Research Methods for Business: Methods and Challenges in Business Management

The study will be based on the various methods of business management practices used by different organization in keeping up with the competitive environment. The research however, will be based on a secondary research based on a post positivism philosophy with descriptive research design to evaluate and understand the gaps in the theoretical perspectives.

Running head: RESEARCH METHODS FOR BUSINESS
RESEARCH METHODS FOR BUSINESS
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AUTHORS NOTE

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Abstract
The study will be based on the various methods of business management practices
used by different organization in keeping up with the competitive environment. The research
however, will be based on a secondary research based on a post positivism philosophy with
descriptive research design to evaluate and understand the gaps in the theoretical
perspectives.
Therefore, the literature review conducted in the study will be based on the evaluation
of concepts of business strategies and management along with its impact on business
productivity and employee performance. The study will as be highlighting the challenges by
the employees while managing a business. Based on these factors, the research will be
conducted on several intensive and extensive secondary interview reports understand the
outcome of the research.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................4
1.1 Background.......................................................................................................................4
1.2 Aim....................................................................................................................................4
1.3 Research objectives...........................................................................................................4
1.4 Research questions............................................................................................................5
1.5 Hypothesis.........................................................................................................................5
2.0 Critical literature review......................................................................................................5
2.1 Business strategy...............................................................................................................5
2.2 Management......................................................................................................................6
2.3 Scientific Management theory..........................................................................................6
2.4 Challenges in business management.................................................................................7
2.5 Literature gap....................................................................................................................8
3.0 Research Methodology.........................................................................................................8
3.1 Research design.................................................................................................................8
3.2 Research approach............................................................................................................8
3.3 Research philosophy.........................................................................................................9
3.4 Data collection’.................................................................................................................9
4.0 Access to data and ethical issues..........................................................................................9
4.1 Timescale........................................................................................................................10
Reference list............................................................................................................................11

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Appendix..................................................................................................................................13
Appendix 1: Impact of effective management.........................................................................13

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1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background
In today’s global market of competition organization are required to collaborate and
interact with the consumers, stakeholders and the partners within a complex as well as
temporary supply chain of products. This activity provides the organization with several
challenges on their way. As a employee of business, the individual is required to play the
role of manager who wishes to pass areas of performance. This is due to the agile responses
in the fast changing external environment that is increasing market turbulence. In this
context, the newly developed business is very delicate and represents the interest of the
managers who are likely to recognize the success strategies in the emergence of business.
Research has reported that almost 50% of the business fails in the first four years
owing poor management activities. Therefore, the research study here focuses on different
strategies of business management used by the organization in establishing their business
towards success. The study also highlights the challenges faced by the employees while
managing business within the competitive market.
1.2 Aim
The aim of the research is to evaluate the impact and methods of business
management used by organizational owners in different organization. In this context, the
study also seeks to find out the challenges faced by the employees while managing the
business.
1.3 Research objectives
 To investigate the methods of business management used by the organizational owner
 To evaluate the theories related to business management practices
 To identify the challenges in management of business faced by the employees

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 To recommend strategies for mitigating the challenges in business management
1.4 Research questions
1. What are the methods of business management used by the organizations?
2. What are relevant theories and model associated with the management of business
practices?
3. What are challenges faced by the organizational employees while managing
business?
4. What are the ways to mitigate the challenges faced?
1.5 Hypothesis
H0: There is positive influence of effective business management practice on increasing
business productivity
H1: There is negative correlation between financial investment and management practices in
business
2.0 Critical literature review
2.1 Business strategy
A business strategy emphasizes on a certain field of business and recognizes an
effective approach to develop a beneficial position to compete with other business industries.
Rosemann and vom Brocke (2015) states another illustration of business strategy is that, it
focuses on the specific business unit and studies that helps to improve the competitiveness of
business. However, from the perception of business management there are various levels of
business strategies used by the business.
According to the view of Foss and Saebi (2017), academic classification shows that
there are various types of management strategies such as corporate strategies, business
strategy and functional method. In this context, formulation of business strategy needs the
development of business objectives, business capability and opportunities as well as

