Dr.

Saqib Rehman Lecture 3 Business Research

The Research Process (Step 1/ Step 2/ Step 3)

What is Broad Problem Area?

Broad problem area refers to the entire situation where one sees a possible need for research and problem
solving. The specific issues that need to be researched within this situation may not be identified at this
stage. Such issues might pertain to
(1) Problems currently existing in an organizational setting that need to be solved,
(2) Areas that a manager believes need to be improved in the organization,
(3) A conceptual or theoretical issue that needs to be tightened up for the basic researcher to understand
certain phenomena, and
(4) Some research questions that a basic researcher wants to answer empirically.

Examples of broad problem areas that a manager could observe at the work- place are as follows:
1. Training programs are perhaps not as effective as anticipated.
2. The sales volume of a product is not picking up.
3. Minority group members in organizations are not advancing in their careers.
4. The daily balancing of accounting ledgers is becoming a continuing concern.
5. The newly installed information system is not being used by the managers for whom it was primarily
designed.
6. The introduction of flexible work hours has created more problems than it has solved in many
companies.
Dr. Saqib Rehman Lecture 3 Business Research

7. The anticipated results of a recent merger have not been forthcoming.

8. Inventory control is not effective.
9. The installation of an MIS keeps getting stalled.
10. The management of a complex, multi-departmental team project is getting out of hand in the R & D
department of a firm.

What do you meant by Preliminary Data Collection?

Nature of Data to be Collected

Unstructured interviews, structured interviews, and library research would help the researcher to define
the problem more specifically and evolve a theory, delineating possible variables that might exert an
influence on it. The nature of information needed by the researcher for the purpose could be broadly
classified under three headings:
1. Background information of the organization—that is, the contextual factors.
2. Managerial philosophy, company policies, and other structural aspects.
3. Perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral responses of organizational members and client
systems
Certain types of information such as the background details of the company can be obtained from
available published records, the website of the company, its archives, and other sources. Other types of
written information such as company policies, procedures, and rules can be obtained from the
organization‘s records and documents. Data gathered through such existing sources are called secondary
data.
In contrast, certain other types of information such as the perceptions and attitudes of employees are best
obtained by talking to them; by observing events, people, and objects; or by administering questionnaires
to individuals. Such data gathered for research from the actual site of occurrence of events are called
primary data.
1. Background Information on the Organization
It is important for the researcher or the research team—especially if an outside agency conducts the
research—to be well acquainted with the background of the company or organization studied, before
even conducting the first interview with their officials. Such background information might include,
among other things, the under noted contextual factors, which may be obtained from various published
sources such as trade publications, the Census of Business and Industry, Directory of Corporations,
several other business guides and services, records available within the organization, and the web.
1. The origin and history of the company—when it came into being, the business it is in, rate
of growth, ownership and control, and so on.
2. Size in terms of employees, assets, or both.
3. Charter—purpose and ideology.
4. Location—regional, national, or other.
5. Resources—human and others.
6. Interdependent relationships with other institutions and the external envi- ronment.
7. Financial position during the previous 5 to 10 years, and relevant financial data.

2. Information on the Structural factors and Measurement Philosophy

Information on company policies, structure, workflow, management philosophy, and the like can be
obtained by asking direct questions of the management. Such information gathering would be
particularly useful when newly installed systems, processes, and procedures do not produce the desired
results. Questioning about managerial and company philosophy offers an excellent idea of the priorities
and values of the company, as for example:
(1) whether product quality is really deemed important by the company or if only lip service is
being paid to the concept;
(2) whether the company has short-term or long- term goals;
(3) whether controls are so tight that creativity is stifled, or so loose that nothing gets done, or if
they are conductive to good performance;
Dr. Saqib Rehman Lecture 3 Business Research

(4) whether the company always wants to play it safe or is prepared to take calculated risks; and
(5) whether it is people-oriented or solely profits-oriented.

3. Perceptions, Attitudes and Behavioral Reponses

Employees‘ perceptions of the work and the work environment and their attitudinal and behavioral
responses can be tapped by talking to them, observing them, and seeking their responses through
questionnaires. A general idea of people‘s perceptions of their work the organizational climate, and
other aspects of interest to the researcher can be obtained through both unstructured and structured
interviews with the respondents.

