Business Research Process Design

Naval Bajpai
Design
Business Research Methods

Chapter 2
Business Research Process
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Dorling Kindersley
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Learning Objectives
Copyright© Dorling Kindersley India Pvt Ltd

Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to:
 Understand the steps in conducting research

 Understand the types of research
 Learn the purposes and methods of conducting
exploratory research
 Learn about descriptive research and the types of
descriptive research
 Have a preliminary idea about causal research
 Establish a difference between exploratory
research, descriptive research, and causal
research

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Introduction

 Research is all about finding something, the
absence of which may distort our ability to take
informed decisions (Nwokah et al., 2009).
 The ability to take an informed decision is
generated through a systematic study that is
conducted through various interrelated stages.
 All the steps in a research are interrelated and
no independent activity is launched without
considering the decisions on the previous stages.
 One has to really understand that, from problem
identification to presentation of findings, every
step is interlinked and interrelated.

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BUSINESS RESEARCH PROCESS DESIGN

 A research design is the detailed blueprint used to guide a
research study towards its objective.
 A good research is conducted using 10 steps:
1. Problem or opportunity identification
2. Decision maker and business researcher meeting to
discuss the problem and opportunity dimensions
3. Defining the management problem and subsequently the
research problem
4. Formal research proposal and introducing the dimensions
of the problem
5. approaches to research
6. Field work and data collection
7. Data preparation and data entry
8. Performing data analysis
9. Interpretation of result and presentation of findings
10. Management decision and its implementation.

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FIGURE 2.1: Business research process

design

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Step 1: Problem or Opportunity Identification

 The process of business research starts with the
problem or opportunity identification.
 Actually, the management of the company identifies
the problem or opportunity in the organization or in
the environment. The management can identify the
symptoms or the effects of the problem, but to
understand the reasons of the problems, a
systematic research has to be adopted.
 This required research should either be executed by a
business research firm or a business researcher.

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Step 2: Decision Maker and Business Researcher
Meeting to Discuss the Problem or Opportunity

Dimensions
 The decision maker contacts the

business research firm and then
discusses the problem or opportunity
with the business researcher.
 The researcher can only suggest
solution to a problem, but the actual
decision is taken by the decision
maker.

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Step 3: Defining the Management Problem and

Subsequently the Research Problem
 The management problem is concerned with the

decision maker and is action oriented in nature.
For example, the management problem offers a
psychological pricing to enhance the quantum of
sales. This management problem focuses on the
symptoms.
 Research problem is somewhat information
oriented and focuses mainly on the causes and not
on the symptoms. This is to determine the
consumer’s opinion on psychological pricing and to
estimate their purchase behaviour for the
psychological price being offered.

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Step 4: Formal Research Proposal and
Introducing the Dimensions to the Problem

 Now, the researcher prepares a formal proposal
of the research and develops the approaches to
the research problem. The first part is to develop
a theoretical model to quantify an attitude.
 For example, to estimate the “buying intentions”
for a particular product, first, the researcher has
to prepare a theoretical model to measure an
attitude like buying intentions.

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FIGURE 2.2 : Theoretical model to measure
the buying intention

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Framing Hypotheses

 Hypothesis 1: “Brand image” has a significant liner
impact on the buying intention.
 Hypothesis 2: “Brand awareness” has a significant
liner impact on the buying intention.
 Hypothesis 3: “Price” has a significant liner impact
on the buying intention.
 Hypothesis 4: “Availability” has a significant liner
 Hypothesis 5: “After-sales services” has a
significant liner impact on the buying intention.

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 The researcher can also test the combined
impact of these five variables on the buying
intention. The proposed multiple regression
model will be
Hypothesis 6: All the five factors in combination have a significant linear


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Step 5: Approaches to Research

 The research approach is formulated is the next
step.
 In the light of the “type of data,” questions are
framed and scientifically placed in the
questionnaire.
 This chapter is based on the research design
formulation, Chapter 3 deals with measurement
and scaling, Chapter 4 with the aspects of the
questionnaire design in detail, and as a next
step, a sample size is determined and a
sampling technique is selected in Chapter 5.

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Types of Research

 All researches can be broadly classified
into three groups: exploratory
research, descriptive research, and
causal research.
 These three methods differ in terms of
different aspects of conducting the
research.

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FIGURE 2.3: Classification of different

types of research

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Exploratory Research

 As the name indicates, exploratory research is
mainly used to explore the insight of the general
research problem. This is used for the following
purposes:
A. Obtaining Background Information
B. Research Problem Formulation or Defining it
More Precisely
C. Identifying and Defining the Key Research
Variables
D. Developing Hypotheses

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FIGURE 2.4: The refined theoretical model to measure
the buying intentions (obtaining inputs from

exploratory research)

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Methods of Conducting Exploratory Research

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Secondary Data Analysis

 The secondary data are not only used
for problem understanding and
exploration but are also used to
develop an understanding about the
research findings.
 Chapter 6 exclusively deals with this
topic.

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Expert Survey

 To get the authentic information about
the problem, the researchers
sometimes consult the experts of the
concerned field. These experts provide
authentic and relevant information
useful for the research, which
otherwise is difficult to obtain.

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Focus Group Interviews

 The focus group interview is a
qualitative research technique in which
a trained moderator leads a small
group of participants to an
unstructured discussion about the topic
of interest.