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challenges that place in the market. The objective of the research is to examine the
relationship among business environment and business management and the employees
working within organization.
Xi et al. (2015) reports that business organization tends to cooperate with the
upstream as well as downstream partners during the development of products as an effort to
manage business. In this context, Linnenluecke (2017) suggested that horizontal forma of
communication and exchange of data across different department can help to reduce
unpredictable risk occurring within the process of development and process of management
and will help in enhancing the performance of management employees (refer to appendix 1).
2.2 Management
Several authors of management interpreted the concept of management in a different
way. According to Wirtz et al. (2016) that the most effective type of management was the
one in which the employees provided their full efforts and in return they received a reward
from their employers. In support to this statement, Dawson (2014) said that with the
establishment of the administrative process of management, it started to be viewed as
process. In this context, he categorized the operations of management in three different
functions such as planning, organizing, authorizing, directing as well as management.
On the contrary to this, Kolk and Rivera-Santos (2018) referred management as the
method by which a group of cooperatives directs actions to other towards the achievement of
shared objectives. Again, according to Liñán and Fayolle (2015) management is the method
of organizing and decision making, leading and managing the organization’s human,
physical, financial and other resources and to improve the performance of the employees.
2.3 Scientific Management theory
According to Frederick W. Taylor promoted the specializing of management theory
suggesting that a workplace work needs to fragment into several sequence of smaller steps.

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He concluded that managers are required to assign job to their workers that matched their
ability and train them as well as supervise their work by ensuring the he efficiency of the
employees. However, Alvarez (2016) argued that Taylor’s focus was mostly on
accomplishing efficiency of the workplace rather he ignored the humanity of the individual in
favor of seeking the optimal way to complete a task. The theory of Taylor is not much
practiced nowadays.
Figure 1: Theoretical illustration of scientific management
(Source: Alvarez 2016)
2.4 Challenges in business management
Managers and entrepreneurs of business organization face several challenges while
managing their business. However, these challenges can be inclusive of several challenges
such as problems in financing, issues in creating and developing products that appeals
customers, identifying and retaining expertise employees, completion of the objectives and
keeping in line with the regulatory issues.
Rosemann and vom Brocke (2015) stated one of the major challenges faced while
managing a business is financing the resources,, running a successful business organization

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requires a huge amount of capital investment, particularly during the phase of startup.
Therefore, corporates are needed to rely on the interest and investment of shareholders. On
the contrary, managers of the company always face more or less challenges due to the federal
regulation of US laws as well as state laws.
2.5 Literature gap
The existing review of literature will be showing that some management theories c
contrasted from some of the theory of management premises. The general concept of
literature review is this that a successful system of management consists of four major parts
of business operations, planning, organizing, and controlling the process of management.
However, the exiting will be focusing on specific field of business management that
pose deficiencies in the existing literature f management due to the lack of different
management approaches used by employees at all levels. The research may not have
integrated methods of management due to lack of time thereby leaving a gap for future
research.
3.0 Research Methodology
3.1 Research design
To conduct this research a descriptive research design has been chosen to evaluate the
behavior of the management without influencing the way. These, research design will be used
to use to evaluate the natural behaviors of the management employees working in business
organization without having influencing them in any way (Bell et al. 2017). This will also be
used by the researcher to evaluate the habits and performance of the employees with the use
of the management method they use to judge the moral of the employees.
3.2 Research approach
A deductive approach will be used to develop a hypothesis based on the existing
theory of management and then framing the strategy of research for testing the strategy to

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examine the hypothesis. According to Möller and Parvinen (2015) it has been stated
deductive approach of reasoning can be used to use to test the relationship between different
theoretical factors to obtain a general circumstances. Deductive approach can be illustrated
by the means of derived hypotheses that is deduced from the propositions of theory. In other
words it can be said that this approach will be concerned with deducing conclusion from the
propositions of management.
3.3 Research philosophy
Post positivism research methodology will be used in conducting the research through
a scientific evaluation and common sense of reasoning to understand the gaps and errors in
theoretical perspective (Heisig et al. 2016). The objective of post positivist research
philosophy is to reveal the underlying the objective of the study by highlighting the original
facts of the study. The post positivism philosophy will help to determine the cause and effect
of management methods used in business through careful observations and investigation of
the process that are repeatable.
3.4 Data collection’
The data in this research will be collected through a secondary qualitative method of
research to understand the behavior and opinions of the employees about the impact of and
use of business management. Data will be collected from secondary resources such as online
journals, magazines, interview reports, and annual reports of different organization to
measure the impact of business management on the performance of the employees. The
theories as well will be derived from the different online sources and books.
4.0 Access to data and ethical issues
Secondary analysis of data refers to the utilization of existing source of data for
finding the answer to the questions that is contrasting from the original work. However,
secondary data collected in this study is based on extensive personal research and large scale

