Business Research Methods Adopted From Fourth Edition Uma Sekaran

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Business Research MethodsAdopted From Fourth
Edition Uma Sekaran

• Instructor Ahmad Sohail Lodhi
• MBE, LLB

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Chapter 2

• SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

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After completing this chapter you would be able
to understand

• The Hallmarks of Scientific Research
• Some obstacles to conducting scientific research
  in the management area
• The building blocks of science in research
• The hypothetico deductive method
• Other types of research

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Definition of Scientific Research

• Scientific Research focusing on solving problems
  and pursues a step by step logical, organized and
  rigorous method to identify the problems, gather
  data, analyze them and draw valid conclusions
  there from.

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Why Scientific Research?

• This research is not based on hunches, experience
  and intuition.
• It is purposive and rigorous.
• Enables all those who are interested in
  researching and knowing about the same or similar
  issues to come up with comparable findings when
  data are analyzed.
• Findings are accurate and confident.
• Apply solutions to similar problems.
• It is more objective.

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Cont.

• Highlights the most critical factors at the work
  place that need specific attention to solve or
  minimize problems.
• Scientific Investigation and Managerial Decision
  Making are integral part of effective problem
  solving.
• It can be applied to both basic and applied
  research.

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The Hallmarks of Scientific Research
The hallmarks or main distinguishing
characteristics of scientific research may be
listed as follows

• Purposiveness
• Rigor
• Testability
• Replicability
• Precision and Confidence
• Objectivity
• Generalizability
• Parsimony

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Hallmarks of Scientific Research

• Purposiveness
• It has to start with a definite aim or purpose.
• The focus is on increasing employee commitment.
• Increase employee commitment will translate into
  less turnover, less absenteeism and increased
  performance levels.
• Thus it has a purposive focus.

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2. Rigor

• A good theoretical base and sound methodological
  design would add rigor to the purposive study.
• Rigor adds carefulness, scrupulousness and the
  degree of exactitude in research.
• Example
• A manager asks 10-12 employees how to
  increase the level of commitment. If solely on
  the basis of their responses the manager reaches
  several conclusions on how employee commitment
  can be increases, the whole approach to the
  investigation would be unscientific. It would
  lack rigor for the following reasons

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• Based on few employees
• Bias and incorrectness
• There might be other influences on commitment
  which are ignored and are important for a
  researcher to know
• Thus, Rigorous involves good theoretical base and
  thought out methodology.
• These factors enable the researcher to collect
  the right kind of information from an appropriate
  sample with the minimum degree of bias and
  facilitate suitable analysis of the data
  gathered.
• This supports the other six too.

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3. Testability
After random selection manager and researcher
develops certain hypothesis on how manager
employee commitment can be enhanced, then these
can be tested by applying certain statistical
tests to the data collected for the purpose.

• The researcher might hypothesize that those
  employees who perceive greater opportunities for
  participation in decision making would have a
  higher level of commitment.

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4. Replicability

• It means that it can be used again if similar
  circumstances prevails.
• Example
• The study concludes that participation in
  decision making is one of the most important
  factors that influences the commitment, we will
  place more faith and credence in these finding
  and apply in similar situations. To the extent
  that this does happen, we will gain confidence in
  the scientific nature of our research.

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5. Precision and Confidence

• Precision
• Precision refers to the closeness of the findings
  to reality based on a sample.
• It reflects the degree of accuracy and exactitude
  of the results of the sample.
• Example If a supervisor estimated the number of
  production days lost during the year due to
  absenteeism at between 30 and 40, as against the
  actual of 35, the precision of my estimation more
  favorably than if he has indicated that the loss
  of production days was somewhere between 20 and
  50.

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Confidence

• Confidence refers to the probability that our
  estimations are correct.
• That is, it is not merely enough to be precise,
  but it is also important that we can confidently
  claim that 95 of the time our results would be
  true and there is only a 5 chance of our being
  wrong.
• This is also known as confidence level.

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6. Objectivity

• The conclusions drawn through the interpretation
  of the results of data analysis should be
  objective that is, they should be based on the
  facts of the findings derived from actual data,
  and not on our subjective or emotional values.
• Example If we had a hypothesis that stated that
  greater participation in decision making will
  increase organizational commitment and this was
  not supported by the results, it makes no sense
  if the researcher continues to argue that
  increased opportunities for employee
  participation would still help!

