Steps in Writing Business Research Proposal
Steps in Writing Business Research Proposal
Steps in Writing Business Research Proposal
A research design is the detailed blueprint used to guide a research study towards
its objectives. Business research, is a scientific investigation that involves set of
highly interrelated activities, if one activity is not performed properly it will have
damaging effects forthcoming activities. The article explains the steps involved in the
business research process
The research process starts with the identification of the issues that needs to be
researched. In case of basic research conducted by academics an area of interest or
some new area is identified for purpose of research.
After the identification of problem, the next Once the problem is identified, the next
step is to preliminary collection of relevant data/literature that can help develop an
initial understanding of the problem; in case of business problems/opportunity
consultation can help in comprehending the situation. In academic research this
stage can help in initial understanding of the issue to be researched, plus
identification of value it has in the field of business, gaps in existing research,
contribution the research can make.
Although other authors haven’t included this step at an explicit step, but I find it
important to clearly state the problem, delineating the problem with a statement can
provide rich benefits. It can help in developing clear understanding of what issue
needs to be resolved, it is helpful in clearly laying out the objectives, attainment of
those would lead to the solution of problem. A problem statement is a clear, precise,
and succinct statement of question or issue that is to be investigated with the goal of
finding an answer or solution (Sekaran, 2003).
During this step the researcher identifies how the study will be conducted. It is
important that this section should have ample information for the reader, so that if
he/she wants to replicate the study in their settings they can do it with ease (Huck,
2004). There are few questions that a researcher needs to answer which drafting
research methodology.
The next step after formulating the research methodology is the collection of data.
Data can be collected through variety of means that includes telephonic interviews,
personally administered questionnaire, mail questionnaires, face to face interview,
and observation. A few issues highlighted in data collection include timing of data
collection, individual collecting the data, and cost associated with the collection of
data.
This steps starts with entering the data into any statistical software that can help in
timely analysis of data. This is discussed in detail in chapter 5. Once the data is
entered it is important to screen and clean the data for any anomalies, failure to do
so will result in incorrect results. For instance you record pay for the respondents,
and each one answers between 10000 100000, but by mistake you enter 1000
instead of 10000, this will result in wrong interpretation of results. How to do it is
discussed in detail in chapter 6.
Once the data is entered and cleaned, the next step is pursuing appropriate
statistical analysis based on the research hypothesis. There are number of
techniques that are applied to analyze the data. In order to understand if there exist
differences between groups (depending on the number of groups) we can use tests
to compare groups (T-Tests, ANOVA), to investigate relationship between variables
we can use correlation and for prediction we can use Linear, Multiple and Logistic
Regression. All these techniques are discussed in greater detail in later chapters.
One of the problems with researchers is that they do not know what test to apply in
what situation, this has been taken care off by identifying the scenarios in which the
test are applicable, plus detailed examples in which the test is appropriate.
Once the data is analyzed and you have the results on screen, the next step is to
interpret the results, followed by its presentation.one of the key issues most research
face is the interpretation of the results. The researcher has to determine if the results
are significant, does the hypothesis hold true, and then present the results in a
meaning full easy to understand manner. In order to facilitate the research, this book
after running each and every test, discusses in detail the interpretation of the results
and how shall they be presented in the thesis.
The Discussion section is a culmination of the research and the most important part
of the paper, but one that is mostly ignored. Most newbies in research simply
interpret the results but do not discuss the findings. Discussion involves reviewing
the research results in light of the existing research. This section involves comparing
and contrasting the research results with previous research studies, and it is seen if
the results are similar or contradictory to old studies. If they are contradictory the
researcher needs to look for reasons that are causing this change.
References
Huck, S. (2012). Reading statistics and research (6th ed.). USA: Pearson.
Sekaran, U. (2006). Research methods for business: A skill building approach
(6th ed.). India: Wiley.
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