Business Research Methods

Meaning of research; Scientific research : features; Types of research: applied and basic; The Scientific research process; Approaches to research: Paradigm shifts – Positivist Versus interpretivist philosophies; Management research : concept, nature and value in business decision making; Applying scientific thinking to management problems; and Ethical concerns in research. Qualitative research: concept, features, assumptions; Common practices in qualitativeresearch; Methods of collecting and analyzing qualitative data; Role of computers indifferent phases of research; Qualitative data analysis: content, thematic and narrative. Methods of qualitative research: case study, ethnography, grounded theory and phenomenological study (A short introduction only); Building trustworthiness and credibilityin qualitative research; and Strength of qualitative research.

Literature searching : concept, purposes and kinds; Writing a literature survey; Literature search through the internet; Relation of literature to research; Theoretical framework; Theoryand research: research approaches – deductive and inductive; Research problem:identification of research problem in business, research questions; and Concept of hypothesis formulation.

Concept; Features; Types: descriptive, developmental, case studies, causal-comparative, experimental, cross-sectional and longitudinal; Basic principles of research design ; and Criteria of a good research design.

Variables and their types; Nature of measurement; Types of scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio scales; Scale construction for attitude measurement; Scales commonly used in business research; Validity and reliability of measurement; Sources of measurement problems; Concept of population, sample and sampling; Concept of sample size; The sampling process; Types of sampling: probability and non-probability sampling; and Sampling and non- sampling errors.

Types of data: primary and secondary; Importance of secondary data in business research ;Primary data: methods of collecting primary data; Questionnaires: design, components and principles of questionnaire writing; Pilot testing and questionnaire administration; The research interviews: face-to- face, telephone interviews and computer assisted interviewing; Observation: concept and methods: participative and non-participative; Data analysis: organizing and preparing data, presenting data in tables, graphs and charts; Pre-conditions and the use of statistical techniques: descriptive (Mean, Median, Mode and Standard Deviation) and inferential statistics: correlation analysis, statistical significance, basic forecasting tools, regression (concept of linear and non-linear); Concept and illustration of t-test : single mean and two means ; Chi-square test : goodness of fit and independence of attributes; and Statistical testing of hypothesis.

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