College aantekeningen International Business Research for IBA

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RESEARCH
LECTURE 1 – SETTING THE SCENE – 03/02/2022

WHAT IS BUSINESS RESEARCH?

A series of well thought out activities and carefully executed data analysis that help a manager to avoid, solve,
or minimize a problem

WHY SHOULD FUTURE MANAGERS KNOW ABOUT BUSINESS RESEARCH?

- To be able to perform business research
o Undertake research yourselves to solve the smaller problems you encounter
- To be able to steer business research
o Interact effectively with researchers/research agencies
- To be able to evaluate business research
o To discriminate between good and bad research proposals of researchers/research agencies
o To discriminate between good and bad published research studies

HALL MARKS OF GOOD BUSINESS RESEARCH

1. Purposiveness
- Knowing ‘’the why’’ of your research
2. Rigor
- Ensuring a sound theoretical base
- Ensuring a sound methodological design
3. Objectivity
- Drawing conclusions based on facts (rather than on subjective ideas)
4. Parsimony
- Shaving away unnecessary details
- Explaining a lot with a little
5. Replicability
- Finding the same results if the research is repeated in similar circumstances
6. Generalizability
- Being able to apply the research findings in a wide variety of different settings
o Should hold for fundamental research
o …but much less so for applied research

FUNDAMENTAL VS. APPLIED RESEARCH

Applied research

- To solve a current problem faced by a manager
- Applies to a specific company
- Withing firms or research agencies

,Fundamental (or basic) research

- To generate new knowledge about how problems that occur in several firms can be solved
- Applies to several organizational settings
- Mainly within universities and knowledge institutions

THE SEVEN-STEP RESEARCH PROCESS

Deductive vs. inductive research

Deductive research (focus in this course)

- Theory  data
- Testing theory

Inductive research

- Data  theory
- Building theory

Seven-step deductive research process

1. Define the business problem
2. Formulate the problem statement
3. Develop a theoretical framework
4. Choose a research design
5. Collect data
6. Analyze data
7. Write-up

Seven-step inductive research process

1. Define the business problem
2. Formulate the problem statement
3. Provide a conceptual background
4. Choose a research design
5. Collect data
6. Analyze data
7. Develop theory

LECTURE 2 – THE RESEARCH PROCESS – 10/02/2022

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BUSINESS PROBLEM?

When does a business problem occur?

- Desired state  the actual situation is not seriously wrong but can be improved
- Actual state  the actual situation is seriously wrong and need to be solved asap

What makes a good business problem?

- Feasibility  is it doable?
- Relevance  is it worthwhile?

,Feasibility

- Is the problem demarcated?
- Can the problem be expressed in variables?
- Are you able to gather the required data?
o Existing data
o New data

Relevance

- Managerial relevance
o Who benefits from having the problem solved?
o Managers (brand managers, supply chain managers, accountants, …)
 Of one company
 Of one industry
 Of multiple industries
o End users (consumers, investors, tax payers, …)
o Public policy makers (government, EU, …)
- Academic relevance
o Has the problem not already been solved in prior research?
o Completely new topic
 No research available at all, although the topic is important
o New context
 Prior research is available but not in the same context
o Integrate scattered research
 Different studies have focused on different IVs/moderators; consequently, their
relative importance is not clear
o Reconcile contradictory research
 Solve the contradictions through introducing one or more moderators

WHAT MAKES A GOOD PROBLEM STATEMENT?

From business problem to problem statement

- Business problem  manager focus
- Problem statement  research-focused
- Preliminary research
o Organization/context
o Extant literature

What makes a good problem statement?

- Formulated in terms of
o Variables, and
o Relations
- Open-ended question
- Stated clearly/unambiguously
- (Is managerially and academically relevant)

WHAT MAKES GOOD RESEARCH QUESTIONS?

, - Should collectively address the problem statement
o One problem statement is translated into multiple research questions
- First theoretical, then practical research questions
o In the same order as they will be addressed in your research report!
- Stated clearly/unambiguously
o No vague elements

Theoretical research questions

- Context questions (what is…)
o Only if context needs elaboration
- Conceptualization questions (what is…)
o Only for the key variables that need elaboration
- Relationship questions (which variables…, how… affect …, how does the effect of … on … depend on…)
o Al relationships in the problem statement should be covered

Practical research questions

- Relationship questions (to what extent…)
o To what extent does X affect Y?
o What is the (relative) magnitude of the relations?
- Implication questions
o How can practitioners implement your results?
o Open question

Wise words to remember; ‘’If I were given one hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute solving it.’’ – Albert Einstein

DEVELOPING A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Theoretical framework consists of…

- Variable definitions
- Conceptual model – graphical representation
- Hypotheses – relationship between variables (predictions)

How to define variables?

Variable definitions

- Based on a careful literature review
- What if many different definitions exist in the literature?
o Acknowledge the major differences
o End with a definition that focuses on the shared. Meaning across definitions or pick one
definition and justify why
- Avoid jargon, use more simplified and commonplace terms
- Pitfall  examples are not substituted for a definition
- Always use exactly the same variable names throughout your research

How to build a conceptual model?

Variables are building blocks