PM03: Business Research I PDF

PM03: Business Research I LW8: Research Methodology & Research Design Part 3 1  Learning objectives You should: Appreciate the importance of your decisions when designing research and the need to achieve methodolo...

PM03: Business Research I LW8: Research Methodology & Research Design Part 3 1  Learning objectives You should: Appreciate the importance of your decisions when designing research and the need to achieve methodological coherence throughout your research design; Understand the differences between quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research design and choose between these; Understand the differences between exploratory, descriptive, explanatory and evaluative research and recognise the purpose(s) of your research design; Identify the main research strategies and choose from among these to achieve coherence throughout your research design; Consider the implications of the time frames required for different research designs; Understand criteria to evaluate research quality and consider these when designing your research; Take into account the constraints of your role as researcher when designing your research 2 Where are we? 3 Research Onion 4  Research Strategies A research strategy is a plan of action to achieve a goal Different strategies emerged out of traditions that are informed by research philosophies, approaches, and are linked with research methods Research strategies are never mutually exclusive; within mixed- methods research it is valid to combine multiple different strategies Defining the type of qualitative research strategy is often found to be most challenging, thus having an overview of qualitative research strategies allows to avoid vague assertions 5  Research Strategies: Experiment “The purpose of an experiment is to study the probability of a change in an independent variable causing a change in another, dependent variable.” (Saunders et al., 2019, p.190) Experiments make use of hypotheses (hypothetical explanations) about the relationships of variables – Null hypothesis (H0): The explanation that there is no difference or relationship between the variables – Alternative hypothesis (H1): The explanation that there is a difference or relationship between the variables 6  Research Strategies: Experiment H0 Example: “User satisfaction of inline customer support is not related to the amount of training support staff have received.” H1 Example: “User satisfcation of online customer support is related to the amount of training support staff have received.” The compatibility of the data with H0 is tested statistically (the probability of the data or data more extreme to occurr by chance). The smaller the probability (termed p-value), the greater the statistical incompatibility. 7 Research Strategies: Experiment 8  Research Strategies: Experiment Classical experiment: – Random selection of participants and assignment to either experimental or control group. – The experimental group will receive some form of intervention of manipulation – The control receives no such intervention Quasi-experiment: – Both experimental and control groups are used as well – However, random assignment of participants in not made – Differences in participants between groups may then be minimised using matches pair analysis 9 Research Strategies: Experiment 10  Research Strategies: Survey Frequently used to answer: “what”, “who”, “where”, “how much”, and “how many” questions → tends to be used for exploratory and descriptive research Popular due to the option to collect standardised data from large number of respondents Survey strategies allow for quantitative analysis in the form of descriptive and inferential statistics 11  Research Strategies: Survey It gives you control over the research process and enables research findings that are statistically representative of a whole population (probability sampling) Limits: – Number of useful questions to ask in one questionnaire – Response rates – “Capacity to do it badly” Data collection techniques that belong to the survey strategy: – Questionnaires – Structured observation – Structured interviews 12  Research Strategies: Survey However, survey strategies will not be discussed in any further detail in the first semester 13  Research Strategies: Archival and Documentary Research Encompasses most secondary data that was not originally created for a research purpose: – communications between individuals or within groups such as email, letters, social media and blog postings; – individual records such as diaries, electronic calendars and notes; – organisational documents such as administrative records, agendas and minutes of meetings, agreements, contracts, memos, personnel records, plans, policy statements, press releases, reports and strategy statements; – government documents such as publications, reports and national statistics data sets; – media documents including printed and online articles and other data. 14  Research Strategies: Archival and Documentary Research It is apotentially rich source of qualitative and quantitative data – “Documents may, for example, allow you to analyse critical incidents or decision-making processes, or evaluate different policy positions or strategies” (Saunders et al., 2019, p.196) Next to pure content, these kinds of documents an be analysed to reveal: – what is omitted; – which facts are used and the emphasis on them; – how the documents are used and for whom they were created 15  Research Strategies: Case Study It is meant to be an in-depth study of a phenomenon within its real-life setting. It aims at understanding the dynamics of a topic within its setting/context The “case” in case study may refer to: – A person – A group – An organisation – An association – A change process – An event – Etc. 16  Research Strategies: Case Study There is a specific place for case studies in research design when comparing it to others – In experiments contextual variables are highly controlled – A survey strategy is limited by the number of variables to collect data for (see slide 11) Case studies are most