Chapter 2 Approaches to research

A paradigm is a shared framwork of assumptions held within a discipline, subdiscipline or school of thought within a discipline.

Sometimes, positivist and critical can coexist in the same research and complement for another. Example: A study comparing workers' salary might use the gathering and analysis of quantitative data on income and form the conclusion which might be involved in critical/interpretive.Before the research, the researchers should assume which methodology is better and more technically. Sometimes, it is better for researchers to mix the two methodology together which could make the research boarder.

Positivist think the world is external and objective, they usually conduct and approach concentration on objective description and explanation.

Oppsite of the positivist, the critical or interpretive paradigm is focused on the human behaviour and studied on some non-human phenomena. Sometimes, it is subjective and based on the social enviroment.

In the nature. some information is quantiative, some information is qualitative. Tendency; Quantiative and qualitative research have more tendency to combine together to rich the information.Difference: The nature of information collected and the way it is analysed.

Quantitative focus on the numbeical evidence to conclusion or to test hypothesis so that the quantitative researchs collect the representative of some wider population.

Qualitative research focus on a few number of the representative number rather than a lot of number. Because of that, research is about a few individuals and organisations.

Hypothesis: A potential explanation which might be supported or negated by data, which can rise from informal observation and the experience of the researcher, or from examination of the literature.Most research is partly inductive and partly deductive.Positivist researchers focused on deduction more than induction in the research. Critical interpretive researcher focused on induction more than deduction.

Inductive: The research process begins from observation/description/data collection, to analysis to explanation.

Deductive: The research process begins from explanation/hypothesis/theory, to observation/description/data collection, to analysis.

The controlled experiment is not possible or appropriate. Example: The researchers interested in the effect of levels of remuneration on management cannot identify the incomes of a group managers.In some situations, when two group people who have the same identical income levels can not differ markly from their personalities, family situation, physical health, and so on. The researchers have to use non-experimental research better than experimental approaches.

To investigate differences between people as they exist in the real world

In the past, the positivistic and deductive research was very largely used, interpretive and inductive research has now become very popular in the academic realm.

The researchers should be aware of the limitations of any particular appaoach, to use criteria to select research methods, not to make claims that can not be justified for the methods used.Horses for courses philosophy is not about good or bad, is about appropriate or inappropriate. It is not about good or bad question, is about good or bad use of method.The methods are divided into 'major' approaches or methods and 'cross-cutting or 'subsidiary' techniques.

Scholarship is kind of the contribution of research because scholarship can inspire the teachers to generate the new knowledge from new insights, critical or innovative ways of looking at old issues, or the identification of new issues or questions.

Creativity.

In such as management, the consolidation of existing knowledge through then entire literature reviews is needed.Because a review of the literature indicates the state of knowledge on a topic and as a source of stimulator ideas, it plays a important key in the formulation of research projects.

If exsiting the secondary data can help to answer some questions more easily and effectively, the researchers won't need to spend too much time to collect the primary data. Because of some problems in the secondary data, some of them may not be explored, so they will have more expansion in the potentially research.

Unobtrusive techinques involve gathering information about people's behaviour without their knowledge.Example: Observation could be the only way or technique to search the illegal activity of people or empolyer's threatened activity to their employees.Observation is the access to presenting a perspective that is not so clearly in some situations personal involved.Example: Some people may not realize their pattern of movement interact with other people in the office place.

Only the qualitative approaches are used when the concepts, terms and critical issues should be defined by the subjects of the research and not defined by the researchers.When researchers focus on the people's attitudes and meanings, qualiative techniques are useful.

Questionaire-based surveys's three issues:1. specific about the data requirements in the research2.the surveys ara based on the respondents' own account of their behaviour, attitudes or intentions.3. When quantified information is required concerning a specific population and when individuals' own accounts of their behaviour and attitudes are acceptable as source of information, the questionaire-based surveys should only be used.

When the analysis is quantitative.

The analysis is of a more qualitative nature.

Ideal for studying organisational change and the combined effects of social chanage,age and experience.Longitudinal studies are not common in the general business field, but common in areas such as health and education.

"What if" is always used in psychological research.

Example 2.1 describe an investigation which used three such scales: one related to self-esteem, one to job satisfaction and one to family enviroment.Scale is used very widely,

Primary data: Some new information collected by the researchers.

Existing data collected by others for some other purposeExample: Sales figures and population numbers, income and expenditure, staffing levels, accident reports, crime reports and health data.

Self-repoarted is about the research involving asking people's past, present and future behaviour and current attitudes and aspirations.Self-reported's disadvantage: Some researchers can not make sure the accuracy or the honesty about the research.Example: The amout of the drink alcohol can not be measured.How much money did the interviewees spend in one product in the last year?

One research style to fix the self-report is observed data which observe the behaviour.