The Nature of Business

and Management Research

 Learning Objective:

 Understanding the Concept of Research

 Business & Management Research
 Purpose and Nature of Management Research
 Difference between Basic & Applied Research
 The Research Process
Definition:
‘Something that people undertake in order to find things out in a
systematic way, thereby increasing their knowledge’
Saunders et al. (2009)

Characteristics:

 Data are collected systematically

 Data are interpreted systematically

 There is a clear purpose to find things out

Business and Management Research :
Systematic research to find something about business

 Managers draw on knowledge from other disciplines

 Managers are more likely to allow access if they see

commercial or personal advantage

 Managers now tend to be as educated as the researchers

 Managers require research to have some practical

consequence

Easterby-Smith et al. (2008)

Nature of Business Research:

 Trans disciplinary Nature

(use of knowledge from other disciplines)
 Using knowledge from a range of disciplines enables
management research to gain new insights that cannot
be obtained through all of these disciplines separately.
 Another feature of management research highlighted
in the debate is a belief that it should be able to
develop ideas and to relate them to practice.
 Business and management research needs to engage
with both the world of theory and the world of
practice
Key Debates:
 Knowledge production – (Modes 1, 2 and 3 knowledge)

 Range of disciplines enables management

research to get new insights that can not be
obtained through any discipline separately
 Tranfield Vs Starkey 1998, research on
management practice to derive a theory
Key Debates:

 Double Hurdle: (Theoretically and Practically)

 Much of this debate has centered around the work by
 Gibson et al. (1994) on the production of knowledge and, in
particular, the concepts of Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge
creation.
 Mode 1 knowledge creation emphasizes research in
which the questions are set and solved by academic
interests, emphasizing a fundamental rather than applied
nature, where there is little if any focus on utilization of the
research by practitioners.
Key Debates:

 Mode 2 emphasizes a context for research

governed by the world of practice, highlighting the
importance of collaboration both with and between
practitioners (Starkey and Madan 2001) and the need
for the production of practical relevant knowledge.
Based upon this, Starkey and Madan (2001) observe
that research within the Mode 2 approach offers a way
of bringing the supply side of knowledge represented
by universities together with the demand side
represented by businesses and overcoming the double
hurdle.
Key Debates:

 Drawing from these debates, it could be argued that

business and management research not only needs to
provide findings that advance knowledge and
understanding, it also needs to address business issues
and practical managerial problems. However, this
would negate the observation that Mode 2 practices
develop from Mode 1. It might also result in business
and management research that did not have obvious
commercial benefit not being pursued.
Key Debates:

 Mode 3 knowledge production (Huff and Huff )

 focuses on an appreciation of the human condition as it is
and as it might become, its purpose being to ‘assure
survival and promote the common good at various levels of
social aggregation’ (Huff and Huff 2001:53). This
emphasizes the importance of broader issues of human
relevance of research. Consequently, in addition to
research that satisfies your intellectual curiosity for its own
sake, the findings of business and management research
might also contain practical implications, and these
findings may have societal consequences far broader and
complex than perhaps envisaged by Mode 2
Key Debates:

 The ‘relevance gap’

 Tranfield and Denyer (2004) draw attention to
concerns resulting from the separation of knowledge
producers from knowledge users.
 From the design science perspective, the main purpose
of academic management research is to develop valid
knowledge to support organizational problem solving
in the field. That support can be direct, instrumental
or more indirect – giving general enlightenment on the
type of problem at hand.
Key Debates:

 Evidence based’ management

 Rousseau (2006) has drawn attention to ways of
closing what she terms the prevailing ‘research-
practice gap’ – the failure of organizations and
managers to base practices on best available evidence.
She extols the virtues of ‘evidence based management’,
which derives principles from research evidence and
translates them into practices that solve organizational
problems. Rousseau’s argument is that research
findings do not appear to have transferred well to the
workplace.
Hodgkinson’s Taxonomy of Research
Basic Vs Applied Research
 Pure Research:
 Research that is undertaken purely to understand the
processes of business and management and their
outcomes. (academic community)
 Applied Research:
 Research that is of direct and immediate relevance
to managers, addresses issues that they see as
important, and is presented in ways that they
understand and can act on.
 Basic Vs Applied Research

Sources:

Figure 1.1 Basic and applied research

Basis of Comparison Basic Research Applied Research

Basic Research refers to Applied Research is the

the study that is aimed at research that is designed
Meaning expanding the existing to solve specific practical
base of scientific problems or answer
knowledge. certain questions.

Nature Theoretical Practical

Utility Universal Limited
Developing scientific Development of
Concerned with knowledge and technology and
predictions technique

To add some knowledge To find out solution for

Goal
to the existing one. the problem at hand.
 The research process:
 Formulating and clarifying a topic

 Reviewing the literature

 Designing the research

 Collecting data

 Analysing data

 Writing up
Important Factors:
 The impact of your personal feelings and beliefs

 Access to data

 Time and other resources

 Validity and reliability of the data

 Ethical issues
Practice Session:
 How to reverse or manage global warming?
 How can cyber security be improved?
 Is technology use for children helpful or harmful?
 Developing algorithm for performing classification
based on pixels
 the famous Tobler’s first law of Geography states that
“Everything is related to everything else, but near
things are more related than distant things”
 studying crystal structure of some metal or metallic
compound just to gain a greater understanding