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7. Generalizability

• It refers to the scope of applicability of the
  research findings in one organization setting to
  other settings.
• Example If a researchers findings that
  participation in decision making enhances
  organizational commitment are found to be true in
  a variety of manufacturing, industrial and
  service organizations, and not merely in the
  particular organization studied by the
  researcher, then the generalizability of the
  findings to other organizational settings in
  enhanced. The more generalizable the research,
  the greater its usefulness and value.

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8. Parsimony

• Simplicity in explaining the phenomenon or
  problems that occur, and in generating solutions
  for the problems, is always preferred to complex
  research frameworks that consider an unmanageable
  number of factors.
• For instance, if 2-3 specific variables in the
  work situation are identified, which when changed
  would raise the organizational commitment of the
  employees by 45, that would be more useful be
  more useful and valuable to the manager than if
  it were recommended that he should change 10
  different variables to increase organizational
  commitment by 48.

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The Building Blocks of Science in Research

• Deduction and Inductions
• Answers to issues can be found either by the
  process of induction or the process of induction,
  or by a combination of the two.

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Deduction

• Deduction is the process by which we arrive at a
  reasoned conclusion by logical generalization of
  a known fact.

Example we know that all high performers are
highly proficient in their jobs. If John is a
high performer, we then conclude that he is
highly proficient in his job
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Induction

• Induction is a process where we observe certain
  phenomena and on this basis arrive at conclusions.

In other words, in induction we logically
establish a general proposition based on observed
facts.
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• To define or describe the figure.
• Figure is a five-sided figure enclosing two dots.

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The Hypothetico-Deductive Method

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The Hypothetico-Deductive Method

• The seven-step process in the Hypothetico-Deducti
  ve Method
• Observation
• Preliminary Information gathering
• Theory Formulation
• Hypothesizing
• Further scientific data collection
• Data analysis
• Deduction

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Observation

• Observation is the first stage, in which one
  senses that certain changes are occurring or that
  some new behaviors, attitudes and feelings are
  surfacing in ones environment (i.e., the work
  place).
• How does one observe phenomena and changes in the
  environment?

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Preliminary Information Gathering

• It involves the seeking of information in depth,
  of what is observed.
• This could be done by talking informally to
  several people in the work setting or to clients
  or to other relevant sources, thereby gathering
  information on what is happening and why.
  (Unstructured interviews)
• Then it is followed by structured interviews.
• Additionally by doing library research or
  obtaining information through other sources, the
  investigator would identify how such issues have
  been tackled in other situations.

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Theory Formulation

• It is an attempt to integrate all the information
  in a logical manners, so that the factors
  responsible for the problem can be on
  conceptualized and tested.
• The theoretical framework formulated is often
  guided by experience and intuition.
• In this step the critical variables are
  identified and examined as to their contribution
  or influence in explaining why the problem occurs
  and how it can be solved.

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Hypothesizing

• It is the next logical step after theory
  formulation.
• From the theorized network of associations among
  the variables, certain testable hypotheses or
  educated conjectures can be generated.
• Hypothesis testing is called deductive research.
  Sometimes, hypotheses that were not originally
  formulated do get generated through the process
  of induction.

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Further Specific Data Collection

• After the development of the hypotheses, data
  with respect to each variable in the hypotheses
  need to be obtained.
• Further data are collected to test the hypotheses
  that are generated in the study.

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Data Analysis

• Data gathered are statistically analyzed to see
  if the hypotheses that were generated have been
  supported.
• Co relational method will be used to analyze and
  determine the relation ship of two or more
  factors in the hypotheses for example stock
  availability and customer satisfaction.

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Deduction

• Deduction is the process of arriving at
  conclusions by interpreting the meaning of
  results of the data analysis.

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Other Types of Research

• Case studies and action research are sometimes
  used to study certain types of issues.
• Case Studies
• Action Research

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Case Studies

• Case studies involve in depth, contextual
  analyses of similar situations in the other
  organizations, where the nature and definition of
  the problem happen to be the same as experienced
  in the current situation.
• Case study, as a problem solving technique, is
  not often undertaken in organizations because
  such studies dealing with problems similar to the
  one experienced by a particular organization of a
  particular size and in a particular type of
  setting are difficult to come by.

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Action Research

• The researcher begins with a problem that is
  already identified and gathers relevant data to
  provide a tentative problem solution.
• This solution is then implemented, with the
  knowledge that there may be unintended
  consequences following such implementation.
• The effects are then evaluated, defined and
  diagnosed and the research continues on an
  ongoing basis until the problem is fully resolved.