Basic Business Research Methods

Organizations use research, especially in market research activities. Market research is used to identify potential markets, the needs and wants of each, how those needs and wants can be met, how products and services could be packaged to be most accessible to customers and clients, the best pricing for those products and services, who the competitors are and how best to complete against each, potential collaborators and how to collaborate with each — and many other applications of research. Organizations can conduct this research without having to have advanced skills. This topic aims to explain the most important practices in research that provide the most useful results.

Sections of This Topic Include

Planning Research

• Planning Your Research
• Selecting Which Research Method to Use
• How to Select From Among Public Data Collection Tools

Methods to Collect Data

• Method: Appreciative Inquiry
• Method: Case Study Design
  
• Method: Reviewing Documentation
• Method: Focus Groups
• Method: Interview Design
• Method: Listening
• Method: Questioning (face to face)
• Method: Questionnaires
• Method: Surveys
• Analyzing, Interpreting and Reporting Results
• Conducting Research Within an Organization

Ethics and Conducting Research

• Sample consent form (or sample release-of-information form)
• Ethics (guidelines to ensure ethical behavior)
• Social Science Standards and Ethics

Also consider
Business Ethics

Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Business Research Methods

In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following blogs which have posts related to this topic. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog.

• Library’s Business Planning Blog
• Library’s Building a Business Blog
• Library’s Strategic Planning Blog

For the Category of Business Research:

To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.

Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.

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