Attitudinal factors comprise people‘s beliefs about and reactions to the following:
1. Nature of the work.
2. Workflow interdependencies.
3. Superiors in the organization.
4. Participation in decision making.
5. Client systems.
6. Co-workers.
7. Rewards provided by the organization, such as pay raises and fringe benefits.
8. Opportunities for advancement in the organization.
9. Organization‘s attitudes toward employees‘ family responsibilities.
10. Company‘s involvement with community, civic, and other social groups.
11. Company‘s tolerance of employees‘ taking time off from the job.

Behavioral factors include actual work habits such as industriousness, extent of absenteeism,
performance on the job, and the like.

What are Literature Survey? Discuss in detail.

Literature survey is the documentation of a comprehensive review of the published and unpublished
work from secondary sources of data in the areas of specific interest to the researcher. The library is a
rich storage base for secondary data, and researchers used to spend several weeks and sometimes months
going through books, journals, newspapers, magazines, conference proceedings, doctoral dissertations,
master‘s theses, government publications, and financial, marketing, and other reports, to find information
on their research topic. With computerized databases now readily available and accessible, the literature
search is much speedier and easier, and can be done without entering the portals of a library building.

Reasons for the Literature Survey

The purpose of the literature review is to ensure that no important variable that has in the past been found
repeatedly to have had an impact on the problem is ignored. It is possible that some of the critical
variables are never brought out in the interviews, either because the employees cannot articulate them or
are unaware of their impact, or because the variables seem so obvious to the interviewees that they are
not specifically stated.
If there are variables that are not identified during the interviews, but influence the problem critically,
then research done without considering them would be an exercise in futility. In such a case, the true
reason for the problem would remain unidentified even at the end of the research. To avoid such
possibilities the researcher needs to delve into all the important research work relating to the particular
problem area.
Sometimes it might happen that the investigator spends considerable time and effort to discover
something that has already been thoroughly researched. A literature review would prevent such a waste
of resources in reinventing the wheel.
A survey of the literature not only helps the researcher to include all the relevant variables in the research
project, but also facilitates the creative integration of the information gathered from the structured and
unstructured interviews with what is found in previous studies. In other words, it gives a good basic
frame- work to proceed further with the investigation.
Dr. Saqib Rehman Lecture 3 Business Research

A good literature survey thus ensures that:

1. Important variables that are likely to influence the problem situation are not left out of the
study.
2. A clearer idea emerges as to what variables would be most important to con- sider
(parsimony), why they would be considered important, and how they should be investigated to
solve the problem. Thus, the literature survey helps the development of the theoretical framework and
hypotheses for testing.
3. The problem statement can be made with precision and clarity.
4. Testability and replicability of the findings of the current research are enhanced.
5. One does not run the risk of ―reinventing the wheel‖ that is, wasting efforts on trying to
rediscover something that is already known.
6. The problem investigated is perceived by the scientific community as relevant and
significant.

Types of Reviews
When beginning a review, researcher may decide on a topic or field of knowledge to examine, how much
depth to go into, and the kind of review to conduct. There are six types of review:
1. Self-study reviews increase the reader’s confidence. A review that only demonstrates familiarity with
an area is rarely published but it often is part of an educational program.
2. Context reviews place a specific project in the big picture. One of the goals of review is creating a
link to a developing body of knowledge. This is a background or context review. It introduces the rest of
a research and establishes the significance and relevance of a research question
3. Historical review traces the development of an issue over time. It traces the development of an idea
or shows how a particular issue or theory has evolved over time. Researchers conduct historical review
only on the most important ideas in a field.
4. Theoretical reviews compare how different theories address an issue. It presents different theories
that purport to explain the same thing, then evaluates how well each accounts for findings.
5. Integrative review summarizes what is known at a point in time. It presents the current state of
knowledge and pulls together disparate research reports in a fast growing area of knowledge.
6. Methodological reviews point out how methodology varies by study. In it researcher evaluates the
methodological strength of past studies. It describes conflicting results and shows how different research
designs, samples, measures, and so on account for different results.

