Business research should be conducted continually for several reasons and failure to do this can result in the business losing touch with its customers as well as current market trends and innovations that may be useful for its success.  Business research can be conducted in order for the business to understand its present customers, identify new customers, pinpoint and solve business problems, take advantage of new opportunities, prepare for expansion, set achievable targets, as well as for strategic planning.

I learnt that there are 3 major types of research, which are, Exploratory research -conducted in areas where there is little or no information available on the particular matter under consideration.  Information is gathered in order to clarify problems or prioritize the areas of research that should be undertaken.  Descriptive research is concerned with finding out who, what, where, when, why and how.  A business may therefore conduct this type of research in order to gather valuable information about who its customers are, their preferences, where they shop, the reasons why a particular brand is purchased over another, as well as how they feel about a particular brand of product.  Casual research is also used when a business has identified a particular problem and wishes to determine the cause of the problem.  The purpose of the research being done therefore determines the type of business research that would be conducted.

When conducting business research, certain ideas are used to guide the decisions that are made and the research philosophy that is used is one of these ideas.  There are 3 main research philosophies which are epistemology which deals with the nature of knowledge and its acceptability; ontology which deals with the nature of reality and how the world operates, and axiology which looks at the nature of values and deals with the role that values play in research.  The approach to research was also examined and this entails either using deductive reasoning, where the conclusion arrived at is based on a general known premise, or inductive reasoning where the process of establishing the conclusion is based on observing particular facts.  It was further outlined that the research strategy to be used can be qualitative, quantitative or mixed method that uses both qualitative and quantitative research strategies.

In addition to the foregoing, ethics in research is also important and the researcher should use ethics as a guide when conducting research.  The relationship of the sponsor of the research and the researcher is important and the researcher should be careful that he/she remains professional and objective in the research process, while the sponsor should not try to influence the results but should remain open to whatever conclusions the researcher may arrive it.  Technology can also be a valuable tool in research but the drawback to its usage is that it may exclude those persons who may not, for a variety of reasons, have access to it.

 

Unit 1 – Introduction to Business Research (pgs 1-17) (n.d.). Retrieved from UWI Open Campus: http://201610.tle.courses.open.uwi.edu/pluginfile.php/13518/mod_resource/content/1/MGMT2063_u1-20150823-2.pdf