RESEARCH PROPOSAL: THEORY, RESEARCH QUESTION & HYPOTHESIS

1. RESEARCH PROPOSAL:THEORY, RESEARCH QUESTION & HYPOTHESIS MNGT 583 – Özge Can

2. Research Proposal Format: • Brief introduction • Research question • Theoretical background • Literature review: A critical review of the theories, concepts, debates and major viewpoints around your research question • Specific emphasis to cultural discussions • Study hypotheses and/or study model • Identfication of why and how culture (or cultura differences) matter

3. Research Proposal Format: • Proposed research methodology • The context/ setting of the study • Your sample – sample size and other characteristics • Method of data collection • Quantitative and/or qualitative • Survey, interviews, archival data etc. • Measurement of the concepts/ variables

4. Possible Topics for Research Proposal: • Intercultural communication and negotiations • International/ global business strategies • International alliances other collaborations • Managing diversity (international workforce) • Teamwork (global/ multicultural teams) • Global leadership; international HRM practices • Expartiates and international careers • Link between national and organizational culture • Every possible organizational issue (e.g. employee attitudes and behaviors, organizational performance, business decisions, organization design and practices, ...)

5. What is THEORY • A system of interconnected ideas that condenses and organizes the knowledge about the world and explains how it works • A good research involves theory. If theory remains unclear, incomplete or poorly formulated => it is a weak research • Theories are not static: we constantly modify older theories and develop new ones

6. The Parts of Theory: • Assumptions • An un-tested starting point in a theory that is necessary in order to build a theoretical explanation • Concepts • An idea that is thought, carefully defined and made explicit in a theory that we can express as a word or symbol • Relationships • Whether the concepts are connected to one another and if so, how

7. Concepts • They are everywhere, we use them all the time • Concepts have two parts: a symbol (a word, term, a written character) and a definition. • We find them easy to use but difficult to define or describe • For example: “Height” • A characteristics of a physical object indicating the distance from top to bottom. • The word “height” refers to an abstract idea. We associate a sound and a written symbol to this idea.

8. Relationships • Proposition • A theoretical statement about the relatipnship between two or more concepts • Hypothesis • An empirically testable version of a theoretical proposition that is yet to be tested or verified with empirical evidence • It is most used in deductive theorizing

9. Relationships • Unit of analysis => In research, we must fit the concepts to a specific type of unit of social life: • individuals, • groups, • organizations • movements and exchanges, • institutions, • regions • nations/ countries etc.

10. Abstract and Empirical Levels Proposition Treatment to employees Employee loyalty Abstract level Hypothesis Annual turnover Social security & other benefits Empirical level

11. Research Question • Typical qualitative questions: • How did a certain condition or social situation originate? • How do people, events, and conditions sustain over time? • By what processes does the situation change, develop or end? • Typical quantitative questions: • Associations, relations • “Is age at marriage associated with divorce?”

12. Ways to Select a Research Topic: Personal experience, everyday life and personal values State of knowledge in the field Social premiums; curiosity based on media Solving a problem

13. How to Narrow the Topic into a Research Question: • Examine the literature • Published articles are excellent sources of ideas for research questions. They provide lots of suggestions • Talk over ideas with others • Ask people who are knowledgeable about the topic; seek out others’ opinions • Apply a specific context • Focus on a specific time period, society, catgeory, subgroup or geographic unit • Define the aim or desired outcome of the study • Is it an exploratory, descriptive or explanatory stdudy?

14. Good and Bad Research Questions

15. Quantitative Research: Variables • Variable: Empirical measure of a concept that can take multiple values • Attributes: Categories or levels of a variable For Example: • gender is a variable; male is an attribute • marital status is a variable; married is an attribute

16. Quantitative Research: Variables • Independent Variable: Variable that produces an effect or result on the dependent variable in a causal hypothesis • Dependent Variable: The effect or result variable that is caused by the independent variable • Intervening (Mediating) Variable: Comes logically or temporally after independent variable and before dependent variable; helps to show the link or mechanism between them

17. Quantitative Research: Hypotheses Causal Hypothesis: Statement of a causal explanation or proposition that at least one dependent and one independent variable and yet to be empirically tested Characteristics of causal hypotheses: • At least 2 variables (dependent and independent) • Expresses a cause-effect relationship • Can be expressed as a prediction • Logical link between hypothesis and theory • Falsifiable

18. Quantitative Design: Hypotheses • Logic of Disconforming (“Falsification”): Testing for no relationship provides more cautious support for possible existence of a relationship. Negative, disconforming evidence is more significant. • We never prove a hypothesis; but we can disprove it! • Null Hypothesis: states that there is no significant effect of the independent variable on the dependent. • Alternative Hypothesis: paired with the null hypothesis stating that there is a significant effect

19. Causal Hypotheses • A positive relationship means that a higher value on the cause goes with a higher value on the effect or outcome • Example: As the number of years of a person’s schooling increases, the longer the person’s life expectancy is. • A negative relationship means that a higher value on the cause goes with a lower value on the effect or outcome • Example: As the number of years of a person’s schooling increases, his/her prejudice decreses.

20. Causal Hypotheses Positive relationship: Positive and negative relationship: Positive path relationship: