Research Methods in Business Studies

This chapter deals with some conceptual (theoretical) foundations of research. Practical business research is often thought of as collecting data from various statistical publications, constructing questionnaires, and analysing data by using computers. Research, however, also comprises a variety of important, non-empirical tasks, such as finding/‘constructing’ a precise problem, and developing perspectives or models to represent the problem under scrutiny. In fact, such aspects of research are often the most crucial and skill demanding. The quality of the work done at the conceptual (theoretical) level largely determines the quality of the final empirical research. This is also the case in practical business research. Important topics focused on in this chapter are the research process and the role of concepts and theory.