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Part One
INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS RESEARCH

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McGraw-Hill/Irwin 2003 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.,All Rights Reserved.

Chapter Three
THE RESEARCH PROCESS

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The Management-Research Question Hierarchy 6

Management Decision

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Measurement Questions Investigative Questions

Management Questions Research Questions

Management Dilemma

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Working with the Hierarchy

Management Dilemma The symptom of an actual problem Not difficult to identify a dilemma, however choosing one to focus on may be difficult

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Working with the Hierarchy

Management Question Categories Choice of purposes or objective Generation and evaluation of solutions Troubleshooting or control situation

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Working with the Hierarchy

Fine tune the research question
Examine concepts and constructs Break research questions into specific second-and-third-level questions Verify hypotheses with quality tests Determine what evidence answers the various questions and hypothesis Set the scope of your study

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Working with the Hierarchy

Investigative Questions Questions the researcher must answer to satisfactorily arrive at a conclusion about the research question

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Working with the Hierarchy

Measurement Questions The questions we actually ask or extract from respondents

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Other Processes in the Hierarchy

Exploration Recent developments Predictions by informed figures about the prospects of the technology Identification of those involved in the area Accounts of successful ventures and failures by others in the field
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Research Process Problems

The Favored Technique Syndrome Company Database Strip-Mining Unresearchable Questions Ill-Defined Management Problems Politically Motivated Research

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Designing the Study

Select a research design from the large variety of methods, techniques, procedures, protocols, and sampling plans

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Resource Allocation & Budgets

Guides to plan a budget
Project planning Data gathering Analysis, interpretation, and reporting

Types of budgeting
Rule-of-thumb Departmental or functional area Task
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Evaluation Methods
Ex Post Facto Evaluation Prior Evaluation Option Analysis Decision Theory

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Contents of a Research Proposal

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Statement of the research question Brief description of research methodology Pilot Testing Data collection Data preparation Data analysis and interpretation Research reporting

Data Collection
Characterized by
abstractness verifiability elusiveness closeness to the phenomenon

Types
Secondary data Primary data
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Final Steps in Research

Data analysis Reporting the results Executive summary Overview of the research Implementation strategies for the recommendations Technical appendix

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