useful when boundaries between phenomena and their contexts are unclear 17  Research Strategies: Case Study There are multiple different views on how case studies should be designed and implemented. Two approaches are: Orthodox case studies: – Are highly structured and rigorously defined – A rational approach that follows a typical scheme of literature → problem question → design formulation → data collection → data analysis → reporting Emergent case studies: – Research emerges through engagement with the setting and literature – Core focus emerges out of the case study itself 18  Research Strategies: Case Study 1st Dimension 2nd Dimension Single Case Multiple Cases Holistic Case Embedded Case Selecting a Choosing multiple One unit of analysis. Multiple sub-units of single/unique case cases to see whether (e.g. the whole analysis. (e.g. that gives the findings can be organisation) multiple opportunity to replicated across departments of an observe and analyse cases. organisation) a specific phenomenon. Literal replication: Cases have similar predicted results Theoretical replication: Contextual factors are deliberately different 19  Research Strategies: Ethnography It is used to study the culture or social world of a group. Ethnography is used to study people in groups, this includes a variety of settings, some of which have contact points with management science: – Work groups – Organisations – Departments – Etc. 20  Research Strategies: Ethnography Different types of ethnography are: – Reliast ethongraphy: Ethnographer belives in objectvity, factual reporting, and identifying “true” meanings – Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographer places more emphasis on subjective impressions (likelihood of multiple meanings) – Critical ethnography: Exploring and explaining power, privilege, and authoity on the subjects of such Example: Ethnography might be a useful technique in market research when trying to gain an in-depth understanding of consumer experiences. 21  Research Strategies: Action Research Action research is both iterative an emergent Solving real organisational problems through a participative and collaborative approach Researcher also acts as a facilitator/teacher 22 Research Strategies: Action Research 23  Research Strategies: Grounded Theory Grounded theory is used to refer to multiple things: a methodology, method of inquiry, and results of a research process. Thus: – Grounded theory methodology: The way to conduct research – Grounded theory method: Data collection techniques and analytics procedures – Grounded theory: A tehory that is grounded in or developed inductively from a set of data 24 Research Strategies: Grounded Theory 25  Research Strategies: Narrative Inquiry “Narrative” is used to describe the nature or outcome of a qualitative interview, given that every research interview involves a participant’s storytelling In narrative inquiry, chronological connections and sequencing of events is meant to be preserved This aids analysis and understanding (especially with regards to contextual detail and social relations [thick descriptions]) The purpose of narrative inquiry is to preserve integrity while deriving theoretical explanations 26  Research Strategies: Narrative Inquiry Narrative inquiry is generally associated with small, purposive samples (it is time-consuming) Since narrative inquiry is likely to result in large amounts of unstructured qualitative data (transcriptics and observational notes), the following questions help in facilitating the analysis: – What is the story about? – What happened, to whom, whereabouts and why? – What consequences arose from this? – What is the significance of these events? – What was the final outcome? 27 Research Onion 28 Time Horizon 29  Time Horizon: Cross-Sectional Studying a phenomen at a particular time Often employs survey strategies, but other qualitative of mixed methods research strategies work too. Example 1: The IT skills possessed by managers in one organisation at a given point in time. Example 2: The relationship between expenditure on customer care training for sales assistants and sales revenu. 30  Time Horizon: Longitudinal Benefit: The option to study change and development It i possible to add longitudinal elements to a lot of research projects even though time constraints exist This is mainly due to readily available and published data collected over time 31  Quality of Research Design Scientific canons of inquiry are “[…] central judgements about the quality of research in the natural sciences and quantative research the social sciences.” (Saunders et al., 2019, p.213) While positivist researchers will use the canons of scientific inquiry, interpretivist researcher will either adapt or reject them as inapprpriate Reliability: Replication & consistency Validity: Appropriateness of measures used 32 Threats to Reliability 33  Validity The concept of validity is generally divided into seperate characteristics of research quality. These are: – Measurement validity Face validity, construct validity, content validity, predictive validity (see section 11.4 of Saundes) – Internal validity: “The extent to which findings can be attributed to intervention you are researching rather than to flaws in your research design.” (Saunders et al., 2019, p.215) – External validity: “Can a study’s research findings be generalised to other relevant contexts?” (Saunders et al., 2019, p.216) 34 Threats to Internal Validity 35 Alternative Quality Criteria 36  Validation The process of establishing validity/credibility/authenticity is called validation Triangulation: – Using more than one source of data or method to confirm validity of data, analysis, and interpretation – Necessitates a multi-method quantitative/qualitative or mixed-methods study Participant/Member validation: – Sending research data back to participants for their confirmation on accuracy – You have to differentiate between participants changing their attitudes vs. Simply correcting your interpretation 37  Study advice LW8 Study the slides Read: chapter 5 Formulate questions Apply the knowledge 38