Conducting the Literature Survey

Based on the specific issues of concern to the manager and the factors identified during the interview
process, a literature review needs to be done on these variables. The first step in this process involves
identifying the various published and unpublished materials that are available on the topics of interest,
and gaining access to these. The second step is gathering the relevant information either by going
through the necessary materials in a library or by getting access to online sources. The third step is
writing up the literature review. These are now discussed.

Identifying the Relevant Sources

Previously, one had to manually go through several bibliographical indexes that are compiled
periodically, listing the journals, books, and other sources in which published work in the area of
interest can be found. However, with modern technology, locating sources where the topics of
interest have been published has become easy. Almost every library today has computer online
systems to locate and print out the published information on various topics.

Global business information, published articles in newspapers and periodicals, and conference
proceedings, among other sources, are all now available on data- bases. Computerized databases include
bibliographies, abstracts, and full texts of articles on various business topics. Statistical and financial
databases are also easily accessible. Computer hardware and software enable the storage, updating, and
display of information on global activities. Economic indicators and other data for various countries can
Dr. Saqib Rehman Lecture 3 Business Research

be tracked easily. Statistical abstracts and the like, now available on CD- ROM and on the Internet, bring
to the researcher all the information needed for research at the press of the appropriate computer keys.

Extracting the Relevant Information

While reading these articles, detailed information on the problem that was researched, the design details
of the study, and the ultimate findings could be systematically noted in some convenient format.
This facilitates the writing up of the literature review with minimum disruption and maximum
efficiency.

Writing Up the Literature Review

The documentation of the relevant studies citing the author and the year of the study is called literature
review or literature survey. The literature survey is a clear and logical presentation of the relevant
research work done thus far in the area of investigation. As stated earlier, the purpose of the literature
survey is to identify and highlight the important variables, and to document the significant findings from
earlier research that will serve as the foundation on which the theoretical framework for the current
investigation can be built and the hypotheses developed. Such documentation is important to convince
the reader that (1) the researcher is knowledgeable about the problem area and has done the preliminary
homework that is necessary to conduct the research, and (2) the theoretical framework will be structured
on work already done and will add to the solid foundation of existing knowledge.

What is Problem Definition? Give some examples of some good problem statement.
After the interviews and the literature review, the researcher is in a position to narrow down the problem
from its original broad base and define the issues of concern more clearly. It is critical that the focus of
further research, or in other words, the problem, be unambiguously identified and defined. No amount of
good research can find solutions to the situation, if the critical issue or the problem to be studied is not
clearly pinpointed.

A problem does not necessarily mean that something is seriously wrong with a current situation that
needs to be rectified immediately. A ―problem‖ could simply indicate an interest in an issue where
finding the right answers might help to improve an existing situation. Thus, it is fruitful to define a
problem as any situation where a gap exists between the actual and the desired ideal states.

In either case, one should know what exactly the issue is, for which one seeks answers. It is very
important that symptoms of problems are not defined as the real problem. For instance, a manager might
have tried to increase productivity by increasing the piece rate, but with little success. Here the real
problem may be the low morale and motivation of employees who feel they are not being recognized as
valuable contributors to the system and get no ―praise‖ for the good work that they do. The low
productivity may merely be a symptom of the deep-rooted morale and motivation problem.

Problem definition or problem statement, as it is also often referred to, is a clear, precise, and succinct
statement of the question or issue that is to be investigated with the goal of finding an answer or solution.
As mentioned earlier, problem definitions could pertain to
(1) existing business problems where a manager is looking for a solution,
(2) situations that may not pose any current problems but which the manager feels have scope for
improvement,
(3) areas where some conceptual clarity is needed for better theory building, or
4) situations in which a researcher is trying to answer a research question empirically because of interest
in the topic. The first two fall within the realm of applied research, and the latter two under basic
research.

Examples
1. Does better automation lead to greater asset investment per dollar of output?
2. Does expansion of international operations result in an enhancement of the firm‘s image and value?
Dr. Saqib Rehman Lecture 3 Business Research

3. What are the effects of downsizing on the long-range growth patterns of companies?
4. Can cultural differences account for the differences in the nature of hierar- chical relationships
between superiors and subordinates in Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, and the United States?
5. What are the components of ―quality of life‖?
6. What are the specific factors to be considered in creating a data warehouse for a manufacturing
company?