Transcript HND Level Two – Business Research Methods

APPROACHES TO
RESEARCH
SESSION AIM

To provide an overview of the differing methods
of research and their uses
SESSION OBJECTIVES
By the end of the session students will be able to:
 Define key research terms and explain their
relevance to business research
 Distinguish between deductive and inductive
approaches
 State their own research position
RESEARCH PHILOSOPHIES
Your approach to your research philosophy, gives
clues as to the way you view the world
 Values have an important impact
 Are you concerned with facts?
 Are you concerned with feelings & opinions?

EPISTEMOLOGY
Are you a ‘resources’ researcher?
 Are you a ‘feelings’ researcher?
Includes:
 Positivism
 Interpretivism
 Realism

POSITIVISM
The philosophical stance of the natural scientist
 Only data that can be observed results in credible
data
 Uses hypotheses
 Concerned with social reality that can be
observed
 The researcher is independent and value free

REALISM
Reality is independent of the mind
 A scientific approach to the development of
knowledge
 Direct Realism – ‘what you see is what you get’
 Critical Realism – A two stage approach

INTERPRETIVISM
Humans are social actors
 The researcher has to adopt an empathetic
stance
 Based upon phenomenology, the way in which we
make sense of the world around us

ONTOLOGY
Concerned with the nature of reality
Includes:
 Objectivism
 Subjectivism

OBJECTIVISM

Portrays the position that social entities exist in
reality external to social actors
SUBJECTIVISM
Social phenomena are created from the
perceptions and consequent actions of social
actors
 A constant state of revision
 Exploration of subjective meanings

RESEARCH APPROACH
Deduction (theory testing)
 A search for relationships between variables

THE FIVE STAGE DEDUCTIVE
APPROACH
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Deduce a hypothesis
Express the hypothesis in operational terms
Test the hypothesis
Examine the outcome of enquiry
If required modify the outcome in light of
findings
INDUCTIVE APPROACH
Concerned with the context within which events
were happening
 Working with qualitative data

MULTI METHOD APPROACH
Also known as ‘triangulation’
 Combines both inductive and deductive methods
of research approaches

RESEARCH STRATEGIES
Experiment
 Survey
 Case study
 Action research

TIME HORIZONS
Cross-sectional research
 Longitudinal research

SO WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO A GOOD
PIECE OF RESEARCH?
Reliability
 Validity

SESSION OBJECTIVES
By the end of the session students will be able to:
 Define key research terms and explain their
relevance to business research
 Distinguish between deductive and inductive
approaches
 State their own research position