Research for Business Decisions
An Interdisciplinary Approach by Eli P. Cox III
Infosurv PhD Level
Researcher
A great deal of attention has been directed toward the decision-making process. This process has been characterized in numerous ways, but essentially it involves the following steps: problem or opportunity recognition, search for alternative courses of action, evaluation of these alternatives, choice of a course of action and implementation, and assessment of the results of the decision. The importance of relevant, accurate, current, and economical information at the various stages in this decision process cannot be over-emphasized. By the time that a problem or opportunity is universally apparent, it is often too late to do anything about it. Thus, in order to make changes successfully, a manager must have some sort of intelligence system whether he be in personnel, marketing, or finance. Once a problem or opportunity has been discovered, it is often the case that not all of the viable courses of action are known to the manager, so information must also be gathered at this stage. Certainly a manager's dependence upon information in the stage of evaluating alternatives is obvious. Such a process involves making forecasts of future events. As competitive pressures increase and as managers become more sophisticated, armchair decisions based upon a "feel" of the situation are being replaced by those which are based upon carefully fathered and analyzed information.
Finally, as information is used to discover problems or opportunities, the same information can be used to assess the results of management's decision making.
Research methodology is the body of knowledge concerned with the techniques necessary for gathering quality information. Originally, research methodology was developed in the physical sciences. Recently it has been expanded to include the social sciences, including business administration. Research activities are traditionally characterized dichotomously: activities directed toward the generation of knowledge are described as basic research and applied research refers to those activities involved in gathering information which will be useful in solving a particular problem.
