Term Paper on "Business Research the Issues of Data"

Term Paper 4 pages (1875 words) Sources: 2 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Business Research

The Issues of Data in Business Research

The use of primary research methods to gain insights into consumer trust of online e-tailers, the ethical decision making styles and implications on career strategies of it professionals, and the implications of organizational climate on minimizing the turnover of it professionals are only a small sampling of the many areas where business research is in use today. The use of both primary and secondary forms of research are discussed in this paper, which specific focus on the use of primary research to gain highly specific and targeted insights into areas of interest. Within this paper the strengths and weaknesses of both primary and secondary research are analyzed with respect to ascertaining how online consumers grant and keep trust in e-tailers, and the role of organizational climate on it professionals' ethics, job performance, and longevity with an organization.

Selection of Hypotheses and Research Strategies

The end result of business research is to provide frameworks, insights and valuable lessons learned to guide the development of more finely tuned and aligned strategies to accomplish a business objective. In the case of academic research that focuses on a commonly held business problem, the example of which is the quantification of trust in online retailers for example, the academicians' contributions to business strategies are far more significant in that they are foundational to change. With the research objective defined, the definition of whether primary, secondary or both methods of research will be completed. In the article an Empirical Study of the Causal Antecedents of Customer Confidence in E-Tailers the secondary research is used for creating a framework that will eventually be used for completing primary research which will eventually prove to disprove the hypothesis of this specific study (Krishnamurthy, 1). The hypotheses in this specific study however are too limited only to the proven causal factors as defined in the secondary research, and as a result they appear to reflect the past rather than attempt to define the future. An example of this is the confusion in the first hypothesis, which states the greater the ease of use, the greater the confidence a consumer will have in a website. Immediately following this statement is the comment that firms who are successful with their websites attempt to build long-term relations with consumers rather than focusing on transactions. Now it's clear that ease of use is critical for any consumer to want to even visit a site again, yet there is no causality in the definition of ease of use and long-term customer relationships. One is purely mechanical (ease of use) while the second is entirely personal and more attuned to personalization at the front of a purchasing cycle online and earned trust through perfectly executed transactions on the other. The hypotheses in this article (Krishnamurthy, 1) need significant re-work before having a full primary research methodology created to test them, as each of these six hypotheses are so inward-centric for the e-tailer, looking in effect to test potential strategies that the word "trust" only appears in one of the six alone. There is little concern shown for the online customer and what they want in this list of hypotheses, it is instead a listing of strategies and tactics online e-tailers can take in the hope of bringing customers closer to them. Instead, the hypotheses defined need to center more on how consumers process their interpretations of websites, how they create their own trust frameworks internally, the implications of word of mouth on trust of websites, and ultimately, how much just one transaction completed successfully increases trust. Conversely the author does nothing to measure what detracts from trust. This is a fatal design error in the entire research of the article (Krishnamurthy, 1). Figuring out how customer impart trust in an online e-tailer is infinitely more important that simply measuring the many strategies as defined in this set of hypotheses.

In the study of Organizational Commitment (OC), its role on the selection of ethical behaviors of it professionals, and the apparent mercurial nature of it professional's longevities with companies they work for the article Organizational commitment and ethical behavior: An empirical study of information system professionals also has it share of glaring omissions in the definition of hypotheses that will in turn define and drive research strategies (both primary and secondary) for their fulfillment (Oz 1). First and foremost, there is no measure of the relative level of commitment and loyalty to the it profession itself; in fact many other studies of the relative high turn-over of it professionals have to do more with task ownership than ethics. Second, the OC of any organization is directly linked to the transparency and trustworthiness of its senior management. As it professionals and the it function of organizations are considered one of the process areas that can be outsourced with minimal disruption of the core business, it professionals have been known to create applications so complex their organizations have no choice but to hold onto them. This dynamic of employee trust and willingness to product software applications that are self-sufficient is a fascinating one. The hypothesis of how high the level of trust is that it professionals have of their management teams and their willingness to produce self-sufficient code in programs also needs to be tested. In effect (Oz 1) may be measuring the propensity of it professionals to successfully design in planned software obsolescence to protect their own jobs, and may not even be aware of it. The dynamics of the study however certainly point in that direction, with high turnover a presumed factor in the sampling frame (may lead to sample error), the hypotheses focused on the implications of ethical organizations creating ethical it professionals, and the overall myopic nature of how the study has been structured to prove that a lack of OC and ethics leads to bad software. Nothing is mentioned about measuring where the it professionals are in their career aspirations, and their progression, in their own opinions, along their own career paths. The lack of insight into defining hypotheses in the entire area of it professionals and their perspectives makes the study appear myopic, very inwardly-centric in scope.

In summary, both studies (Krishnamurthy, 1) and (Oz 1) suffer from serious limitations. The first one has hypotheses that appear to be e-tailers' strategies that are being tested, with little focus on the emotional, cognitive and perceptual frameworks that online customers use for validating and becoming loyal to online sites. Most troubling is the focus on how to in effect present an e-tailing website with enough functionality to "earn" trust. The researcher completely misses the point that earning trust is a long-term process and as a result a model of change must evolve from the research. Ultimately the researchers falls victim to a "one and done" mentality with the study when in fact the discovery of a process by which e-tailers can gain trust must be discovered and ascertained from the research, not just a series of strategies. Most glaring, the researcher fails to attempt measure what erodes trust. On the second study the myopic nature of hypotheses and quite frankly, stereotypes of it professionals, make the study nearly unusable for planning how to gain greater levels of software quality because it neglects to look at the perceptions and attitudes of the it professionals themselves. Designing in obsolescence to protect their jobs in uncertain organizations, or even stable organizations that are seen as untrustworthy, could all be reasons for designing applications that will need constant support and care.

Creating Research Plans That Lead to Action

From the studies evaluated, it's clear that even after they are completed, the actions that would be taken by e-tailers would not be any more successful than what they are doing today, and in the case of managing it professionals, there would be little improvement in programming. In the case of e-tailers the strategies tested would validate that they are effective business strategies yet there would be no new framework of how consumers impart trust into an organization, or worse, lose trust in it either. In the case of the it professionals it is feasible to assume that there would be a much more careful selective screening process to measure the propensity of it professionals to have high levels of organizational commitment. Yet ironically this second study suffers from the fatal flaw of the first: it fails to measure how trust is earned and retained. In this second study, the it professionals' propensity to impart trust in their organizations. What actually needs to be measured is how it professionals begin to trust organizations, and the nature of human resources strategies that maintain and grow that trust. Because neither of these studies actually look at the processes by which trust is earned, maintained, and grown, the organizations that rely on them will be either reinforced in their existing strategies or will begin their journeys to earn online customers trust (in the… READ MORE

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