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Summary modules Business Research Techniques of pre-master Tilburg University (320087-B-6)
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Samenvatting Business Research TechniquesInhoud
Module 1: The research process ............................................................................................................. 3
Why business research? ...................................................................................................................... 3
The stages of the research process ..................................................................................................... 6
Module 2: Theory formation ................................................................................................................... 8
Demarcating a business problem ........................................................................................................ 8
Problem relevance .............................................................................................................................. 8
Problem statement and research questions ....................................................................................... 8
Literature review & Conceptual model ......................................................................................... 10
Research hypothesis.......................................................................................................................... 11
Module 3: Choosing a research strategy ............................................................................................... 12
Three major research strategies ....................................................................................................... 12
Correlation vs. causal research strategies ......................................................................................... 13
Module 4: Data collection (and analysis) .............................................................................................. 16
How to structure data? ..................................................................................................................... 16
Sampling ............................................................................................................................................ 16
Measurement .................................................................................................................................... 18
Choosing statistical stats ................................................................................................................... 19
Module 5: Reliability and validity .......................................................................................................... 21
Measurement reliability and validity ................................................................................................ 21
Internal and external validity ............................................................................................................ 22
Module 6: Survey research.................................................................................................................... 24
Polls v.s. surveys ................................................................................................................................ 24
Survey measures ............................................................................................................................... 24
Survey mode ...................................................................................................................................... 25
Reliability and validity in survey research ......................................................................................... 26
Module 7: Experimental research ......................................................................................................... 29
Lab vs. Field research ........................................................................................................................ 29
Experimental designs ........................................................................................................................ 29
Reliability and validity in experiments .............................................................................................. 31
Module 8: Archival research ................................................................................................................. 34
Internal vs. external archival research .............................................................................................. 34
Piecing together archival data ........................................................................................................... 34
Reliability and validity in archival research ....................................................................................... 35
,Module 9: Qualitative Research ............................................................................................................ 36
The basics of qualitative research ..................................................................................................... 36
Collecting primary qualitative data ................................................................................................... 36
Validity in qualitative research .......................................................................................................... 39
Begrippenlijst......................................................................................................................................... 41
,Module 1: The research process
Why business research?
Managers increasingly face business problems. For example, a management accountant may query
why a firm’s most prominent international customers are becoming less profitable each year. A CFO
may wonder how a takeover will affect a firm's stock price. A marketing manager may question why
home delivery is successful in the domestic market but not in neighbouring countries.
Some business problems may already have been studied in business science. Business science is
based on research performed by academics. Like other scientists, business scientists are empiricists:
they base their conclusions on empirical research.
Other problems may require a new study. Problems of moderate difficulty may be researched by
managers themselves. To study more complex business problems, managers may turn to external
research agencies or in-house research teams.
Regardless of whether you will (i) consume existing research (read published research applicable to
your problem), (ii) produce research (conduct a new research study yourself), or (iii) delegate
research (bring in a third party to carry out a research study for you), you need a firm grasp of
business-research fundamentals to make sound business decisions.
2. What is business research?
Business research can be defined as "a systematic process of testing hypotheses through carefully
executed data analyses that are aimed to help a manager solve, avoid, or minimize a problem." Let’s
take a closer look at the various elements of this definition.
i. Business research is a systematic process:
Business research consists of several distinct but highly interrelated stages. It is systematic because
these stages are universally agreed upon.
ii. Business research tests hypotheses:
Business research involves constructing testable hypotheses. Whether a study starts with or without
constructing hypotheses, it produces the same empirical findings. In a study without hypotheses,
however, these findings could be a mere coincidence, rather than understanding the problem.
iii. Business research entails collecting and analyzing data:
Business research is empirical. Data can be collected in various ways, e.g., through surveys,
experiments, extraction from companies' internal databases (e.g., customer account information) or
government databases (e.g., CBS; cbs.nl), web scraping, interviews, or observations.
iv. Business research is meant to help managers make better decisions:
Better decisions are evidence-based decisions: decisions that rely on a thorough and painstaking
assessment of empirical data.
3. How about managerial intuition?
Why are managers better off when they base their decisions on research? Do the best managers not
make decisions based on their intuition? Is intuition not a reliable (and less time-consuming)
alternative to data gathering and analysis?
Coca Cola C2 was introduced in 2004 with a $50 million advertising campaign. However, the huge
budget couldn’t overcome the fact that C2 failed. Coca-Cola's C2 is certainly not the only product
launch that failed because it was solely based on the decision maker's intuition, but not on research.
Below is the introduction from a Harvard Business Review article on why most product launches fail:
, ‘’As partners in a firm that specializes in product launches, we regularly get calls from entrepreneurs
and brand managers seeking help with their “revolutionary” products. After listening politely, we ask
about the research supporting their claims. The classic response? “We haven’t done the research yet,
but we know anecdotally that it works.” (Schneider & Hall 2011)
Intuition should never be a substitute for research. While intuition has its place in managerial
decision-making (you should not ignore your instincts any more than your conscience), detached
from rigorous data gathering and analysis, intuition can lead us to make less effective decisions.
Why can managers' intuition be so wrong?
Managers (like all humans) are prone to cognitive biases. Cognitive biases are unconscious thinking
errors. They are an attempt of our brain to simplify the complex world and speed up decision-
making. These biases lead managers to misinterpret information. They negatively affect the
rationality and accuracy of their decisions.
In total, there are over 100 cognitive biases that affect how we process information. Three of the
most common cognitive biases that may affect managers' decisions are:
3.1. Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to only consider information that agrees with ("confirms")
your pre-existing beliefs. You cherry-pick the information you consider: you look for only the
evidence that supports what you are already thinking and disregard the rest. As such, you may
become a prisoner of your own prejudices.
A business example:
In the investing world, confirmation bias may lead investors to cling to preconceived notions about
their investments, while discounting information that contradicts these ideas. E.g., investors whose
holdings are concentrated in a specific sector may only absorb good news and ignore bad news
regarding this sector. This may lead them to overinvest in a particular sector. Please read this article
for additional business examples of how managers' confirmation bias may reduce business profits.
Everyday example:
A confirmation bias is visible in pessimists who focus on the negatives while ignoring the positives,
and in news junkies who consume only media that supports their worldview. Various social media
platforms, such as Facebook, reinforce our confirmation bias by feeding us stories that we are likely
to agree with. The video below is an entertaining example of confirmation bias. We recommend
trying to guess the answer while you watch.
3.2. Availability bias
Availability bias (also known as the availability heuristic) refers to a cognitive bias in which you make
a decision based on readily available information, even though it may not be the best information to
inform your decision.
Information that is more easily recalled (i.e., is more available because it is more vivid or recent) is
assumed to reflect more frequent and more probable events, while information that is more difficult
to bring to mind (i.e., less available because it is less vivid or recent) is assumed to reflect less
frequent and less probable events. The availability bias thus leads you to overestimate events.
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