Business Research Method: Concept Theory

The concept theory has been proposed by many scholars amongst which are Carey, 2012. However, there are several theories that have been put forward in describing what the concept theory is for example; theory-theory, the classical theory, the prototype theory, conceptual atomism and the pluralism and eliminatism. The theory is defined as a well-stipulated set of general propositions of thoughts. This theory outline the perception of how things or ideas are being identified, conceptualized and implemented in order to generate business opportunities or any other related avenues. These theories tend to bring out a casual-explanatory of how the properties of objects and events of same categories attribute processes that have been named or classified. These names are developed purposely for identification of physical or invisible/ non-physical phenomenon (Cooper, Schindler & Sun, 2016). These names are constructed or created from letters, symbols, words or signs which are the building block of a theory; they comprise of empirical realities such as leadership, inflation, emotion (Carey, 2012, p. 113-124).

Findings

Quantitative research design

Is a methodical formal and objective systematic process of collecting/ gathering data concerning the world. It enables a more descriptive method of testing and examining relationships, their cause and impacts. It has four major designs for comparing and contrasting the formulated approaches depending on the degree designed for controlling the primary variables for the experiment. These include; experimental, quasi-experimental, descriptive and correlational.

• The correlational design focuses mainly on the relationship between the variable in consideration of statistical data. It does not put more emphasis on the observation, cause, and effect of the information gathered.
• The descriptive design focuses on the description of the present condition of the phenomenon or variable. It majorly concentrates on the observation during the data gathering stage.
• Casual-comparative or a quasi-experimental tends to exploit more on the causative effect of the relationship amongst the two or more phenomenon or variables. There is no manipulation of the independent variables in testing the casualty and phenomenon.
• Experimental designs or the true experimentation which tends to use a scientific shift in establishing the cause of the relationship between the groups of a phenomenon in the research study. Its test methodology based on the manipulation of the independent variables with optimal phenomenon control system. 

Qualitative design

It is the model that systematically put forward a subjective approach to describe the day to day life encounters and their real translation or truthful meaning. The design implies that the entities and procedures are not examined based on the amount, frequency and quantity of these processes (Abdou & Pratt, 2012). The qualitative researchers majorly put more emphasis on the correlation between the reality and the causal effects of the variables or phenomenon depending on the nature of those realities. Unlike the quantitative design, qualitative put more emphasis on the casual relationship amongst the variables as opposed to be the processes. It as well depends on the relationship between the social and their code of conducts of the scientist while in investigating the cause of the research problem. There are three elements that are involved in the qualitative research; naturalistic which is the study of realities without any sense of manipulation or controlling as they are set by nature itself (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2016, p. 113). Emergent refers to the act of acknowledging the situational change and understanding the need to create or pursue a new way out on the emerging issues; purposeful for the study or research work. The area of study is selected based on its use of these items i.e. events, cultural practices, community and critical scenarios. The mode of gathering information includes having a one on one interview to cover the peoples experience and perceptions, the researcher having a personal experience and encounters of the realities as they are, keeping a close empathic stance with the people to be interviewed without taking sides so as to bring out the responsiveness, respect, awareness, and openness for being mindfulness and the attentive situational dynamic system. The collected data is analyzed using different techniques such as; inductive analysis, the holistic perspective, context-sensitive and taking each and every case is unique in its own way. The qualitative researcher should own the perspective and voice. The researchers’ concentration mainly reflects an equilibrium between the world complexity and understanding these variables by having a strict consciousness and politically aware (Turner, 2014, p. 754). The qualitative design has some demerits;

• The process of collecting information is time-consuming thus expensive
• There is no ability to find out causality of research problems
• Inability to compare and contrast between the quantity and quality of the data obtained from the research work and non-consistent to the conclusion
• Drifting the real objective of the research work by altering the context of the research

Mixed method

This is the methodology of doing or performing the research that entails gathering, integrating and analysing both the quantitative and qualitative information and research study problem. It involves the crucial understanding and analysis of the gathered data from both the two designs with a goal of properly understanding the research problem. For the quantitative information, it entails the analysis of the obtained statistical data from the close-ended information contained in the questionnaire or checklist used during collecting the data for solving the research problem (Creswell & Clark, 2017). Whereas the qualitative data provides for the open-ended data gathered from the field. It strictly follows the direction of aggregating this information and putting the opposing ideas collected in a more uniform way for a better understanding of the data collected. By putting or mixing these methodologies the researcher gets a clear view and better understanding of these issues as opposed to when one of them was preferred. The mixed method has three main designs which are sequential explanatory, concurrent triangulation and concurrent nested which are mixed according to the strength of every design and the desired path the researcher would wish to follow (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2016).

Similarities and Differences.

There has been no similarity between the qualitative and quantitative designs only that they are used in finding the research to be used (Lewis, 2015).However they show various distinctive characteristics such as; the semi-structured or unstructured techniques with non-statistical data analysis with conclusive and descriptive in nature used in recommending exploratory or investigative findings that cannot be used in making generalised findings for decision making where qualitative form is applied whereas the quantitative research  relies on random sampling that produces numerical, hard facts data used in computational and statistical methods which can be categorised and measured in terms of units of measurement. Graphs and tables can be constructed from the primary data obtained from the quantitative research thus ease the analysis of the results. Qualitative research is holistic in nature and follows subjective approach while quantitative is particular is objective. Qualitative is process oriented contrary to quantitative purpose in examining the causative effects and relationship between the variables (Lewis, 2015). 

Reference

Abdou, I.E., and Pratt, W.K., 2012. Quantitative design and evaluation of enhancement/thresholding edge detectors. Proceedings of the IEEE, 67(5), pp.753-763.

Creswell, J.W. and Clark, V.L.P., 2017. Designing and conducting mixed methods research.

Cooper, D.R., Schindler, P.S. and Sun, J., 2016. Business research methods (Vol. 9). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.

Turner III, D.W., 2014. Qualitative interview design: A practical guide for novice investigators. The qualitative report, 15(3), p.754.

Carey, S., 2012. Précis of the origin of concepts. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(3), pp.113-124.s like happiness, morale, productivity.

Johnson, R.B., and Onwuegbuzie, A.J., 2016. Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time has come. Educational Researcher, 33(7), pp.14-26.

Johnson, R.B., Onwuegbuzie, A.J. and Turner, L.A., 2017. Toward a definition of mixed methods research. Journal of mixed methods research, 1(2), pp.112-133.