The document discusses the research process hierarchy which begins with a management dilemma and progresses to more specific research, measurement, and investigative questions. It also covers developing the research question, designing the study, allocating resources, evaluating methods, collecting data, and reporting results. The goal is to work from broad management issues down to specific questions and actions that can address the original dilemma.

1. Part One
INTRODUCTION TO
BUSINESS RESEARCH
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2. Chapter Three
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
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3. The Management-Research
Question Hierarchy
6 Management Decision
5 Measurement Questions
4 Investigative Questions
3 Management Questions
2 Research Questions
1 Management Dilemma
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4. Working with the Hierarchy
• Management Dilemma
– The symptom of an actual problem
– Not difficult to identify a dilemma,
however choosing one to focus on may
be difficult
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5. Working with the Hierarchy
• Management Question Categories
– Choice of purposes or objective
– Generation and evaluation of solutions
– Troubleshooting or control situation
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6. Working with the Hierarchy
• Fine tune the research question
– Examine concepts and constructs
– Break research questions into specific second-
and-third-level questions
– Verify hypotheses with quality tests
– Determine what evidence answers the various
questions and hypothesis
– Set the scope of your study
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7. Working with the Hierarchy
• Investigative Questions
– Questions the researcher must answer to
satisfactorily arrive at a conclusion about
the research question
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8. Working with the Hierarchy
• Measurement Questions
– The questions we actually ask or extract
from respondents
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9. Other Processes in the Hierarchy
• Exploration
– Recent developments
– Predictions by informed figures about the
prospects of the technology
– Identification of those involved in the area
– Accounts of successful ventures and
failures by others in the field
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10. Research Process Problems
• The Favored Technique Syndrome
• Company Database Strip-Mining
• Unresearchable Questions
• Ill-Defined Management Problems
• Politically Motivated Research
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11. Designing the Study
• Select a research design from the large
variety of methods, techniques, procedures,
protocols, and sampling plans
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12. Resource Allocation & Budgets
• Guides to plan a budget
– Project planning
– Data gathering
– Analysis, interpretation, and reporting
• Types of budgeting
– Rule-of-thumb
– Departmental or functional area
– Task
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13. Evaluation Methods
• Ex Post Facto Evaluation
• Prior Evaluation
• Option Analysis
• Decision Theory
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14. Contents of a Research Proposal
• Statement of the research question
• Brief description of research methodology
• Pilot Testing
• Data collection
• Data preparation
• Data analysis and interpretation
• Research reporting
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15. Data Collection
• Characterized by
– abstractness
– verifiability
– elusiveness
– closeness to the phenomenon
• Types
– Secondary data
– Primary data
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16. Final Steps in Research
• Data analysis
• Reporting the results
– Executive summary
– Overview of the research
– Implementation strategies for the
recommendations
– Technical appendix
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