Week One Student Guide

The focus of the course is on understanding how research improves managerial decision making using five of the six stages in the research process. They include the following:

• Stage 1: Clarifying the Research Question

• Stage 2: Proposing the Research

• Stage 3: Designing the Research Project

• Stage 4: Data Collection and Interpretation

• Stage 6: Reporting the Results

Chapter 1 of Business Research Methods explains why people study business research and the importance of sound decision making. The goal is to enhance your understanding of the ethical dilemmas faced by managers and the roles and responsibilities of the researcher, sponsor, and participant as detailed in Chapter 2 of the text. The goal of ethics in research is to ensure that no one is harmed or suffers any adverse conditions posed by research activities. Important concepts include the right to privacy and quality and safety of participants. Many corporations, local and state governments, and the federal government have adopted a code of ethics with laws, policies, and procedures to regulate research on human beings.

In Chapter 3, we find researchers have their own vocabulary and so we begin to learn important terminology needed to formulate sound research such as the difference between a construct, proposition and hypothesis followed by knowledge of various types of variables. In practice, variables represent an event, characteristic, trait or attribute we would like to measure and to which we assign values. The researcher and the manager work in tandem to develop the research question. A set of testable hypothesis and variables to measure are then developed. For example, a researcher might want to measure the male-to-female ratio attendance at a new bowling alley. Those who enter are observed and recorded. Other variables might