Understanding Business Research

Bart L. Weathington, Christopher J. L. Cunningham, David J. Pittenger

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118342961
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Finance
• Index: Business

Explore the essential steps for data collection, reporting, and analysis in business research

Understanding Business Research offers a comprehensive introduction to the entire process of designing, conducting, interpreting, and reporting findings in the business environment. With an emphasis on the human factor, the book presents a complete set of tools for tackling complex behavioral and social processes that are a part of data collection in industry settings.

Utilizing numerous real-world examples throughout, the authors begin by presenting an overview of the research process, outlining key ideas relating to the business environment, ethics, and empirical methods. Quantitative techniques and considerations that are specific to business research, including sampling and the use of assessments, surveys, and objective measures are also introduced. Subsequent chapters outline both common and specialized research designs for business data, including:

• Correlational Research
• Single Variable Between-Subjects Research
• Correlated Groups Designs
• Qualitative and Mixed-Method Research
• Between-Subjects Designs
• Between-Subjects Factorial Designs
• Research with Categorical Data

Each chapter is organized using an accessible, comprehensive pedagogy that ensures a fluid presentation. Case studies showcase the real-world applications of the discussed topics while critical thinking exercises and Knowledge Checks supply questions that allow readers to test their comprehension of the presented material. Numerous graphics illustrate the visual nature of the research, and chapter-end glossaries outline definitions of key terms. In addition, detailed appendices provide a review of basic concepts and the most commonly used statistical tables.

Requiring only a basic understanding of statistics, Understanding Business Research is an excellent book for courses on business statistics as well as business and management science research methods at the graduate level. The book is also a valuable resource for practitioners in business, finance, and management science who utilize qualitative and quantitative research methods in their everyday work.

Part I

OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS

Chapter 1: Research and Business

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

—Albert Einstein

Introduction

Good business depends on good research and on those who know how to interpret empirical evidence. Understanding something as complex as social interaction or human behavior, especially in an organizational context, is not easy. Without an empirical, scientific approach to the development of a body of knowledge, our understanding of people in the workplace will be incomplete and rife with error. Having a solid understanding and appreciation of research methods will help you to make quality, informed decisions. The goal of this chapter is to prepare you to be both a producer and consumer of scientific knowledge about human behavior in the workplace.

Why Is Understanding Research Methods so Important?

Although there are differences across specialty fields, there are three core types of information that anyone seeking to understand human behavior must know. First is the knowledge of basic statistics. Second is knowing how to develop and evaluate measures of human thought and behavior. Third is knowing how to conduct and interpret high quality research, the purpose of this book.

This book helps you learn how to conduct and understand business research that is focused on social and behavioral questions. Throughout the chapters of this book we will also remind you of how statistics can help you answer specific questions. We will cover how to develop and evaluate tests, surveys, and other measures of behavior. If you feel you need a refresher in basic statistics, a review is included in Appendix A.

Why are these three core topics so important? Think about it—researching, analyzing, and reporting are the skills from your education that will help you find a job, keep a job, and make a contribution to both society and, more specifically, your workplace. You can think big thoughts and theorize all day long, but without these three skills, these great ideas will never translate to credible and applicable action. We do not want your good ideas to be restricted by the boundaries of your mind. This is why we all sincerely hope that you are not dreading learning about research methodology or fearing something nonspecific about science or research. There is nothing scary here; just a systematic approach to learning, understanding, and questioning that will benefit you, no matter what you decide to do across the course of your career.

There are many ways to study human behaviors and thought, but all of these methods, if done right, use the scientific method in some way, shape, or form. Statistical description and analysis techniques provide structure to these methods, and good test development and utilization provide the conduit through which good research is conducted. In other words, to become a proficient consumer or producer of knowledge you must learn to work with the tools of the trade: the scientific method, statistics, and tests and assessments.

The Role of Science in Business and Everyday Life

Thought Starters

• What are some examples of science in your life?
• Have you “researched” anything today?
• What are some big decisions or questions you are currently considering?

H. G. Wells, the nineteenth-century author, predicted that “statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for effective citizenship as the ability to read and write” (as cited by Campbell, 1974). We strongly believe that this prediction has come true. Although you may not plan to become a researcher, working in any field of business (and in many areas of life in general) will force you to confront issues that can be addressed only with the aid of scientific research. Consider the following example issues:

• What effect does offering on-site child care have on employee attendance and attitudes toward their employer?
• What are the best ways to prevent employee theft?
• Are employer-sponsored treatment programs for drug and alcohol abuse effective?
• Will a specific test accurately predict how well a person will do on a job?
• What is the best way to present new information to a large group of people?

These are clear and direct questions that anyone could ask. Will you recommend that your company invest in an employee on-site day care? If you do, how will you evaluate its value? Will this promote trust in the employer and feelings of safety? As an employer, what should you do to discourage your employees from using illegal drugs? If you have a management position, should you use personality tests to predict who will be a good employee? These are the types of questions you will face when you start to apply your methodological training to the real world. Knowledge of the scientific method can be invaluable where the rubber meets the road.