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Depth Interviews

 A depth interview is a probing between
a highly skilled interviewer and a
respondent from the target population
to unfold the underlying opinions,
motivations, emotions, or feelings of
an individual respondent on a topic
generally coined by the researcher.

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Case Analysis

 A case study research method actually
combines the record analysis and
observations from individual and group
interviews. The case studies become
particularly useful when one needs to
understand some particular problem or
situation in great depth and when one
can identify the cases rich in
information.

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Projective Techniques

 Projective technique is achieved by presenting
the respondents with ambiguous verbal or visual
stimulus materials, such as bubble cartoons,
which they need to make sense of by drawing
from their own experiences, thoughts, feelings,
and imagination before they can offer a
response.
 In the field of business research, the projective
techniques are broadly classified as word
association, completion task, construction task,
and expressive task.

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Classification of Projective Techniques

 Word Association: Word association provides a
technique that facilitates the study and shading of
attitudes, which cannot be ordinarily uncovered through
standard interview methods.
In the word association technique, the respondents are
required to respond to the presentation of an object by
indicating the first word, image, or thought that comes in
his or her mind as a response to that object.
 Completion Task : In a completion task, the
respondent is presented with an incomplete
sentence, story, argument, or conversation and asked to
complete it. In the field of business research, the two
widely used completion task techniques are sentence-
completion task and story-completion task.

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Classification of Projective Techniques

 Construction Task : Construction task is related to the
completion task technique with a little difference. In the
construction task technique, the respondent is
provided with less initial structure as compared with the
completion task where the respondent is provided with an
initial structure, and then, he or she completes the task.
 In the field of business research, third-person questioning
and bubble drawing (cartoon testing) are two commonly used
construction techniques.
 Expressive Task: In expressive task technique, the
respondents are asked to role-play, act, or paint a
specific (mostly desired by the researcher) concept or
situation. In the roleplaying technique, the participant is
required to act someone else’s behaviour in a particular
setting.

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Descriptive Research

 As evident from the name, descriptive research
is conducted to describe the business or market
characteristics.
 The descriptive research mainly answers who,
what, when, where, and how kind of questions.
 It attempts to address who should be surveyed,
what, at what time (pre- and post-type of
study), from where (household, shopping mall,
market, and so on), and how this information
should be obtained (method of data collection).
 It can be further classified into cross-sectional
study and longitudinal study.

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Cross-Sectional Study

 Cross sectional research design involves the
collection of information from a sample of a
population at only one point of time.
 In this study, various segments of the population are
sampled so that the relationship among the variables
may be investigated by cross tabulation (Zikmund,
2007).
 Sample surveys are cross-sectional studies in which
the samples happen to be a representative of the
population.
 The cross-sectional study generally involves large
samples from the population; hence, they are
sometimes referred as “sample surveys.”

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Longitudinal study

 Longitudinal study involves survey of the same
population over a period of time.
 There is a well-defined difference between a
cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study.
 In a longitudinal study, the sample remains the
same over a period of time. In a cross-sectional
design, a representative sample taken from the
population is studied at only one point of time.

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Causal research

 Causal research is conducted to identify the
cause-and-effect relationship between two or
more business (or decision) variables. Many
business decisions are based on the causal
relationship between the variables of interest.
 As discussed, the descriptive research is able to
answer who, what, when, where, and how kind
of questions but not the “why” part of the
question. The causal research is designed to
address the why part of the question.

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TABLE 2.2 : A relative comparison of exploratory

research, descriptive research, and conclusive research

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Step 6: Field Work and Data Collection

 Chapter 6 is exclusively based on secondary data
sources. The researcher has to also decide
whether he or she has to go for a survey or has
to adopt the observation methods and decide
whether the research will be based on the field
data collection or it will be a laboratory
experiment.
 Chapter 7 is based on survey and observation
techniques, Chapter 8 introduces the various
dimensions of experimentation, and Chapter 9
focuses on field work and data preparation
process.

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Step 7: Data Preparation and Data

Entry
 After field work, the collected data are
in raw format.
 Before performing data analysis, it is
important for a researcher to structure
the data.
 There is a specific scientific procedure
to deal with the missing data and other
problems related to the data-collection
process. Chapter 9 details all these
aspects of data preparation.
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Step 8: Data Analysis

 After feeding the data in the
spreadsheet, data analysis is
launched. Chapters 10 to 18 present
various sophisticated statistical
analytical techniques to execute the
data analysis exercise. These include
univariate statistical analysis, bivariate
statistical analysis, and multivariate
statistical analysis.

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Step 9: Interpretation of Result and

Presentation of Findings
 It has been already discussed that after applying
data analysis techniques, a statistical result is
obtained.
 There is need to interpret the result and
present the non-statistical findings derived
from the statistical result. A meaningful
interpretation of the result is a skilful activity
and is an important aspect of research.
 The researcher has to determine whether the
result of the study is in line with the existing
literature.

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Step 10: Management Decision and Its

Implementation
 As the last step of conducting a research
programme, the findings are conveyed to the
decision maker after consultation with the
research programmer.
 The decision maker analyses the findings and
takes an appropriate decision in the light of the
statistical findings presented by the researcher.
 This is not a formal part of the research process.
Here, it is included as a step of the research
process, because it is the decision maker who
will ultimately take the decision and is the
managerial implication of the research
programme.
Naval Bajpai

Business Research Process Design

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Naval Bajpai

Business Research Methods