Chapter IV

Research Design
Meaning of Research Design

After the researcher has formulated the research problem, he or she must develop the research
design as part of the research design stage. Research design is the general plan of how you will
go about answering your research question(s). A research design is a master plan that specifies
the methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing the needed information.

Research Design is a logical task undertaken to ensure that the evidence collected enables us to
answer questions or to test theories as unambiguously as possible. When designing research it
is essential that we identify the type of evidence required to answer the research question in a
convincing way.

Research design refers to the structure of an enquiry: it is a logical matter rather than a
logistical one. It has been argued that the central role of research design is to minimize the
chance of drawing incorrect conclusions or causal inferences from data.

The Need for a Clear Research Design

In this section we turn our attention to the research design you may employ. Each design can
be used for exploratory, descriptive and explanatory research. No research design is inherently
superior or inferior to any other. Consequently, what is most important is not the label that is
attached to a particular design, but whether it will enable you to answer your particular
research question(s) and meet your objectives. Your choice of research design will be guided by
your research question(s) and objectives, the extent of existing knowledge, the amount of time
and other resources you have available, as well as your own philosophical underpinnings.
Finally, it must be remembered that these designs should not be thought of as being mutually
exclusive. For example, it is quite possible to use the survey design as part of a case study.

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Research design is not related to any particular method of collecting data or any particular type
of data. Any research design can, in principle, use any type of data collection method and can
use either quantitative or qualitative data.
Crucially, research design should reflect the fact that you have thought carefully about why you
are employing your particular research design. For example, it would be perfectly legitimate for
your assessor to ask you why you chose to conduct your research in a particular organization,
why you chose the particular department, and why you chose to talk to one group of staff
rather than another. You must have valid reasons for all your research design decisions. The
justification should always be based on your research question(s) and objectives.

Types of Research Design

The common designs that we consider subsequently in this section are:
a. experiment
b. survey
c. case study

a. Experiment
Experiment is a form of research that owes much to the natural sciences, although it features
strongly in much social science research, particularly psychology. The purpose of an experiment
is to study causal links; whether a change in independent variable produces a change in another
dependent variable. Experiments therefore tend to be used in exploratory and explanatory
research to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions.
In a classic experiment, two groups are established and members assigned at random to each.
This means the two groups will be exactly similar in all aspects relevant to the research other
than whether or not they are exposed to the planned intervention or manipulation. In the first
of these groups, the experimental group, some form of planned intervention or manipulation,
such as a ‘buy two, get one free’ promotion, is made subsequently. In the other group, the
control group, no such intervention is made. The dependent variable, in this example
purchasing behaviour, is measured before and after the manipulation of the independent

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variable (the use of the ‘buy two, get one free’ promotion) for both the experimental group and
the control group. This means that a before and after comparison can be undertaken. On the
basis of this comparison, any difference between the experimental and control groups for the
dependent variable (purchasing behaviour) is attributed to the intervention, in our example the
‘buy two, get one free’ promotion.

In summary, an experiment will involve typically:

• definition of a theoretical hypothesis (in our discussion: the introduction of a promotion will
result in a change in the number of sales);
• selection of samples of individuals from known populations;
• random allocation of samples to different experimental conditions, the experimental
group and the control group;
• introduction of planned intervention or manipulation to one or more of the variables (in
our discussion, the introduction of the promotion);
• measurement on a small number of dependent variables (in our discussion, purchasing
behaviour);
• control of all other variables.

b. Survey
The survey design is usually associated with the deductive approach. It is a popular and
common design in business and management research and is most frequently used to answer
who, what, where, how much and how many questions. It therefore tends to be used for
exploratory and descriptive research.
Surveys are popular as they allow the collection of a large amount of data from a sizeable
population in a highly economical way. Often obtained by using a questionnaire administered
to a sample, these data are standardized, allowing easy comparison. In addition, the survey
design is perceived as authoritative by people in general and is both comparatively easy to
explain and to understand.

The survey design allows you to collect quantitative data which you can analyze quantitatively
using descriptive and inferential statistics. In addition, the data collected using a survey design

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can be used to suggest possible reasons for particular relationships between variables and to
produce models of these relationships. Using a survey design should give you more control over
the research process and, when sampling is used, it is possible to generate findings that are
representative of the whole population at a lower cost than collecting the data for the whole
population. You will need to spend time ensuring that your sample is representative, designing
and piloting your data collection instrument and trying to ensure a good response rate.
Analyzing the results, even with readily available analysis software, will also be time consuming.

