The Research Process:

Elements of Research Design

By:
Furqon
1110534012

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT ECONOMIC FACULTY

ANDALAS UNIVERSITY
2015

The Research Process: Elements of Research Design

Purpose of the Study:

1. Exploration
2. Description
3. Hypothesis Testing
1. Exploratory Study
Exploratory Study is undertaken when not much is known about the situation at hand, or no
information is available on how similar problems or research issues have been solved in the past.
Example:
A service provider wants to know why his customers are switching to other service
providers?
2. Descriptive Study
Descriptive Study is undertaken in order to ascertain and be able to describe the
characteristics of the variables of interest in a situation.
Example:
A bank manager wants to have a profile of the individuals who have loan payments
outstanding for 6 months and more. It would include details of their average age,
earnings, nature of occupation, full-time/part-time employment status, and the like. This
might help him to elicit further information or decide right away on the types of
individuals who should be made ineligible for loans in the future.

3. Hypothesis Testing
Studies that engage in hypotheses testing usually explain the nature of certain relationships,
or establish the differences among groups or the independence of two or more factors in a
situation.
Example:
A marketing manager wants to know if the sales of the company will increase if he
doubles the advertising dollars.
Type of Investigation
1. Causal Study
It is necessary to establish a definitive cause-and-effect relationship. A causal study
question: Does smoking cause cancer?
Example: causal relationship
Fears of an earthquake predicted recently in an area were a causal of a number of
crashes of some houses in the area in order to be eligible of insurance policy.
2. Correlational Study
Identification of the important factors associated with the problem. A correlational
study question: Are smoking and cancer related?
Example: Correlational Relationship
Increases in interest rates and property taxes, the recession, and the predicted
earthquake considerably slowed down the business of real state agents in the country.
Extent of Researcher Interference with the Study
The extent of interference by the researcher with the normal flow of work at the
workplace has a direct bearing on whether the study undertaken is causal or correlational.
A correlational study is conducted in the natural environment of the organization with
minimum interference by the researcher with the normal flow of work. In studies conducted to
establish cause-and-effect relationships, the researcher tries to manipulate certain variables so as
to study the effects of such manipulation on the dependent variable of interest. In other words,
the researcher deliberately changes certain variables in the setting and interferes with the events
as they normally occur in the organization.
Examples of research with varying degrees of interference:
Minimal Interference
Example
A hospital administrator wants to examine the relationship between the perceived
emotional support in the system and the stress experienced by the nursing staff. In
other words, she wants to do a correlational study.
The researcher will collect data from the nurses (through a questionnaire) to indicate
how much emotional support they get in the hospital and to what extent they
experience stress. By correlating the two variables, the answer is found.

In this case, beyond administering a questionnaire to the nurses, the researcher has
not interfered with the normal activities in the hospital.
Moderate Interference
If the researcher wants to establish a causal connection between the emotional support in
the hospital and stress, or, wants to demonstrate that if the nurses had emotional support, this
indeed would cause them to experience less stress.
To test the cause-and-effect relationship, the researcher will measure the stress currently
experienced by the nurses in three wards in the hospital, and then deliberately manipulate the
extent of emotional support given to the three groups of nurses in the three wards for perhaps a
week, and measure the amount of stress at the end of that period.
For one group, the researcher will ensure that a number of lab technicians and doctors
help and comfort the nurses when they face stressful events. For a second group of nurses in
another ward, the researcher might arrange for them only a moderate amount of emotional
support and employing only the lab technicians and excluding doctors. The third ward might
operate without any emotional support.
If the experimenters theory is correct, then the reduction in the stress levels before and
after the 1-week period should be greater for the nurses in the first ward, moderate for those in
the second ward, and nil for the nurses in the third ward.
Excessive Interference
The extent of researcher interference would depend on whether the study is correlational
or causal and also the importance of establishing causal relationship beyond any doubt. Most
organizational problems seldom call for a causal study, except in some market research areas.
Study Setting (Contrived & Non-contrived)
Correlational studies are conducted in Non-contrived settings (normal settings), whereas
most causal studies are done in contrived settings. Correlational studies done in organizations are
called field studies. Studies conducted to establish cause-and-effect relationship using the same
natural environment in which employees normally function are called field experiments.
Experiments done to establish cause-and- effect relationship in a contrived environment and
strictly controlled are called lab experiments.
Population to be studied
Unit of analysis:
Individuals
Dyads
Groups
Organizations
Cultures
Time Horizon
Cross-sectional studies
Snapshot of constructs at a single point in time
Use of representative sample

Multiple cross-sectional studies

Constructs measured at multiple points in time
Use of different sample
Longitudinal studies
Constructs measured at multiple points in time
Use of same sample = a true panel