Business Research

Semester and Year Offered: Semester II in Year I

Course Coordinator and Team: Kalindi Maheshwari and Kritika Mathur

Email of course coordinator: Kalindi@aud.ac.in; Kritika@aud.ac.in

Pre-requisites: Nil

Aim The objective of the course is to develop an understanding of different research methods and tools, data collection and interpretation and report writing.

Course Outcomes:

1. to inculcate the principles for rigour in research
2. To develop ability to both, contextualise business research historically and to make it of contemporary relevance
3. To conceptualise meaningful research geared to help businesses in their decision making
4. Encourage the participant to understand the ethical challenges that are ingrained in business research and to become a responsible researcher
5. To expose the participant to the diversity in the tools and techniques of research methods and its suitability for different research problems
6. To explain the plurality in research perspectives by adopting interdisciplinary research methods

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

• Unit 1: An Introduction to Business Research
• Unit 2: Problem Identification and Definition
• Unit 3: Research Design and Data Collection Approaches
• Unit 4: Quantitative Research Methods
• Unit 5: Qualitative research methods
• Unit 6: Data and Sampling
• Unit 7: Analysis of Quantitative Data
• Unit 8: Analysis of Qualitative Data
• Unit 9: Report preparation and presentation

Assessment Details with weights:

• Case Analysis/Assignments 40% (throughout course)
• Mid semester 30% (4/5th Week)
• End semester 30% (8th Week)

Reading List

Recommended Texts

• Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2015). Business Research Methods, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press.
• Field, A. (2013). Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics, SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Malhotra, N. K. (2008). Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, 5th edition, Pearson Education India.
• Paul, D., Yeates, D. and Cadle, J. (2010). Business Analysis, 2nd edition, British Informatics Society Ltd.
• Ranjit, K. (2011). Research Methodology - A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners, 3rdedition, SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Zikmund, W., Babin, B., Carr, J. and Griffin, M. (2012). Business Research Methods, 8th edition, Cengage Learning.