1) What is meant by business research process?

What are the various stages / aspects involved in

the research process?
Ans. Like any other organized work, research requires proper planning. Planning of research means
deciding the question or issue to be studied, setting the objectives of the study and determining the
means of achieving these objectives. It is an intellectual process.
The following are the major steps in doing research:
1. Formulation of Problem: At the outset, the researcher has to decide the area or aspects of
a subject matter in which he is interested. There are no principles which can guide an investigation
to pose significant problems for research. A careful study of literature will guide him and his
sensibility, experience direct him to formulate the problem.
2. Formulation of Hypothesis: The suggested explanation or solution to the problem
formulated as prepositions are called hypothesis. Such tentative explanations, /e. hypothesis may be
the solution to the problem.
3. Analysis of Concepts: The researcher needs to define the concepts which would be used in
organizing the data. Such definitions include formal definitions that are designed to convey the
general nature of the process. He has to translate them into observable events. He has to formulate
his problem in terms so general and abstract as to make clear its relation to other knowledge and
permit replication of study in other concrete situations.
4. Research Design: The process of working out a research design involves, making decisions
about the techniques to be employed for collection of relevant data, the safeguards to be employed
to safeguard the validity, reliability and precision, the mode of drawing the sample, analysing the
data, interpreting the results. Through designing the research, the investigator achieves his research
objective with the economy of amount, time and energy.
5. Collection of Data: After designing the research assignment, the researcher turns to the
implementation part of it. He attends to the formulation of the instruments such as the
questionnaire, interview schedule, etc., keeping in view the techniques of analysis he is going to
implement. He selects the representative sample basing on sampling techniques and collects the
data.
6. Data analysis: The purpose of data analysis is to summarise the completed observations in
such a way that they yield answers to the research questions. The analysis consists specific sub-tasks
such as coding, tabulation and drawing of statistical inferences etc.
7. Conclusions or generalization: In this stage the hypothesis is compared with the
conclusions drawn on the basis of data. In case a hypothesis fits the findings, the theory which
suggested the hypothesis would be proved. lf the hypothesis is disproved the blow of disproof will
pass on to theory which originated the hypothesis.
8. Reporting: Reporting the research requires an order of skills some what different from
those needed in the earlier phases of research. The chief purpose of a report is communication with
the audience. It should contain the following aspects:
(a) the problem of research,
(b) the research procedures,
(c) the results or outcomes, and
(d) the importance of findings.
2) (a) What do you understand by the term Correlation? Distinguish between different kinds of
correlation with the help of scatter diagrams.
Ans. If two variables, say X and Y, vary (or move) together in the same or in the opposite directions,
then they are said to be correlated (or associated). If X, Y move in the same direction i.e. if either
both of them increase or both decrease, then correlation between the variables X, Y is said to be
positive. But if X, Y move in the opposite directions /.e. if one, say X, increases and the other Y
decreases and rIce reuse, then correlation between X and Y is said to be negative.
lf Y is unaffected by any change in X, then X and Y are said to be uncorrelated. lf the amount of
variation in X bears a constant ratio to the corresponding amount of variation in Y, then correlation
between X and Y is said to be linear. Otherwise it is non-linear. Degree (or strength) of linear
correlation (i.c. linear relationship) between two variables is measured by a quantity called the
correlation coefficient or coefficient of correlation. If the relationship is confined to two variables
only, then correlation between the two variables is called Simple correlation.
Correlation can be described in the following ways with the help of scatter diagram:
(I) If the points are very dense i.e., very close to each other, a fairy good amount of
correlation may be expected between the two variables. On the other hand, if the points are
widely scattered, a poor correlation may be expected between them.
(II) lf the points on the scatter diagram reveal any trend (either upward or downward), the
variables are said to be correlated and if no trend is revealed, the variables are uncorrelated.
(III) lf there is an upward trend rising from lower left hand corner and going upward to the
upper right hand corner, the correlation is positive since this reveals that the values of the
two variables move in the same direction. lf, on the other hand, the points depict a
downward trend from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner, the
correlation is negative since in this case the values of the two variables move in the opposite
directions.
(IV) In particular, if all the points lie on a straight line starting from the left bottom and going
up towards the right top, the correlation is perfect and positive, and if all the points lie on a
straight line starting from left top and coming down to right bottom, the correlation is
perfect and negative.
The following diagram of the scattered data depict different form of correlation.