Business Research

Enjoy Creating, Developing and Writing Your Business Project

Wilson Ng, Elayne Coakes

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780749468965
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Reuniones y presentaciones

Knowledge of business research is necessary for any business student, as all postgraduate business programmes and business-related disciplines require it. Business Research is a groundbreaking book for student researchers who need to conceive, conduct and complete a new research project for the first time. It concentrates on the business organization and gives invaluable practical advice on going out into the field and conducting interviews, researching problems and learning about organizations. Through its conversational, accessible style and its adoption of a student's perspective, this book will make the process of learning about research enjoyable and the resulting research project outstanding. Business Research is essential reading for students who are studying for one or more modules in research methods for a postgraduate qualification in business and management; students who have a methodological component to one of their modules (eg a module in organizational behaviour); and students who have to conduct an investigation in a business and management field, for a dissertation or project report, and need guidance and assistance on how to approach, conduct and report every aspect of their project.

PART ONE Planning your project

01 The nature of business research

The following two chapters focus on how you may start planning your research. In conceiving and developing your research plan, this chapter presents and explores the first of two key issues that you will need to get a clear understanding of and make a decision on. The issue in this chapter concerns scholarly literature and how you may first select a suitable body of literature and second a suitable theory from your chosen literature to guide you in your research.

Questions you will be able to answer after completing this chapter:

• What is scholarly literature and how will I be able to select and use suitable literature for my project?

• What is the point of a research question (RQ) and how will I be able to develop a single, good RQ that motivates and drives my research?

Key points that you should take away from this chapter are:

• a clear understanding of how to develop a strong, motivating RQ;

• a clear understanding of a number of distinctions between literature on business in the popular press and scholarly literature, and their implications for your research; and

• an ability to select and apply scholarly theory in planning and developing your research project.

What is scholarly literature?

Let us begin your journey of research by helping you conceptualize key aspects of your journey that you should familiarize yourself with and make initial decisions on. Based on these decisions on initial concepts, we will then plan with you a number of concrete steps for your journey. The aim here is to help you prepare, as comprehensively as possible, a plan for your upcoming journey of research before you embark on the operations stage of what researchers call ‘fieldwork’.

In an academic project, the place to begin is with literature. This literature concerns specific knowledge of a discipline that you like and are familiar with in business and management studies. We will discuss disciplines later, but first we want to focus on what you should draw from your chosen literature for your business research. In class and in your textbooks you learn that your business research should start with a business problem. That problem, you are told, is derived from your reading of the academic literature in your discipline, and you need to draw on your research to contribute to that literature. These are the ‘rules’ of research that have been drilled into you. Again, however, you’re puzzled by these rules that seem to draw you away from your core interest in your organization. You ask: why do I need a business problem when all I want is to do a bit of research on my organization? Moreover, why do I need academic literature to tell me about business problems? Can I not learn about business problems by reading The Economist or the Financial Times?

In addressing these questions, let us turn again to our analogy of your holiday. Imagine as a student that you have limited money for a holiday, and yet you want to have a great holiday at the best holiday location. A package holiday is a possible solution – just as in a business project you might pick up a business magazine and choose a packaged or pre-designed project from the internet – see, for example: http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2011/02/ll/evernote-for-students-the-ultimate-research-tool-education-series [accessed 13 August 2013].

However, you know that you won’t learn a great deal about your favourite organization by picking a pre-designed project from the internet shelf – just as you know that you are unlikely to have an adventurous holiday by booking a package holiday on a cruise ship.

The problem is that pre-designed projects were never designed for you to enjoy your business research but merely to produce a business project that satisfies set requirements, for example, those of a business research module.

By contrast, academic research in business studies is produced by researchers who seek to understand business problems by reviewing previous research in and around the focal topic.

The point of this review is to learn what is already known about the problems that you are interested in exploring. You may be surprised to discover previous studies that have already researched your problem! Even where you believe that no prior studies exist on your particular problem, there will almost always be literature based on research in and around your area of interest that may be applied to your problem. Research that generates scholarly knowledge is capable of being generalizable and applicable to addressing business problems beyond the specific context in which the research was originally conducted. This is due principally to academics’ use of theory –or scholarly theory, as academics call it, as the theories are developed from painstaking scholarship – as a basic building block for their research. Academic literature therefore differs fundamentally from business magazines and newspapers in its focus on using and applying theory to guide research and help researchers to make sense of their findings.

In the same way, in your academic business research we want to guide you on the pathway of searching for and using scholarly theory to research and analyse your topic. The academic literature should therefore be the source for you to seek out your business problem. It is from this literature that you can build a project where you can make a contribution from your project findings to your chosen literature. If you imagine that the literature on your topic comprises the repository of knowledge on your topic then we hope you will understand what we mean.

As an alternative way of understanding the important role of academic literature in your project, imagine planning your holiday by first reading literature of previous travellers’ experiences of your destination. Imagine those travellers as researchers. Further, imagine reading literature that explains and predicts the kind of holiday experience you will have based on your choices of budget, accommodation, objectives etc. Explaining the phenomenon or phenomena of your interest – typically their nature and/or processes – and predicting possible outcomes from your research are what scholarly theory is about. In the same way that your travel literature may offer different explanations and predictions for different holiday experiences based on your input choices, you may also have a number of theories to choose from depending on your research interest.

