CHARACTERISTICS OF BUSINESS RESEARCH Case Study
Key Learning Outcomes
By the end of the case, students should be able to:
- Understand the concept of business research, its meaning, types, characteristics, and objectives
- Understand the importance of research in business decision making
- Understand the role of business research in formulating an organization's strategy
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Research is a systematic process that entails enunciating the problem, formulating a hypothesis, collecting the facts or data, examining the facts, and reaching certain conclusions in the form of a solution to a given problem. Business research is a process used by businesses to acquire detailed information on all the areas of business and utilize the information to maximize their sales and profit. Business research helps companies to decide on which products/ services are most profitable and in demand by the customers (Easterby-Smith et al 2021).
In other words, it is a process of planning, acquiring, analyzing, and disseminating relevant data, information, and insights to decision-makers in ways that mobilize the organization to take appropriate actions that, in turn, maximize performance. It encompasses well-thought-out ideas and carefully executed activities that enable managers to recognize how organizational challenges can be solved or minimized in order to boost performance and profitability. Business managers use research to resolve challenging issues in areas of finance, accounting, marketing, and management.
In Accounting, managers frequently examine budget control systems, practices, and procedures. Inventory costing methods, accelerated depreciation, time-series behavior of quarterly earnings, transfer pricing, cash recovery rates, and taxation methods are the other areas that businesses frequently research. In Finance, the operations of financial institutions, optimum financial ratios, mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, inter-corporate financing, yields on mortgages, the behavior of the stock exchange, etc are focus of investigation for managers.
When it comes to management, research is used to study employee attitudes and behaviors, human resources management, strategy formulation, the impact of changing demographics on management practices, production operations management, information systems, etc. managers use marketing research to address issues related to advertising, sales promotions, pricing, new product development, product image, distribution, after-sales services, packaging, pricing, consumer preferences, and other marketing aspects.