Research onion:

In order to answer how a research should be answered a clear methodology was sought which is referred as research onion. It presents a clear framework for the most suitable methods and strategies to address a research. It promotes the knowledge to answer a research question. After deciding a suitable philosophy other elements are selected from the layer which assists in answering a research. Each element in a different layer is discussed below in order to get an idea why these elements were selected while conducting a research.

Research philosophy:
The first layer of onion is research philosophies. Its give an idea that how to think about research. Several views about research process which includes positivism, realism, interpretive and other as well. Positivism: Positivism searches for truth. The positivist takes a rational thought to know the world that it is always external and objective. This view assumes that everything can be proved and known. With the help of this research a researcher just works with value free manner and the research can be generalized into a law like generalization similar to those of natural sciences. But it is not appropriate when you consider to research on human behavior. Positivism is more concerned with the science. And positivism is usually associated with quantitative research. Interpretive: In contrast with subject of positivism, Interpretive always hold a view that world is subjective and is generally associated with qualitative research. The interpretative approach allows researchers to get close to participants to interpret their subjective understanding of reality and appeals to the author as a way of obtaining depth of understanding. This usually relates to capturing data on expectations and experiences of performance appraisal which is usually a subjective matter. This approach allows researchers to get close to participants to interpret their subjective understanding of reality. Realism: It is a mixture of both the philosophies positivism and interpretive as it allows to study for the social issues trying to understand the impact of wider social forces. It usually consists of three components i.e. the reality, the actual and the empirical. Reality confers with what actually exists whether we understand it or we have experience of that. The actual refers to outcome that what actually is happened after the structure is applied. And the empirical refers to the experience. The major difference between positivism and realism is that it differentiates the real from the actual. And there are cases where real is somewhat different from actual. Objectivism: It is an alternative name for realism, that narrates that there exists a reality independent of the mind. Objectivism is the notion that an objective reality exists and can be increasingly known through the accumulation of more complete information. In order to know the answer there must be a real objective.

Subjectivism: Subjectivism is a certain way of conceptualizing subjectivity. Subjectivity is what makes us subjects rather than objects. Subjectivity includes processes denoted by the terms mental, mind, conscious, experience, agency, will, intentionality, thinking, feeling, remembering, interpreting, understanding, learning, and psyche. These subjective processes comprise the activity of subjects. Without subjectivity, we would only be physical objects devoid of activity.

Pragmatism: The pragmatic philosophy has intuitive appeal, permission to study areas that are of interest, embracing methods that are appropriate and using findings in a positive manner in harmony with the value system held by researcher. For these reasons it can be argued that the pragmatic philosophy can adopted for the purpose of social and management research endeavors as this is congruent with the mixed quantitative and qualitative approach taken within the predisposition of practitioner-based research.

Research approaches:
The second layer of research onion refers to research approach. There are two approaches involve in research which are deductive and inductive approach. Deductive approach: Deductive approach works from more general to specific. This is informally called as top-down approach. A deductive approach is consistent with developing a theory and testing it through research. Arguments based on laws, rules and accepted principles are generally used for deductive Reasoning. Inductive approach: Inductive reasoning works the other way like deductive moving from specific to general to broader generalization and theories. And informally it is referred as bottom up approach. And its conclusion is likely based on premises and usually involves a degree of uncertainty.

Research strategies:
The third layer of research onion is research strategies. Different methods used for research strategies are: Experiment Survey Case study Action research Grounded theory Ethnography Archival research Experiment: It is the classical form of research. Natural sciences owe mostly this kind of research. It will involve typically Definition of theoretical hypothesis Selection of sample Allocation of sample Control on other variables Survey: Survey research a research method involving the use of questionnaires or statistical survey to gather data about people and their thoughts and behaviors. Case study:

A case study is one of several way of doing research whether it is a social science related or even socially related. It is an in-depth study of single individual, group, incident, or community. Action Research: Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a community of practice to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Research undertaken by teams that is flexible and iterative; the aim is to solve the problem in order to improve the way processes are performed and services are delivered. Grounded Theory: Grounded theory is a systematic qualitative research methodology in the social sciences emphasizing generation of theory from data in the process of conducting research. Practice of developing other theories that emerge from observing a group. Theories are grounded in the groups observable experiences, but researchers add their own insight into why those experiences exist. Ethnography: A study of culture and cultural processes that uses multiple ways to research, observes, and document people, events, or artifacts.

Research choices:
The fourth layer in research onion refers to research choices. It includes three different methods which are Mono method Multi method Mixed method Mono method: A mono method procedure was considered for the research which would use a single data collection technique and corresponding analysis. This method is however rejected in favor of mixed method as mixed method uses both qualitative as well as quantitative techniques. Mixed method: Mixed methods research is a field of inquiry that uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer research questions within a single study. The research is considered mixed because it uses quantitative and qualitative approaches in one or several of the following ways: it combines different types of research questions, data collection procedures, data, analytical approaches, or conclusions. One of the main advantages of mixed methods research is its ability to unite exploratory and confirmation research in other words, it allows generating and testing a theory in the same study.

Research time horizons:

There arises an important question while doing a research whether a research is likely to be a snapshot or like a diary. The snapshot is what we call cross-sectional while diary is likely to be longitudinal.

Cross-sectional studies: These are usually used when there is a time constraint and there is nonsufficient time for research. They may be searching for a phenomenon of a different happening in different organizations at same time or to compare same factors. Longitudinal studies: It is usually studying the same thing in different time frames. It usually refers to study the change and development taking place in different time period. Research techniques and procedures: Initially, self administered questionnaires were considered as a prime method of collecting data. But now the mostly used technique for data collection is triangulation. It is demonstrated by using different data collection techniques which enhance the validity of data collected. Its advantage is that the complementary methods will counter balance the inherent weakness of one approach with the strength of the other approach.