A justification of the Research methodology.docx

1、A justification of the Research methodology2. A Justification of Research Methodology2.1. Identification of Study RequirementThe main research objective of this paper is to analyze the modern social business management strategies and to construct them into a standardized framework within an internat

2、ional context. It is expected to help to enterprises to holistically analyze and management their integrated social business organization, in order to achieve further business success. To achieve the above target, some data, information and relevant empirical analysis are required to support further

3、 study. The data and information required are generally qualitative ones that related to the companys understanding about social business, how they integrate daily business with social media, what is their most concerned issues and what the major problems are for the companies in this moment. The co

4、re aim to collect these information is that they are needed for further justifying the necessity of this research task and inspiring the new framework construction work with the demands and experiences of the current practitioners. 2.2.Research Method Selection and Justification2.2.1 Introduction to

5、 “Research Onion” Decision-making Strategy In order to effectively acquire useful data as above and to systematically conduct the project research, the selection of appropriate research methodologies have to be considered. This selection shall be conducted according to the REME Onion, which is prese

6、nted by Saunders et al in 2003, as Figure2. The first layer of the research onion presents the choices of research philosophy, which are respectively positivism, interpretivism and realism. The second layer clarifies the research methodologies into two main categories, which are inductive and deduct

7、ive research approach. The third layer carries the various of research strategies, such as interview, case study, experiment, survey, grounded theory, action research and ethnography. The fourth layer shows the choices of time time horizons like cross-sectional, and longitudinal. Last but no the lea

8、st, the core stands for the actual data collection and analyze action.2.2.2 The Choice for Research PhilosophyAs to the first layers, positivism stands for the philosophy approves that the possibility to observe and describe reality from an objective viewpoint. On the other hand, an interpretivist b

9、elieves that it is necessary to understand differences between humans in our roles as social actors. A positivism research typically emphasis the observation and experiments should be objective and repeatable, while an interpretivism research normally select qualitative, non-quantitative methods as

10、its main choice, because it admit that people on different stance can have a different point of view, and the result can hardly be explicitly measured.This study mainly focus on the analysis of social business as a commercial trend and a business management strategy. It is a analytical science study

11、, in which most of the concerned questions are non-quantitative ones. So that, this study should be defined as a interpretivism study.2.2.3 The Choice for Research ApproachThe second layer describe the choice between inductive approach and deductive approach. A deductive approach indicates that the

12、study should be conducted from general to specific. Firstly, a theory should be developed from previous study; and then one should drive a hypothesis from the theory; after that, relevant observation should be made, which is better to be repeatable; at last, one may obtain a confirmation of the hypo

13、thesis. On the other hand, a inductive approach indicates that the study should be conducted from specific observations to general findings. The observation from social phenomenons and reactions should be made first; and then patterns can be concluded from the above observations; based on the patter

14、ns, one shall create a hypothesis and explore it; at last a theory can be formed from the hypothesis.As what have been presented in the above section, social business study is at the frontier of the technology tendency and management method innovation. Although a number of institution are also start

15、ed to study how to solve this issue. However, most of the processes that they have published only concerned about some specific role or ability as social business, such as the process for social media analysis, but lack of a systematic and standardized process to guide the overall decision making an

16、d system management. As a consequence, a inductive study, which aims to systematically conclude a framework for social business management from current practices and trends, is a preferable choice. Based on the above decision, this core processes of this study shall be organized in the following way

17、: after the definition and justification of overall research methodologies, the core data concerned and the theoretical findings that relevant to social business management shall be collected and analyzed; after that, based on the inspirations from literature and interviews, the author may construct

18、 a standardized framework for social business management in an international context, and a proposal based on WMG shall be conducted, in order to further demonstrate the standardized framework of social business.2.2.4 The Choice for Research StrategyThe third layer carries different kinds of researc

19、h strategies. For different type of study with different data type requirements, the selection of most fitted strategy can be various. The figures of most practiced strategies shall be demonstrate as below(Thomas Hanne):Surveys: the main goal of surveys is finding patterns in data. It is a practical

20、 strategy for inductive and empirical study(Thomas Hanne). By collection data and information from a group of population, one can systematically evaluate and statistic the data, especially which were not expected. And then interpret these finds into result. The typical techniques for conducting surv

21、eys are respectively observation, measurement, questionnaires, interviews and literature research. The researcher can choose one or more technique to conduct the survey. Experiments: the main goal of experiments is to test hypothesis. It is normally involved in positivist, deductive and quantitative

22、 research(Thomas Hanne). The typical procedure of an experiment is as follow. Firstly, the researcher need to formulate a certain hypothesis. And then, one needs to collect evidences through carefully designed experiments in order to test the hypothesis based on the evidence. Some typical techniques

23、, like benchmarking and statistical significance test are widely used in experiments.Case studies: the main of conducting a case study is to study the characteristics of a real life instance(Thomas Hanne). This strategy is normally be applied in interpretivist, inductive, empirical and qualitative r

24、esearch, in order to better prove a certain theory with qualitative data. A typical procedure of case study can be describe as below. Firstly, the researcher should select an instance for study. And then this case shall be analyzed and interpreted in a systematic way. After the data collection and a

25、nalysis, the researcher shall read into these data in order to better prove a theory, or to observe some new findings. Discussions, interviews, questionnaires and mere observations are the most common techniques to apply in a case study.Ethnography: ethnography is a systematic way to study people an

26、d culture. Normally, it is for more time consuming then surveys or case studies, because the ethnographers shall deeply involved in the lives of their study objective in order to induct cultural phenomena(Lewis, 1985). Due to the time limitation, it is not possible for this study to consider this op

27、tion.Grounded theory: grounded theory is a data driven research methodology in the social science. Through systematically observation, analysis and construction of data, the researcher expects to observe the interrelationship of different categories of collected data, and finally tries to develop a

28、theory out of the data collected(Creswell, 2003). Unlike positivist research, a study using grounded theory usually start with relevant qualitative data collection, or mere questions. As the data is reviewed, concepts and common elements can be extracted, in order to guide more data to be collected

29、and reviewed. The above procedure must be repeated several times, with more and more data being included and re-reviewed, until the basis of a new theory is formed. As a consequence, a study based on grounded theory shall include several data collection and observing stages, which requires a long st

30、udy time frame. Due to the time limitation and availability of essential data, grounded theory can hardly be a suitable option for this study. For this paper, as what has been discussed above, It can be categorized as an interpretivist, deductive study, with main concentration on qualitative data an

31、d empirical analysis. To match those five mentioned strategies, apparently conducting surveys is the most suitable choice as the main research strategy. The reason to exclude the others shall be explained as below. As the above paragraphs, ethnography and grounded theory should be excluded, mainly b

32、ecause and resource limitation. Experiment should be excluded because this study do not emphasis quantitative research, nor does it a positivist one. Case study will not be include as main research approach because its main fitting area is inductive research. Based on the above detailed arguments, f

33、or the third layer, survey is the final choice as main research strategy. 2.2.5 The Choice for Time HorizonAccording to the fourth layer, this study shall choose between longitudinal research and cross sectional research. The main approach for cross sectional research is to measure variables in a shorter period of time, so as to view these measu