UPNG School of Business & Public Policy

Strategic Management Strand

3.20801 - Business Research Course

Concepts & Definitions - #1

SEMESTER 2, 2020
 Definitions of key concepts
 Research – is a systematic and methodical process of inquiry and investigation
with a view to increase knowledge and solve practical problems.
 Applied research describes a study that is designed to apply its findings to
solving a specific, existing problem.
 Basic (or pure research) describe a study that is designed to make a
contribution to general knowledge and theoretical understanding rather than to
solve a specific question
 Research question – is the specific question that the research is designed to
investigate and answer.
 Methodological rigour refers to the appropriateness and intellectual soundness
of the research design and the systematic application of the research methods.
 Anonymity provides protection to participants by ensuring that their names are
not identified with the information they give.
 Confidentiality provides protection to participants by ensuring that sensitive
information is not disclosed and the research data cannot be traced to the
individual or organisation providing it.
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 A theory is a set of interrelated variables, definitions and propositions that specifies

relationships among variables.
 A variable is a characteristic of a phenomena that can be observed or measured
 A hypothesis is a proposition that can be tested for association or causality against
empirical evidence.
 A methodology is an approach to the process of the research encompassing a body of
methods
 A method is a technique for collecting and/or analysing data
 Empirical evidence is data based on observation or experience.
 Data are known facts or things used as a basis for inference or reckoning.
 Primary data are data collected from an original source (e.g., your own experiments,
surveys, interviews or focus groups)
 Secondary data are data collected from an existing source (for example publications,
database and internal records).
 The literature is all sources of published data on a particular topic
 Qualitative data are data in a nominal form. Quantitative data are data in a
numerical form.
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 A research paradigm is a framework that guides how research should be conducted
based on people’s philosophies and their assumptions about the world and the
nature of knowledge.
 Philosophy is the use of reason and argument in seeking truth and knowledge, esp.,
of ultimate reality or general causes and principles.
 Phenomenology is the science of phenomena. A phenomena is a fact or occurrence
that appears or is perceived, esp., one of which the cause is in question.
 Positivism is a paradigm that originated in the natural sciences. It rest on the
assumption that social reality is singular and objective, and is not affected by the act
of investigating it. The research involves a deductive process with a view to providing
explanatory theories to understand social phenomena.
 Deductive process – describes a study in which a conceptual and theoretical
structure is developed which is then tested by empirical observation, thus particular
instances are deducted from general inferences.
 Interpretivism is a paradigm that emerged in response to criticisms of positivism. It
rests on the assumptions that social reality is our minds, and is subjective and
multiple. Therefore, social reality is affected by the act o investigating it, the research
involves an inductive process with a view to providing interpretive understanding of
social phenomena within a particular context.
 Inductive process – describes a study in which theory is developed from the
empirical reality; thus general inferences are induced from a particular instance.
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 A population is a precisely defined body of people or objects under

consideration for statistical purposes.
 A sample is a subset of a population. In a positivist study, the sample
is chosen to represent an unbiased subset of the population.
 Reliability refers to the absence of differences in the results if the
research were repeated.
 Validity is the extent to which the research findings accurately reflect
the phenomena under study.
 Generalization is the extent to which the research findings (often
based on a sample) can be extended to other cases (often a
population) or to other settings.