Contents
Introduction. Marketing Research. Problem Definition and Research Objectives
Tutorials
Readings
How to write a Research Proposal
Most students and beginning researchers do not fully understand what a research proposal means, nor do they understand its importance. To put it bluntly, one's research is only as a good as one's proposal. An ill-conceived proposal dooms the project even if it somehow gets through the Thesis Supervisory Committee. A high quality proposal, on the other hand, not only promises success for the project, but also impresses your Thesis Committee about your potential as a researcher.
A research proposal is intended to convince others that you have a worthwhile research project and that you have the competence and the work-plan to complete it. Generally, a research proposal should contain all the key elements involved in the research process and include sufficient information for the readers to evaluate the proposed study.
Regardless of your research area and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions: What you plan to accomplish, why you want to do it and how you are going to do it.
The proposal should have sufficient information to convince your readers that you have an important research idea, that you have a good grasp of the relevant literature and the major issues, and that your methodology is sound.
The quality of your research proposal depends not only on the quality of your proposed project, but also on the quality of your proposal writing. A good research project may run the risk of rejection simply because the proposal is poorly written. Therefore, it pays if your writing is coherent, clear and compelling.
This paper focuses on proposal writing rather than on the development of research ideas.
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Business Research Process
Tutorials
| Business Research Process |  |
Readings
Business Research (BuR) is a semi-annual, academic journal in English that is published by the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) and supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The major focus of the journal is the publishing of high quality empirical, theoretical, and methodological articles dealing with important scientific topics in the five major fields of business research, i.e., accounting, finance, management, marketing and operations & information systems. Editor-in-chief is Soenke Albers, Christian-Albrechts-University at Kiel. To assure that only high quality papers are published, all research articles are subject to peer review before they appear in the journal. While the actual members of the board of editors are of German or Austrian nationality, the editorial review board represents 15 countries. The goal of the editors is to provide timely feedback within 70 days after submission. For the first three issues, the average review time was 46 days with an acceptance rate of 20%. BuR is an open access journal. Articles published in this electronic journal are made available to the public for free. In addition, articles published by BuR are listed in, and hence can be found and accessed by, databases like EBSCO, SSRN and others. A specific feature of BuR is the opportunity to publish online appendices (e.g., datasets, simulations etc.) along with the article itself. For this purpose, the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) cooperates with the City- and University Library Cologne and the Library Service Center for North Rhine-Westphalia (hbz) in technical and editorial issues. External links |
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Secondary Data Collection. Errors in Data Collection
Tutorials
| Secondary Data | |
| Errors in Data Collection | |
Readings
Secondary data is data collected by someone other than the user. Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses, surveys, organizational records and data collected through qualitative methodologies or qualitative research. Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research.
Secondary data analysis saves time that would otherwise be spent collecting data and, particularly in the case of quantitative data, provides larger and higher-quality databases than would be unfeasible for any individual researcher to collect on their own. In addition to that, analysts of social and economic change consider secondary data essential, since it is impossible to conduct a new survey that can adequately capture past change and/or developments.
- Sources of secondary data
- Secondary analysis or re-use of qualitative data
- References
- Further reading
Research Design. Research Process
Tutorials
| Research Design | |
| Research Process | |
Readings
Research designs are concerned with turning the research question into a testing project. The best design depends on your research questions. Every design has its positive and negative sides. The research design has been considered as a "blueprint" for research, dealing with at least four problems: what questions to study, what data are relevant, what data to collect, and how to analyze the results.[1]
Research design can be divided into fixed and flexible research designs (Robson, 1993). Others have referred to this distinction with ‘quantitative research designs’ and ‘qualitative research designs’. However, fixed designs need not be quantitative, and flexible design need not be qualitative. In fixed designs the design of the study is fixed before the main stage of data collection takes place. Fixed designs are normally theory-driven; otherwise it’s impossible to know in advance which variables need to be controlled and measured. Often these variables are quantitative. Flexible designs allow for more freedom during the data collection. One reason for using a flexible research design can be that the variable of interest is not quantitatively measurable, such as culture. In other cases, theory might not be available before one starts the research.
- Examples of fixed (quantitative) designs
- Examples of flexible (qualitative) research designs
- References
Qualitative Research. Quantitative Methods. Survey Research Methods. Sampling
Tutorials
| Survey Research | |
| Sampling | |
| Qualitative Research | |
| Analysing Quantitative Data 1 | |
| Analysing Quantitative Data 2 | |
| Methodology Summary | |
Readings
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies.
Other surveys are used for scientific purposes. Surveys provide important information for all kinds of research fields, e.g., marketing research, psychology, health professionals and sociology. A survey may focus on different topics such as preferences (e.g., for a presidential candidate), behavior (smoking and drinking behavior), or factual information (e.g., income), depending on its purpose. Since survey research is always based on a sample of the population, the success of the research is dependent on the representativeness of the population of concern (see also sampling (statistics) and survey sampling).
- Selecting samples
- Modes of data collection
- How to write good survey questions
- Response formats
- Advantages and disadvantages of surveys
- Nonresponse reduction
Measurement
Tutorials
| Measurement | |
Readings
Evaluation is a methodological area that is closely related to, but distinguishable from more traditional social research. Evaluation utilizes many of the same methodologies used in traditional social research, but because evaluation takes place within a political and organizational context, it requires group skills, management ability, political dexterity, sensitivity to multiple stakeholders and other skills that social research in general does not rely on as much.
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Recommended Texts
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Business
Research Methods Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop. |
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Business
Research Methods The test of a singularly versatile textbook comes with time, years of use and years of thorough, reliable coverage of the field. In 1976, when Business Research Methods was first published, it was a pioneer methodology text in business. Technology continues to transform information processing and managerial problem solving. Our book keeps pace with industry changes, while staying on the leading edge of teaching pedagogy. And as before, our responsiveness to adopter and reviewer suggestions distinguishes the leaders of a textbook tradition from the imitators. Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.
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Resources
Research Methods Knowledge Base
- What is the Research Methods Knowledge Base?
- Purchasing
- Using the KB in a Course
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
Related Learning Guides and Workshops
