Colorado State University: OPMBA Homework 2: Drafting a Business Research Plan Develop your research question, objectives, and plan using the guidance given below. Once you have done this, continue through the remaining exercises. You can upload your plan as a Word doc to Canvas as Homework 2. Full credit will be given for complete assignments that are thoughtfully constructed. Part 1: Research Question Formation A research question is a clear, concise, and complex question around which your research is focused. It helps you to focus in on your area of study, determines your methodology and guides and structures your choice of data collection and analysis methods. Research questions tend to be easier to generate when much is known about a topic and previous researchers (your business colleagues) have enhanced understanding in this space. They can be harder to generate in cases where either little is known about a subject or where little investigative work has been done. Your research question should: be relevant, clear and simple; be workable and allow for the collection of the required data over time and within budget; be well formulated, credible, and easy to understand; be specific and defendable across key constituencies within and external to the firm (as needed); lead to research that extends or adds to existing knowledge in the firm; lead to a research design and analysis that holds credibility (for business development or within the firm); allow for more than one outcome and the possibility that the working hypothesis can be refuted; allow for variability and different results under a variety of conditions; allow for adaptation and change to accommodate new findings. If you are struggling to develop your research question, you can try working through these steps: 1. Choose an area of the firm or perplexing problem as the research setting. 2. Do a little background research on the topic. Can you add to what is known? 3. Consider your audience. Does your chosen topic provide enough scope to work at the right intellectual level? 4. Think about your goals. This could be to build on existing knowledge or encourage change in practice. 5. Start to ask relevant questions and pick the one that is most suitable. 6. Develop this question into your research question. Make sure it is focused and complex (the question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no based on existing knowledge). 7. Reflect, analyze and/or hypothesize. Is your question suitable and workable? Part 2: Research Objectives Research objectives are the means by which you intend to answer your research question. They are detailed and more specific statements that describe specifically how you are going to address your research question, building on the main issue that has been introduced in that question. Five to ten objectives are usually a good number, but this can be flexible, depending on the type of research question you’ve posed. The main point is to make sure that your objectives connect back to answering your question. Consider the following points when forming your research question: Research objectives should give a clear indication of basic details pertinent to your research that include who is involved, what is to be done, when it will occur, where the research will take place, and ultimately, why you are seeking the information you seek. You don’t necessarily need to state these explicitly, but rather each element should be covered implicitly in your objectives. Objectives should provide an indication of how your project will proceed: this is not a specific statement of methods, but will give an indication by the terminology, i.e., identify, describe, explain, predict. The more precise these terms, the better you will be to deploy the appropriate methodological tools. Objectives should be clear, succinct, and unambiguous, defining any specialized or technical terms used. Objectives should be concise. Objectives should provide an indication of the long?term outcome, such as “define customer segment profiles and parameters.” Objectives should be realistic relative to what can be accomplished in the research given financial resources, human resources, time, access to respondents, and even likelihood of implemented change based on the findings. Make sure you can achieve your objectives. Overlapping objectives prevent efficient research execution. Your objectives should be clear and distinct. Take care not to confuse research objectives with project objectives. Objectives should set up the method you will use to ultimately answer your research question defined above. After you are satisfied with your research objectives, you are ready to create a draft plan of your methodology. The methodology should directly refer back to the research objectives. In fact, referring back to the research objectives frequently will keep a good research project on track. This helps prevent lost time and resources, and keeps you focused on your question of interest. Part 3: Methodology Finally, begin to think through the methodology needed to answer your question. Decide whether the research is exploratory, descriptive, or causal (or some combination of these) and match methods accordingly. Ensure that the methods chosen correspond to your research question and objectives. Choose a combination of methods if your question is complex, if resources permit, and if multiple methods appear necessary. Homework 2 Deliverables: Using the guidelines above, please submit a single document with: 1. Business research question 2. Research objectives (5?10) 3. Identification of methodology; bullet points that briefly describe how you could obtain data to address each research objective. May have multiple methods.
