Business Research Methods

Meaning of research; Scientific research-features, Types of research-basic research and applied research; The scientific research process; Paradigm shifts-Positivism vs. interpretivism philosophies; Management research- concept, nature, and value in business decision making; applying scientific thinking to management/business problems; Ethical issues in business research.

Concept, purposes and steps in literature survey; Literature search through the internet; Theoretical framework; Research problem; Statement of researchobjectives; Formulation of research hypothesis; Approaches-deduction andinduction.

Concept of research design; Quantitative research designs -descriptive,correlational, causal-comparative, and experimental; Qualitative research - case study, ethnography and grounded theory.

Variables (independent, dependent and moderating) and measurement scale (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio ); Nature of measurement; Scale construction for attitude measurement; Scales commonly used in business research (rank order rating scale, semantic differential scale, like rt scale); Validity and reliability of measurement; Sources of measurement problems; Sampling process; Types of sampling -probability sampling (simple random, systematic, stratified and cluster) and non-probability sampling(convenience, judgmental and quota); Sampling and non- sampling errors; Determination of sample size.

Types of data and their sources-secondary data, advantages and dis advantages of using secondary data; Primary data-sources and methods; Questionnaires- design, components and principles of questionnaire writing; Research interviews- face-to-face and telephone interviews, computer assisted interviewing; Observation-concept and methods; Presenting data in tables, diagrams and graphs, Quantitative data analysis methods - descriptive and inferential statistics; Methods of collecting qualitative data; Qualitative data analysis methods - content analysis, narrative analysis, discourse analysis, grounded theory analysis; Chi-square test for goodness of fit and independence of attributes with examples.

Topic selection; Research proposal – purpose, types and structure; Writing research reports -the reporting process, procedure for writing, and style of writing; Typing and layout of the research report; Citations and references by using APA format; Essentials of a good research report.