Research Objectives

While we take any job or task, firstly we think about the objective of that task. Would you tell me that what do you understand from objectives, now correlate it with research objective.

To be profitable, applied research must be targeted on the decision-making process of the manager or client being served. That is, efficient research contributes to the evolution of a decision and to its final resolution in the choice of actions taken-at any stage where the benefits of research justify its time and cost.

Most of this discussion will be referring to problems and decisions. These are different subjects, and since it is important to have in mind their distinction, we begin with that.

• A problem exists when the decision maker (or problem solver) faces uncertainty regarding which action to adopt in the situation. If only one action is available (or none at all), or if there is certainty about the outcomes of the alternatives, there really is no problem.
• A decision is the determining of which is the preferable course of action to take. (Decision makers then will proceed to implement the action, if they have the will to do so. Underlying the problem is a situation that is composed of either-

• Opportunities whose exploitation the decision maker has not yet determined how to solve or
• Difficulties that are manifest already or are anticipated. Generally four stages leading to a decision
• Discover and define the problem.
• Determine the problem environment.
• Determine alternative actions.
• Decide on action to take.

Four types of research will be noticed, entering the decision making at certain stages. We will deal with those that are inputs to the first three decisions

• Monitoring research
• Preliminary research
• Exploratory research

We are going to describe both the decision stage and the type of research that contributes to it.

Objectives of Monitoring Research

A major task of management is to recognize and diagnose problems. No problem exits until someone asserts that it does, although the particular situation may have existed for sometime unrecognize. Problem discovery is the first stage of any decision process, and is the main objective of monitoring research. We first will consider the problem-solving task.

As said earlier, there is a problem when a decision maker faces uncertainty, which may concern either difficulties or opportunities. Difficulties are situations or developments that have negative or counterproductive consequences. Some of them are overt, which already are causing trouble. To these, a manager can only react. If instead a difficulty has not yet caused negative effects, it is latent and may be tractable. If a manager has a monitoring system that would detect a latent trouble, that manager can be proactive and move to solve the difficulty before it causes serious trouble.

Opportunities, on the other hand, are situations with positive potentials that, if recognized and capitalized on, are profitable to the enterprise. Of course, competitors may have recognized and moved on them earlier, and their preemption of opportunities may create a competitive gap in their favor—another sort of difficulty. Opportunities are more subtle to identify and challenging to solve, but they may lead to profitable innovations. Managers need to be alert and sensitive to problem, but also must be informed. Most problem recognition is done by the managers themselves, through their own observations and various channels of communications—both within the organization (e.g., the sales force) and from outside (e.g. true shows and industrial media). This is hardly enough, though, in organizations that are remote from their markets and operations, which is true of all large firms.

A feedback system that includes monitoring research of markets and of marketing operations is highly advisable in modern business. Marketing managers of consumer goods are particularly active in monitoring their competitors and their customers “The more you know about the customer the better.” Says R. Stephen Fountaine the vice president of market research at Kimberley-Clark Corp. “You never know when a small fact might lead to a better product.”

Objectives of Preliminary Research

After discovering the problem, it needs to be defined, and this should be a statement in the terms used by the decision maker. Problem formulation should be done carefully, for one can jump too easily to the wrong premises. This statement targets the area of consideration; its accuracy determines whether the action to be taken is appropriate to the opportunity or difficulty that is being faced. The may be a number of plausible concepts of what the problem is. When that is recognized, it may be evident that deeper probing is needed. In other words, one should have “second thoughts” about the original perception of the problem.

Another issue at this stage is that of priorities. How serious does the particular problem seem to be compared with other current problems? Only the more significant problems should have priority for formal research. Only the problems involving the greater risk and unknown are profitable to study. When there is serious doubt and risk is involved, there not only should be very careful probing of the problem identification, but also-preliminary research.

The objective of preliminary research is to gather data on the situation surrounding the supposed problem to determine

• A correct definition of the problem,
• an understanding of its environment, and
• Whether the initial feedback data—which triggered problem recognition—accurately pictured the situation.

Preliminary research has no standard techniques. A marketing researcher would use whatever means are appropriate to the problem and to the relevant phenomena. For instance, a preliminary study in a market for surgical instruments would proceed differently from one in a market for beer. The investigation’s scope tends to be limited, particularly for gathering original data. Some field inquiries are likely to be worthwhile, to discover customer’, dealers’, or sales representatives’ views of the problem’s nature and gravity.

The results of a preliminary research project should enable the “right” problem to be identified—whether that deals with some difficulties or with some opportunities to exploit.