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interviews (Karatas‐Ozkan et al. 2014). Therefore, the fundamental ethical issues associated
with the secondary use of data remains constant as they have become more important with
the emergence of innovative technologies. Nowadays, sharing of data, compiling as well
storing of data have turned in to a much faster process. At the same time, there are increased
concerns about the confidentiality and security of the data that are being used in research
study (Fazey et al. 2014).
Concerns about secondary use of data shall be kept in mind while using range of
secondary data from various sources. However, if the collected data will not contain any
identified information or if it will be devoid of appropriate information that the researcher
does not have access to, then the research will not be reviewed by the ethical board. If the
data contains relevant information of the participants that could be associated with the
identified participants, the complete proposal will be reviewed by the board. In case if the
data are easily accessible in internet, books and other public resources, permission for further
used and analysis will be permitted by the authorities. However, the data collected from
various resources will be kept no longer than necessary for the purpose. Moreover, the
collected data will be kept safe from any unauthorized access and accidental incident. For
maintaining the security of the data it will be kept in hardcopies stored in locked cabinets and
soft copies will be kept safe as encrypted data in the computer.
4.1 Timescale
The specific research has been estimated to be completed within three months starting from
the month of September till the month of December 2018. However, the research will face
several problems due to the shortage of resources and shortage of time.
WEEKS
ACTIVITY
ACTIVITIES ALLOCATED PER WEEK
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Introduction:

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Drafting of
business
management
methods used in
organizations
Reading the
existing
literature
Drafting and
preparing the
research methods
Carrying out of
the Field
Research
Data Analysis
and
Interpretation
Research Write
up and
submission

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Reference list
Alvarez, J.L. ed., 2016. The diffusion and consumption of business knowledge. Berlin:
Springer.
Bell, E., Kothiyal, N. and Willmott, H., 2017. Methodology‐as‐technique and the meaning of
rigour in globalized management research. British Journal of Management, 28(3), pp.534-
550.
Dawson, J.F., 2014. Moderation in management research: What, why, when, and how.
Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(1), pp.1-19.
Fazey, I., Bunse, L., Msika, J., Pinke, M., Preedy, K., Evely, A.C., Lambert, E., Hastings, E.,
Morris, S. and Reed, M.S., 2014. Evaluating knowledge exchange in interdisciplinary and
multi-stakeholder research. Global Environmental Change, 25, pp.204-220.
Foss, N.J. and Saebi, T., 2017. Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: How
far have we come, and where should we go?. Journal of Management, 43(1), pp.200-227.
Heisig, P., Suraj, O.A., Kianto, A., Kemboi, C., Perez Arrau, G. and Fathi Easa, N., 2016.
Knowledge management and business performance: global experts’ views on future research
needs. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(6), pp.1169-1198.
Karatas‐Ozkan, M., Anderson, A.R., Fayolle, A., Howells, J. and Condor, R., 2014.
Understanding entrepreneurship: challenging dominant perspectives and theorizing
entrepreneurship through new postpositivist epistemologies. Journal of Small Business
Management, 52(4), pp.589-593.
Kolk, A. and Rivera-Santos, M., 2018. The state of research on Africa in business and
management: Insights from a systematic review of key international journals. Business &
Society, 57(3), pp.415-436.
Liñán, F. and Fayolle, A., 2015. A systematic literature review on entrepreneurial intentions:
citation, thematic analyses, and research agenda. International Entrepreneurship and

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Management Journal, 11(4), pp.907-933.
Linnenluecke, M.K., 2017. Resilience in business and management research: A review of
influential publications and a research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews,
19(1), pp.4-30.
Möller, K. and Parvinen, P., 2015. An impact-oriented implementation approach in business
marketing research: Introduction to the Special Issue on “Implementing Strategies and
Theories of B2B Marketing and Sales Management”. Industrial Marketing Management, 45,
pp.3-11.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer,
Berlin, Heidelberg.
Wirtz, B.W., Pistoia, A., Ullrich, S. and Göttel, V., 2016. Business models: Origin,
development and future research perspectives. Long range planning, 49(1), pp.36-54.
Xi, J.M., Kraus, S., Filser, M. and Kellermanns, F.W., 2015. Mapping the field of family
business research: past trends and future directions. International Entrepreneurship and
Management Journal, 11(1), pp.113-132.

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Appendix
Appendix 1: Impact of effective management