Research Design Fundamentals

1. Chapter 2 Research Design Fundamentals • Explain how a study is created based upon a description of the business decision involved. • Describe the role of theory and science in business research. • Describe the three basic business research designs. • Explain the roles of exploratory and confirmatory research. • Explain the roles of qualitative and quantitative research. • Provide a description of basic qualitative research techniques.

2. The Basic Research Process Phase I – Formulation: • Develop Theory • Research Questions • Hypotheses • Study Design Decision Making Process Phase III – Analytical • Analyze Data • Draw Inferences • Interpret Results • Acknowledge Limitations Phase II – Execution • Design Data Collection Devices • Collect Data • Check for Errors • Code Data • Store Data

3. THEORY AND SCIENCE Theory – a set of systematically related statements, including some law-like generalizations that can be tested empirically. Law-like generalizations are expectations of what will happen under specified circumstances that allow predictions of reality.

4. The Role of Theory in Business Research • The Fuel for Research • Theory offers explanations and predictions. • Normative decision rules suggest what should be done when faced with a situation described by a theory, but there are many gaps in knowledge used to develop normative decision rules. • Theory is Practical • Narrows down things to be studied. • “Law-like generalizations” provide hypotheses. • Hypotheses based on theory determine what must be measured. • Theory-based versus intuition-based explanations.

5. The Scientific Method • Observation • Discovery • Develop Hypotheses • Data Collection • Analysis • Conclusions Theory

6. Problem Formulation • Determine the purpose of the research. • Understand and define the complete problem. • Identify and separate out measurable symptoms to determine the root problem versus easily observable symptoms. • Determine the unit of analysis = individuals, households, businesses, objects, geographic areas, etc., or some combination. • Determine the relevant variables, including specifying independent and dependent relationships, constructs, etc.

7. Law-Like Generalizations Research Question – states a general proposition. Is gender related to job outcomes? Hypothesis – formal, specific statement of some unproven supposition that tentatively explains certain facts or phenomena. Female service employees report higher job satisfaction than male service employees.

8. Research Questions Lead to Hypotheses

9. Rigor of Science • Data represent facts about hypothesized variables. • Data are analyzed to determine consistency with prediction. • If data and prediction are consistent – hypothesis is supported. • If data and prediction are inconsistent – hypothesis is not supported.

10. “Good” Science is . . . . • Empirical • Replicable • Analytical • Theory Driven • Logical • Rigorous FLAT OR ROUND?

11. PARSIMONY • Parsimonious research – means applying the simplest approach that will address the research questions satisfactorily. Complex Pragmatic

12. Types of Research Designs • Exploratory • Descriptive • Causal

13. Research Design Objectives • Exploratory – to formulate the problem, develop hypotheses, develop constructs, establish priorities for research, refine ideas, clarify concepts, etc. • Descriptive – to describe characteristics of certain groups, estimate the proportion of people in a population who behave in a given way, and to make directional predictions. • Causal – to provide evidence of the relationships between variables, the sequence in which events occur, and/or to eliminate other possible explanations.

14. Exploratory Research Designs • Exploratory research is useful when: • Decision maker has little information. • Research questions are vague. • Decision making is in discovery phase. 1 of 3 Basic Business Research Designs Literature reviews Unstructured Interviews Depth interviews Focus groups Delphi technique Projective techniques

15. Descriptive Research Designs • Descriptive research describes a situation: • Structured interviews are often used. • Studies are: • Cross-Sectional – provide user with a snapshot at a given point in time. • example: sample surveys • Longitudinal – describe events over time. • example: panel data

16. Causal Research Designs • Causal research tests whether or not some event causes another: • Experiments are used to test for a causal relationship. • A causal relationship means a change in X (the cause) makes a change in Y (the effect) occur.

17. Causal Designs Does one thing cause another? In testing cause and effect relationships researchers look for four conditions: • Time Sequence • Covariance • Nonspurious Association • Theoretical Support

18. Experiments • Potential causes are “controlled” by using experimental designs and manipulation: • Manipulation – the causal variable is altered over different conditions. • Lab experiment – manipulation takes place in artificial setting. • maximizes control. • Field experiment – manipulation takes place in the relevant business context. • increases representativeness.

19. Comparing Field & Lab Experiments

20. Experimental Designs • Between Subjects Designs • Every “subject” receives one level of experimental treatment. • Within Subjects Designs • Every “subject” receives multiple levels of experimental treatments. • More prone to demand effects = things that allow subjects to guess the hypothesis. • Factorial Designs • Two or more experimental treatments controlled at the same time.

21. Between and Within Subjects Treatment Assignments “Between Subjects” Manipulation: Treatment 1 Level A Level B Level A “Within Subjects” Level A Level B

22. Exploratory and Confirmatory Research Purposes • Exploratory research seeks to: • Discover issues. • Generate ideas. • Develop research hypotheses. • Confirmatory research seeks to: • Test specific hypotheses. • Both types of research require data.

23. Data • Data = information recorded to represent facts: • Objective Data – data that is independent of any single person’s opinion. • Subjective Data – two types: • Data that are an individual’s opinion. • Researcher dependent data.

24. More on Data • Primary Data - collected for the purpose of completing the current research project. • Secondary Data – collected for some other research purpose. • Saves money and time • Does it fit the purpose? • Is it of high quality? ciber.bus.msu.edu/ginlist www.standardandpoors.com www.census.gov www.usadata.com

25. Still More on Data • Qualitative Data = descriptions of things made without assigning numbers. • result from unstructured interviews – researcher interpretations needed. • Quantitative Data = measurements in which numbers are used directly to represent properties of things. • ready for statistical analysis.

26. Qualitative Research • Searches academic & trade/professional literature. • Discovers and identifies ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. • Exploratory research design. • Uses open-ended, unstructured, probing questions in interviews and focus groups and generates qualitative data. • Provides preliminary insights and understanding. • Limited ability to generalize findings, typically because samples are small and non-random. • Improves conceptualization. • Facilitates drafting questionnaires.

27. Quantitative Research • Validates facts, estimates, relationships, predictions, etc. • Descriptive and causal designs. • Mostly structured questions. • Larger samples. • Ability to generalize is good with proper sampling design. • Uses quantitative data.

28. Comparing Qualitative and Quantitative Data

29. Summary • Introduced the basic business process. • Described the role of theory and science in business research. • Described the three basic research designs. • Discussed exploratory versus confirmatory research. • Compared and contrasted qualitative and quantitative research and data.