Page 8 - DMGT404 RESEARCH_METHODOLOGY

Research Methodology

Notes Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
 Recognize the meaning and objectives of research

 Define research in the expression of different authors
 Generalize the Process of research
 Differentiate between different types of research

Introduction

Research means technical and organized search for relevant information on a particular topic. It
is defined as an academic activity that involves identifying the research problem, formulating a
hypothesis, collecting and analyzing data and reaching specific conclusions in the form of
solutions or general theories. The primary objective of research is to find solutions for problems
in a methodical and systematic way. A research depends on the field in which the research work
is performed. Various types of researches can be done for different fields, like fundamental
research for identifying the important principles of the research field and applied research for
solving an immediate problem. However, all these researches primarily follow two approaches,
quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative approach focuses on the quantity of the data
obtained from the research, while the qualitative approach is concerned with the quality of the
obtained data.

1.1 Meaning of Business Research

Business research is a systematic and objective process of gathering, recording and analyzing
data for aid in making business decisions. Business research comes within the purview of social
science research. Social science research refers to research conducted by social scientists (primarily
within sociology and social psychology), but also within other disciplines such as social policy,
human geography, political science, social anthropology and education. Sociologists and other
social scientists study diverse things: from census data on hundreds of thousands of human
beings, through the in-depth analysis of the life of a single important person to monitoring
what is happening on a street today-or what was happening a few hundred years ago.
Social scientists use many different methods in order to describe, explore and understand social
life. Social methods can generally be subdivided into two broad categories. Quantitative methods
are concerned with attempts to quantify social phenomena and collect and analyze numerical
data, and focus on the links among a smaller number of attributes across many cases. Qualitative
methods, on the other hand, emphasize personal experiences and interpretation over
quantification, are more concerned with understanding the meaning of social phenomena and
focus on links among a larger number of attributes across relatively few cases. While very
different in many aspects, both qualitative and quantitative approaches involve a systematic
interaction between theories and data.

1.1.1 Research Objectives

Research in common man's language refers to "search for Knowledge".

Research is an art of scientific investigation. It is also a systematic design, collection, analysis
and reporting the findings & solutions for the marketing problem of a company. Research is
required because of the following reasons:

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