We believe that it is useful for you to think of theory in this way, as a useful resource for explaining phenomena and predicting outcomes, because good theory is intensely practical. At this point let us introduce our analogy of theory as an accurate weather forecast. We like the analogy of theory as a weather forecast for your project. Just as a good weather forecast explains the conditions of a given locality and predicts likely weather patterns based on a mixture of knowledge from research, the experience of forecasters, and software modelling, so theory that has been developed by scholars from the same bases (save for software modelling which in qualitative theories is usually not applicable) should be used by you in your research as a useful tool a) to explain the phenomena behind your RQ and b) to ‘predict’ (or humbly suggest, as a student researcher!) the applicability of your research findings beyond the context(s) of your student project. Examiners will expect to find these a) in the Discussion chapter of your project report and b) in your Conclusion. Please see the respective chapters below on writing up your Discussion and Conclusion of your project report.

The main purpose of scholarly theory is to guide you in your process of research. We will suggest more specifically how theory guides you but first let us say that theory is indispensable in an academic project where you are required to make a contribution. As this contribution is firstly to your chosen literature, theory offers a basis for you to make a contribution in your business project by building on (‘extending’) knowledge of some aspect of your chosen literature. If you successfully extend knowledge then you will have met this key requirement of many business project modules (please check your own university requirements to verify if you are required to make a contribution in your project and, as precisely as possible, what kind of contribution you need to make). Here the role of theory is to lead you through the ‘territory’ of your research that is unfamiliar to you, for example by offering a reference point for you to compare your findings with what is already known as you try to develop a contribution from your research.

What might this unfamiliar territory be?

Again, imagine going on a holiday to a place you’ve never visited before. Prior to your trip what tools would you call on to provide you with knowledge of your destination? Consider that you need enough knowledge not just to plan your trip but to choose between different destinations and activities in a location and to guide you to do precisely what you want to do. Precision is important to you because you have a budget and limited time and you need to know in advance what it will cost and what you will get for your investment.

Theory can fill this role, and the advance knowledge that theory in your chosen literature can offer is not just information.

You want one or more tools to explain key attractions in a location:

• What each of those attractions is.

• Why any of the attractions should interest to you.

• To predict what you have to do (for example, cost, accommodation, transport) to get the enjoyment you will come to expect having understood and chosen the destination you want.

Good theory provides a useful tool to explain a phenomenon of your interest and to predict what you are likely to get from your research –namely, your anticipated outcomes from this research before you embark on your journey. This is true whether your investigation takes the form of your visit to an attraction in a far-away location or whether it concerns your research into a puzzling question about your favourite organization.

At this point may we sound a note of warning based on a typical faux pas by project students: Scholarly knowledge that is generated from your academic research must not be confused with market research.

Market research is generated by professional consultants who are hired by clients and who seek only to satisfy their requirements. The focus of consulting reports is therefore on producing results and recommendations that suit their paying clients. In this scenario market consultants are seldom interested in scholarly theory, there is little contribution to literature, and the findings of previous research are often immaterial to their work.

How do I develop a good research question (RQ)?

If you believe – as we do – that fun and adventure go together, then the better you plan your adventure the more you are likely to enjoy your experience of it. In our scheme of things it doesn’t matter where you decide to go, just as there are no subjects or topics of research that are more or less likely to score high marks. Better planning in your research starts with a clear and do-able RQ: 1) that you can fully answer within the brief few months of your student project; and 2) that captures your interest in your organization and therefore continues to motivate you in your research.

A single, powerful RQ is your first requirement in your business project as it provides a key rationale for your research. Specifically, a good RQ keeps you motivated to see your research through to completion. A good RQ will also captivate your audience of examiners and readers by signalling to them the importance, relevance and possible contribution of your project. It follows therefore that you will have given yourself a great opportunity to score a top mark by developing a good RQ and by then proceeding very clearly to answer your RQ in a full, convincing and imaginative way. (See Table 1.1 for a few examples of RQs from past student projects and Table 1.2 for examples of words and concepts drawn from various areas of business and management studies for you to use to develop a topic for your research.)

Your RQ then becomes the main yardstick by which your project will be judged. You want this to happen as a good RQ should work in your favour. This thinking is no different from the way you would bodytextly plan a memorable and enjoyable holiday adventure by spending a lot of time planning, developing and refining what you want to see and do in the limited time and budget that you have.

TABLE 1.1 Examples of motivating and researchable RQs from past student projects

Marketing When and why are customers disloyal?	How do new businesses develop strong brands? Why do established businesses need strong brands?
Business strategy 1.What is a business model? 2. Why do companies need business models?	How do high-technology start-ups develop business strategy?
Human resource management (‘HRM’) 1. How may talent be managed in a creative business? 2. What is the nature of leadership in a creative business?	1. Why do ambitious professional managers work for family businesses? 2. Is conflict in family businesses (or another type of organization) a bad thing?
Finance 1.What is the relationship between ‘good’ corporate governance and performance? 2. How may owners of small businesses be monitored and controlled?	How efficient are small/big businesses?

TABLE 1.2 Some popular words/concepts in business and management studies (listed alphabetically)

Marketing Branding	Customer value, Value proposition	Demographic segmentation, behavioural segmentation	Relationship marketing	Distribution channels
Business strategy ‘Competitive advantage’ (Porter, 1980)	(Long-term) vision	Innovation management	Resources and capabilities	Success factors
HRM Benchmarking	Employee relations, compensation and rewards	(Workplace) ethics	Human capital management	Performance management
Finance Finance terms, eg equity-debt, credit-debit, assets-liabilities, benefits-costs	Performance (outcomes)	(Financial) incentives	Monitor and control (behaviour, systems)	Residual costs and claims

So, start thinking about your project by first thinking through a single, good RQ that motivates you in your research. Typically, what motivates you will be what you wish to find out about your organization. Initially, this might be as fuzzy as the ‘secrets’ of its success. If so, you will develop this interest as you read the academic literature that you plan to use for your project, and you will frame your interest in terms of the language in your chosen literature. Framing your interest in this way will give you a sou...