The questionnaire, however, is not the only data collection technique that belongs to the
survey design. Structured observation and structured interviews, where standardized questions
are asked of all interviewees, also often fall into this design.

c. Case study
Case study can be defined as ‘a design for doing research which involves an empirical
investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using
multiple sources of evidence’.

The case study design will be of particular interest to you if you wish to gain a rich
understanding of the context of the research and the processes being enacted. The case study
design also has considerable ability to generate answers to the question ‘why?’ as well as the
‘what?’ and ‘how?’ questions, although ‘what?’ and ‘how?’ questions tend to be more the
concern of the survey design. For this reason the case study design is most often used in
explanatory and exploratory research. The data collection techniques employed may be various
and are likely to be used in combination. They may include, for example, interviews,
observation, documentary analysis and questionnaires. Consequently, if you are using a case
study design you are likely to need to use and triangulate multiple sources of data.
Triangulation refers to the use of different data collection techniques within one study in order
to ensure that the data are telling you what you think they are telling you. For example,
qualitative data collected using semi-structured group interviews may be a valuable way of
triangulating quantitative data collected by other means such as a questionnaire.

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A case study design can be a very worthwhile way of exploring existing theory. In addition, a
well-constructed case study design can enable you to challenge an existing theory and also
provide a source of new research questions.

Multiple methods choices – combining data collection techniques and

analysis procedures

The terms quantitative and qualitative are used widely in business and management research
to differentiate both data collection techniques and data analysis procedures. One way of
distinguishing between the two is the focus on numeric (numbers) or non-numeric (words)
data. Quantitative is predominantly used as a synonym for any data collection technique (such
as a questionnaire) or data analysis procedure (such as graphs or statistics) that generates or
uses numerical data. In contrast, qualitative is used predominantly as a synonym for any data
collection technique (such as an interview) or data analysis procedure (such as categorizing
data) that generates or uses non-numerical data.

We refer to the way in which you choose to combine quantitative and qualitative techniques
and procedures as your ‘research choice’. Individual quantitative and qualitative techniques
and procedures do not exist in isolation. In choosing your research methods you will therefore
either use a single data collection technique and corresponding analysis procedures (mono
method) or use more than one data collection technique and analysis procedures to answer
your research question (multiple methods). This choice is increasingly advocated within
business and management research, where a single research study may use quantitative and
qualitative techniques and procedures in combination as well as use primary and secondary
data.

Mixed methods approach is the general term for when both quantitative and qualitative data
collection techniques and analysis procedures are used in a research design. Mixed method
research uses quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques and analysis procedures
either at the same time (parallel) or one after the other (sequential) but does not combine
them.

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Time horizons

An important question to be asked in planning your research is ‘Do I want my research to be a

“snapshot” taken at a particular time or do I want it to be more akin to a diary or a series of
snapshots and be a representation of events over a given period?’ (As always, of course, the
answer should be ‘It depends on the research question.’) The ‘snapshot’ time horizon is what
we call here cross-sectional while the ‘diary’ perspective we call longitudinal.

We should emphasize here that these time horizons to research design are independent of
which research design you are pursuing or your choice of method. So, for example, you may be
studying the change in manufacturing processes in one company over a period of a year. This
would be a longitudinal case study. The main strength of longitudinal research is the capacity
that it has to study change and development. In longitudinal studies the basic question is ‘Has
there been any change over a period of time?’.

Cross-sectional studies often employ the survey design. They may be seeking to describe the
incidence of a phenomenon (for example, the IT skills possessed by managers in one
organization at a given point in time) or to explain how factors are related in different
organizations (e.g. the relationship between expenditure on customer care training for sales
assistants and sales revenue). However, they may also use qualitative methods. Many case
studies are based on interviews conducted over a short period of time.

The ethics of research design

Research ethics refer to the appropriateness of your behaviour in relation to the rights of those
who become the subject of your work or are affected by the work. They also relate to yourself
and ensuring no harm comes to you and other researchers.
Research ethics has important implications for the negotiation of access to people and
organizations and the collection of data. The general ethical issue here is that the research
design should not subject those you are researching (the research population) to
embarrassment, harm or any other material disadvantage. Ethical concerns can occur at all

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stages of your research project: when seeking access, during data collection, as you analyze
data and when you report your findings.