SBM

Module I

Supplementary Notes
Please note, these notes are not
comprehensive, these must be coupled
with the class notes.
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BMRA : BRITISH MARKET RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

 Relevance and Significance of Research in business

Y
• Empower people to create a better world

PH
SO
• Uncovering and going beyond surface illusions

ILO
• Uncover myths and hidden meanings

PH
• Guides the communication within and outside (current and potential customers)
the walls of the organisation
• Helps you identify opportunities in the marketplace

AL
• Minimizes the risk of doing business

TIC
AC
• Uncovers and identifies potential problems

PR
• Creates benchmarks and helps track progress
• Helps evaluate success

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 Types of Research
Basic or Fundamental Research
(Theoretical or Pure Research)
• Aims at expanding frontiers of
knowledge, with NO necessary
application to existing problems.
• Does NOT always involve pragmatic
(realistic, practical) problems
• Answers more fundamental
questions
• Usually does NOT answer queries
dealing with immediate commercial
potential
E.g., what people would look like in
future.
Applied or Decisional Research
• Proceeds with a specific problem
• Specifies alternative solutions and their
outcomes
• Prompted by commercial
considerations
E.g., 1) A certain home appliance
manufacturer wants to predict what
consumers’ life-style would be five years
hence, thus starting the planning and
development cycle of the new products.
2) A Financial company is interested
in identifying the profile of potential
investors
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Quantitative Research Qualitative Research
• Assess market share • “Motivational Research”(in-depth
• Predict sales interviews) finds as to WHY people do,
think and behave in certain ways.
• Allocation of budget
• Sentence completion tests,
• Census comprehension tests, other projective
techniques.
• Planning policies
• How different situations influence the
thoughts, behaviour and actions of people

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Conceptual Research
• Related to abstract ideas or
theories
• Generally used by
philosophers, thinkers and
pioneers of knowledge
• Used to develop new ideas
and concepts or to re-interpret
existing ones
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Empirical Research
• Relies on experience or observation
alone, often without due regard to
theory or system
• Comes up with conclusions which
are capable of being verified by
observation or experiment only
• 1) The researcher first and foremost
MUST provide himself with a working
hypothesis
2) He then works to get enough and
appropriate information to prove or
disprove this hypothesis, using
research tools and techniques
Exploratory research
• when there are few or no earlier studies to which references can be made for
information
• aim is to look for patterns, ideas or hypotheses rather than testing or confirming a
hypothesis
• the focus is on gaining insights and familiarity with the subject area for more rigorous
investigation later.

Descriptive Research

• description of state of affairs as it exists

• researcher has NO control over the variables
• reports what has happened or what is happening

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• used to identify and obtain information on the characteristics of a particular issue
• data collected are often quantitative, and statistical techniques are usually used to
summarise the information

• answer questions as:

1. What is the absentee rate amongst a particular group of workers?
2. What are the feelings of workers faced with redundancy?
3. Frequency of shopping
4. Preference studies

Descriptive research goes further than exploratory research in examining a problem since it
is undertaken to ascertain and describe the characteristics of the issue.

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Causal Research

• objective is to determine which variable might be causing certain behaviour  whether

there is a cause and effect relationship between variables
• very complex
• researcher can never be completely certain that there are not other factors influencing
the causal relationship - especially when dealing with people’s attitudes and motivations.

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 Situations in which Research might not be needed

•The problem is too diverse to set up a formal plan for solving it.
• The problem itself is a mammoth compilation of enumerable micro problems - in
such situations it is sometimes recommended that the micro problems be solved at
their own levels – a formal structured plan may not be required.
• Relevant and pertinent information about the problem is already available.
• A similar research has been conducted and the results tried and tested.
• The time required for arriving at a solution may be grossly insufficient.
• The resources needed for information is inadequate.
• The cost of information exceeds the value of information.

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