Business Research Strategies

The chief aim of this chapter is to show that a variety of considerations enter into the process of doing business research. The distinction that is commonly drawn among writers on and practitioners of business research between quantitative research and qualitative research is explored in relation to these considerations. This chapter explores: • the nature of the relationship between theory and research, in particular whether theory guides research (known as a deductive approach) or whether theory is an outcome of research (known as an inductive approach); • epistemological issues—that is, ones to do with what is regarded as appropriate knowledge about the social world; one of the most crucial aspects is the question of whether or not a natural science model of the research process is suitable for the study of the social world; • ontological issues—that is, ones to do with whether the social world is regarded as something external to social actors or as something that people are in the process of fashioning; • the ways in which these issues relate to the widely used distinction in the social sciences between two types of research strategy: quantitative and qualitative research; there is also a preliminary discussion, which will be followed up in Chapter 24, that suggests that, while quantitative and qualitative research represent different approaches to business research, we should be wary of driving a wedge between them; • the ways in which values and practical issues also impinge on the business research process.