Four stages to the research process
Practitioners and researchers are confronted with important questions in their daily routine. For practitioners this might be about identifying potential customer groups or relevant new markets, while for researchers it might be about testing a hypothesis or developing a new theory. To solve these questions, both need an applicable armamentarium. Here, research methods come into play.
Anyway, it is important to note that research is more than just ‘running a regression’ and interpreting ‘p-values’ or coefficients. Research is a process or a journey that helps you to find answers for your questions.
During this course, we will follow the research process from the first idea to the discussion of the results. Of course, before we start with the process, a brief introduction into the philosophy of science is necessary, as there are quite different world views on research that have enormous impact on the research approach.
Questions & Answers
One of the best ways to better understand all of the ideas that you will come across here is to do the following:
- network with your classmates and peers; form discussion groups around the topics that confound, confuse, interest or inspire you;
- don’t be afraid to ask questions of each other; one of the best ways is to meet up (virtually or over coffee/tea/etc.) and discuss the parts of research methods that might cause you some confusion; for example, epistemology and ontology will cause confusion for some – a conversation or two over coffee can quickly help to clear up what these ideas are and how they can inform your research and research methods positioning;
- take notes regularly and in a structured manner;
- build up a research methods matrix – you can create a spreadsheet to cross-reference authors, literature and ideas in an easily searchable manner;
- OneNote is another great too for building up a massive database of notes for yourself and others.
Further reading
Recommended:
- Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA. (corresponding chapter)
Additional sources:
- Griseri, P. (2013). An introduction to the philosophy of management. SAGE Publications Limited.
- Mir, R., & Watson, A. (2000). Strategic management and the philosophy of science: The case for a constructivist methodology. Strategic Management Journal, 21(9), 941-953.