for product design.

Modern Business Research

• Thousands of companies provide research services to address strategic, tactical, and operational questions.
• Digital environments and social media have introduced new ways to collect and analyze information.
• Business research still seeks ways to improve performance and benefit customers, employees, and owners.
• Social media and big data are rapidly transforming business and research processes.
• Ability to understand consumer preferences and increases in ability to "scrape" data quickly are important.
• There have been unintended impacts of these enhancements, like Microsoft's Tay chatbot and Pepsi Sweden's Ronaldo ads.

Big Data

• Big data includes the five "Vs": volume, velocity, variety, veracity, and value.
• The first four define its parameters, while value helps understand the others, and prediction/causality.
• Business research adapts to handle the volume and velocity of data.
• Challenges include variety (structured/unstructured data) and veracity (biases, noise).
• Business researchers approach analysis with data-driven or theory-driven methods.
• Data-driven research is exploratory, while theory-driven research tests predefined hypotheses.

Defining Good Business Research

• It is a systematic way of seeking the truth through science.
• It should be reliable to its users.
• It should be objective, honest, open, accountable, fair, and demonstrate stewardship.
• Fabricating, falsifying, and plagiarizing research results are unacceptable.
• Researchers must avoid questionable practices like "harking" (hypothesizing after results).

Key Elements of Business Research

• The scope of business research is broad and expanding.
• It involves the study of people, systems, and their interactions.
• Examples of aspects, include: employees, customers, strategic business units, accounting systems, etc.
• Business research can be formal, using systematic projects for specific answers.
• One shot research projects address a single issue at a time.
• Business research can be informal, providing ongoing insights into problems and opportunities.
• Frontline employees can enter informal feedback into databases, or other avenues like social media.
• It should be replicable, allowing others to reproduce results with the same methods.
• Good research needs to provide benefits that outweigh its costs.

Types of Business Research

• Applied business research solves specific problems for an organization.
• Basic business research better understands a business phenomenon for an entire industry.

What Business Researchers Study

• Business research aims to improve decision-making across all business functions.
• Marketing research focuses on new product development, promotion, brand image, and customer satisfaction.
• Manufacturing research focuses on efficient production processes to ensure quality and satisfaction.
• Research on employee job satisfaction, performance, and turnover is very popular.
• Strategic and tactical decisions involving capital investment are key areas of study.

Online Grocery Sales

• Early ventures failed due to high investment and limited online adoption.
• Newer models use existing distribution centers and minimal delivery investment.
• Companies like Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Publix and Ralph's are offering grocery delivery or pickup.
• Success depends on a sufficient market of consumers willing to forego in-person shopping.

Auxiliary Topics for Business Research

• Accounting rules need researching due to different financial implications.
• Decisions should be researched for tax implications and impact on financial performance.
• Industries change, but the research process remains consistent.
• Information-only businesses exchange information or related services for a fee.
• All businesses, large and small, benefit from research to answer market and internal questions.
• Nonprofit institutions use research for questions related to core client segments.