Business research applications and methods

¶ … reasoning has been guiding and dictating the scientific enterprise since the scientific revolution. This objective reasoning is also applicable to the business field. Research in business can be applied by following the following general seven steps method.

State a problem

Any idea or tentative explanation is the result of an existing problem. Research in business is an attempt at identifying new markets including the needs and wants of those markets. The research must pin point how these needs can be met, how customers and clients can best collaborate, and what can be the best pricing of given products among others.

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Present preliminary hypotheses

This is where the imagination and intuition of the business researcher come to work. He or she will attempt to derive any type of plausible explanations which will be latter weed out for bad hypothesis.

Collect data

Data collection in business research can be done by the use of focus groups, face-to-face questioning, questionnaires, case study design, and surveys among others. At this point, the facts and data are collected and a certain insight of the true hypothesis starts to emerge.

4) Focus on one hypothesis

With the help of the gathered data, there must be a focus on one hypothesis. Thus, the complexity of the problem is considerably reduced and investigated. The answer to that simplified problem will constitute a head start for a tentative explanation of an added degree of complexity to the problem at hand.

5) Deduce consequences

Assuming the hypothesis was true, many other consequences can be derived from that hypothesis. The predictive power of the business researcher based on logic comes at play here.

6) Test the consequences through experiments or observations

In this step, the consequences are thrown to the test of experiments or observations to see if they do actually occur. Otherwise, new hypothesis will have to be elaborated.

7) Apply the hypothesis

This step constitutes the application of our hypothesis to our enunciated problem in its natural context by making predictions based on the tested hypotheses. It is also where the global business community weighs in and gives its opinion on the work at hand.

This research methodology is general in its steps and its applications are wide including non-business research centers. The methodology's commonality is the reasoning aspect involved. A case study of the above described method is Columbia Business School's Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI). According to its web page description, CITI is a research center within Columbia Business School focusing on topics in management, strategies, telecommunication and electronic mass media among others. The research methodology at CITI revolves mainly around collaboration among academic, corporate, and public sector. This collaboration helps the analysis and resolution of complex issues in the business, media, and telecommunication industries. CITI employs a research methodology quite similar to the general methodology described above. The research team is comprised of head directors and research assistant. The directors are in charge of setting up the research agenda with issues of importance to the institute. The directors also discuss the different hypothesis through constant correspondence and collaboration. After different hypothesis have been discussed, the research assistants start collecting data and present their findings to the directors. Based on and after weeding out the unwanted data, the directors will then focus on one hypothesis and have further collaborations and discussions with other authoritative entities.

The methodology employed at CITI seems to collect an extensive amount of data which could be avoided by extensively briefing the researchers on what specific data might be needed. Moreover, the data collected concerns only the hypothesis deemed plausible while not including the other hypothesis. One improvement can be a planning for data collection concerning those other hypothesis in case the plausible one are not correct. This planning can save time to the research team.

Most researches in the business field are in the area of economy, development, finance and taxation, sustainable economies, and industries studies among others. One current research in the business field is CITI's International Media Concentration project. This project focuses on media empires and their negative or positive impacts. According to CITI, this project will use a quantitative research approach based on market share data collected from media industries. Another current research performed by CITI focuses on Broadband in America. This research analyze the current state and division of broadband in regions of the United States by collecting data from major broadband providers and reports by research firms and investment analysis. Based on the collected data, recommendations on how to break the digital divide and a wider and broader broadband presence in the United States are made.