Business Research – Meaning, types, process of research- management problem, defining the research problem, formulating the research Hypothesis, developing the research proposals, research design formulation, sampling design, planning and collecting the data for research, data analysis and interpretation. Research Application in business decisions, Features of good research study.
Business Research Design: Meaning and significance - Types: Exploratory and Conclusive Research Design.
Exploratory Research: Meaning, purpose, methods- Literature search, experience survey, focus groups and comprehensive case methods.
Conclusive Research Design - Descriptive Research - Meaning, Types – Cross sectional studies and longitudinal studies.
Experimental Research Design – Meaning and classification of experimental designs- formal and informal, Pre experimental design, Quasi-experimental design, True experimental design, statistical experimental design.
Sampling: Concepts- Types of Sampling - Probability Sampling – simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified random sampling, cluster sampling -Non Probability Sampling – convenience sampling- judgemental sampling, snowball sampling- quota sampling - Errors in sampling.
Data Collection: Primary and Secondary data Primary data collection methods - Observations, survey, Interview and Questionnaire, Qualitative Techniques of data collection, Questionnaire design – Meaning - process of designing questionnaire. Secondary data -Sources – advantages and disadvantages.
Measurement and Scaling Techniques: Basic measurement scales-Nominal scale, Ordinal scale, Interval scale, Ratio scale. Attitude measurement scale - Likert’s Scale, Semantic Differential Scale, Thurstone scale, Multi-Dimensional Scaling
Hypothesis - types, characteristics, source, formulation of hypotheses, errors in hypotheses. Parametric and Non-Parametric Tests- t-test, z-test, f-test, u-test, K-W Test (problems on all tests) Statistical analysis- Bivariate and Multivariate Analysis- (only theory). ANOVA-one-way and two-way classification (theory only)
Data Analysis and Report Writing: Editing, Coding, Classification, Tabulation, Validation Analysis and Interpretation- Report writing and presentation of results: Importance of report writing, types of research report, report structure, guidelines for effective documentation.