Bjectives of Exploratory: Study The next question is whether there is sufficient need to conduct an exploratory (or alternative-oriented) study. Such a study’s main purposes would be to determine the approximate area where the problem lies and also to identify some attractive courses of action to solve it. It may incidentally also enable a sharper definition of the problem to be made.

When the decision is a routine or low-risk one, there would be no exploratory study because the solutions already apparent can be selected safely enough. Often, too, time for an exploratory study cannot be afforded. When there is time and a serious situation, though, the decision maker should not be hasty about confining the decision to just the immediately apparent alternative solutions. By carrying on an exploratory study, alternative causes and solutions may be discovered together with insights on which ones are the more probable ones that the final decision should consider.

If an exploratory study of alternatives is conducted, it would begin with identifying a number of hypotheses that are known already in the firm. Discussions with managers in the company would probably bring out a number of hypotheses without having to leave the office. To obtain evaluation of these and additional hypotheses, a researcher should go to outside information sources, mainly of these types:

Statistics More careful analysis of company and industry data may be suggestive of alternatives, especially when correlated with the actions taken by various firms in the past.

Informed Specialists They tend to have the most ideas and usually considerable experience to draw upon. Observant members of one’s sales department are an easy starting point. Externally and less biased, for consumer goods there are retailers, advertising agencies, and consultants, Industrial product explorations might go to engineers, purchasing agents, research personnel, and distributors.

Consumers or Users Here can best be found the needs and dissatisfactions that point to difficulties or opportunities. Industrial users may have excellent ideas about alternative solutions, but consumers are rare who can articulate them. Either can be gold mine in the right interview situation.

Exploratory research usually is small scale because some sources of information are relatively few in total number (e.g. informed specialists). Also the purpose is merely to find and to evaluate possible actions, not to obtain final direction of what should be done. The client is looking for good options and does not need large quantities of observations. This research should, however, methodically delve into all aspects of likely significance, not missing what may be the critical area by assuming too much. With the findings of an exploratory study, the decision maker should be in a position to define operationally the decision that is faced.

We pause here to make two points: preliminary and exploratory studies are not necessarily conducted as formal projects, and the exploratory is rarer than is preliminary. Managers often believe that the existence and nature of a problem is obvious (which it may be), and so they move directly to their final decision. Prudent managers do give serious consideration to conducting a conclusive research study as the basis of that big decision—which they would ignore only at their peril. Our second point is that preliminary and exploratory researches are hard to differentiate, and we do not insist on doing so. What has been established in this discussion is that there are two different decision phases during the development of decision—one calls for preliminary research while the other is served with exploratory.

Operational Definition of the Decision

That every important decision should be expressed in a clear, sharp statement is an obvious requirement. That need may be obvious to readers, but in practice manager often make major decision without any precise definition of them. The concept of a decision should have been developing much earlier than the phase we now are discussing—that is before the exploratory studies at hand (in our example), a client can write a lucid and correct statement that frames the coming decision.

Various decision-making models may be found in decision science literature. Since a researcher is not responsible for that choice, we are not treating that subject. But researchers should learn how a client is going to make the decision on which they are working together, for the design of a conclusive study needs to be based on how the client has defined that decision. Researchers often have frustrations in eliciting this from a client. Often client do not want to spend the time or reveal just how they are going to make a decision; persistence is needed.

Assuming that there are no communication barriers, let us move on to our meaning of an “operational decision”. It would be one that is amply clear when applied to solving the problem. That decision definition should include these elements: (1) the decision’s objectives, (2) the hypothetical solutions that are to be considered, (3) the payoff or criteria on which the determination will be judged, and (4) any constraints that will limit the acceptable solutions.

All four of the elements in such a decision, that we prescribed, will be found in this decision statement.

When a mutually satisfactory statement is reached, the researcher can turn to determining the objectives for conclusive research.

Setting Objectives for Conclusive Research

This step accomplishes the last task covered in this phase and should prepare the researcher for designing a conclusive study (if one is to be done, which will be discussed shortly). As conclusive studies tend to be the major ones, their objectives deserve the most care.

The objectives’ statements needs to scope of define all aspects of the study that require planning. One of these is the limiting factors, obviously including how much time there is before decision deadline and the maximum that might be spent (at this point perhaps a guess). Most subtle limits might be the willingness of the client to use sophisticated analyses and detail. If the client’s demands for precision are known, this can substantially affect and plan and serve as an objective. The more vital objectives are those that describe what is required of the data to fit the decision needs. The data to be sought will be determined at a later stage, and here guidelines are being chosen for planning the specific data.