Take, for example, the classic legal case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993). In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that judges, not jury members, must determine the merits and scientific validity of testimony given by expert witnesses. In response to the court's decision, the Federal Judicial Center (1994) developed the book “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence” to help judges and lawyers understand the principles of research methods and statistics. As the authors of the book noted, “no longer can judges … rely on their common sense and experience in evaluating the testimony of many experts… The challenge the justice system faces is to adapt its process to enable the participants to deal with this kind of evidence fairly and efficiently and to render informed decisions” (p. 1). As H. G. Wells predicted, the knowledge of the scientific method is now a vital part of our government and judicial system and therefore our everyday lives.

You are not alone if you fear statistics and research methods. Many people seem to detest anything related to mathematics and statistics because they do not understand the relevance or importance of these topics to their own lives. We hope that by the time you finish this chapter, you will know that the relevance has been there all the time—understanding how to do good research and work with statistics will be skills you can use for the rest of your life.

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is really the most critical concept in this course for you to remember and understand. Knowing each of the steps in this process and how they are managed will allow you to conduct the highest quality research possible. Sometimes the most difficult challenge for students in courses such as these is figuring out how to remember the core elements of a topic so that they can then (hopefully) attach some meaning to these elements and retain this knowledge in their long-term memory. Perhaps, the easiest way to remember the scientific method from start to finish is to learn the mnemonic HOMER (Lakin et al., 2007)

1. Hypothesize

2. Operationalize

3. Measure

4. Evaluate

5. Replicate, revise, report.

These are the core steps to the scientific method, and they should sound vaguely familiar from middle school and high school science and various introductory science courses you may have taken. The rest of this chapter focuses on ensuring that you finish with a working knowledge of all five components.

Brief History of the Science of Behavior in the Workplace

Science is a way of thinking about and explaining the world around us. The scientific method consists of the process used for collecting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data. Research methods and statistics are complementary techniques that we use to acquire information and reach reasonable conclusions. When we speak of research methods, we refer to procedures for collecting information. When we speak of statistics, we refer to procedures for organizing, summarizing, and making inferences from the data.

Before we get into the real meat of this course, a little history lesson is necessary. It will be relatively painless, we promise. To understand where you are and where you are going, we think it would be helpful to first tell you where the study of human behavior, in business and other aspects of life, has been and how it has developed. This discussion will entail a consideration of both the history of business and of the social sciences.

Even though businesses, as we think of them at present, have only been around for a few hundred years, people throughout history have had to develop methods and procedures for producing needed goods and transferring them to others. This has necessitated the development of writing, mathematics, and money (as a way of measuring stored wealth). In addition, fields such as those we now call management and marketing arose to deal with the necessities of commerce and the employer–employee relationship.

As formalized fields of study, both management and the social sciences are technically young. However, they both have a long history. We know that workplace testing was utilized in ancient China (around 2200 bc) when the Chinese emperor ordered that government officials be evaluated every 3 years to examine their fitness for holding office (Teng, 1942–1943). In addition, governments and empires throughout history (e.g., the Roman Empire, Mayans, etc.) have developed well-defined societal and organizational structures. The serious and formal study of people in the workplace did not begin until relatively recently when individuals such as English mathematician Charles Babbage (1792–1871) began to study ways to improve efficiency and productivity (Babbage, 1832/2010).

Of course, the attempt to understand human beings and their behavior has long been a topic of interest. Ancient Greek philosophers wrote extensively about many familiar topics, including learning, language, memory, and dreams. Although many writers and great thinkers wrote about how they thought the mind works, none conducted anything that we would call an experiment. The problem is that the mental events are difficult to observe and measure. Consequently, many philosophers believed that we could not observe or measure mental events in the same way in which we observe or measure physical objects.

This perception exists even today and has resulted in the social sciences, including management and marketing along with more traditional social science topics such as psychology and sociology, being labeled as the “soft” sciences, a term that suggests that other sciences such as chemistry and physics (the so-called “hard” sciences) are more accurate or empirically valid. Interestingly, essentially identical methods are used across all of these scientific fields (Hedges, 1987). It is the subject matter that sets the sciences apart. Properly designed and implemented research in the social sciences can be as valid and replicable as any other research. Historically, though, before this research could be conducted, a profound shift in studying human social interaction and behavior had to occur.

Although Greek philosophers had a profound effect on the generations of scholars who followed them, it was not until the questioning of these ancient authorities that the scientific revolution occurred. During this revolution, seventeenth-century scientists decided that there was more to learn about nature than the ancient philosophers had described in their writings. One of the more articulate spokespersons for the new scientific revolution was Sir Francis Bacon. Much of the scientific method, as we know it today, evolved to overcome and protect us from several basic human biases or “idols” that Bacon (1620/1994) outlined in his seminal book on this topic.

Interestingly, Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was not a scientist, but rather a British politician. He was interested, however, in the developments of empirical science and became one of its strongest proponents. In 1620, he published a book on the scientific method titled Novum Organum (“the new instrument”). Bacon saw the scientific method as a better path to good answers. Similar to many of his contemporaries, Bacon distrusted the wholesale belief in everything that the ancient philosophers had to say. He (Bacon, 1620/1994) wrote, “For the ancients … out of a few examples and particulars, with the addition of common notions and perhaps some portion of the most popular received opinions, they flew to the most general conclusions or principles of the sciences … through intermediate propositions, they extracted and proved inferior conclusions” (p. ...