RESEARCH ISSUES

LORI FRANZ, Feature Editor, Department of Management
University of Missouri-Columbia

BUSINESS RESEARCH: A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE

by Vincent A. Mabert, The Ohio State University

What is business research within a management setting? A simple textbook definition is difficult and probably inappropriate. Also, the simple definition would not give a flavor for what business research is or a feel of its range of applications. Rather, I will begin by giving a few examples of some common management enquiries. From these we can abstract some essence of research, how it is carried out, what it can do, and what it should not be expected to do.

EXAMPLE 1. The administration of your university is preparing for labor negotiations with its clerical staff. The Vice President of Human Resources asks you to provide some estimates on living costs in your area, where the university is located. Other universities and colleges are located in the state and the Vice President would like you to collect similar data for these locations. You consult with different sources and find both government and state labor statistics publish periodic information on cost-of-living in various metropolitan areas. You find the latest information in your local library and you write a memorandum showing the requested figures and submit the report to the Vice President. You also discuss specific community conditions that influence cost-of-living factors in each area.

EXAMPLE 2. Our second example takes place in the private sector of our economy. A wallpaper manufacturer is having trouble keeping profits up in a very competitive industry. The general manager feels that the material planning and inventory control system is one of the weak links in the company's operations. In this industry the many patterns, types of fabric and changing designer requirements make it easy for a firm to accummulate large inventories and yet be unable to fill specific customer orders. The general manager has asked you to investigate the situation and make recommendations to him.

The initial starting point of your investigation involves reviewing warehousing and shipping operations and the determination of why excessive sales losses and delivery delays are causing out of stock conditions. A survey of customers confirms the general manager's impressions of the inability to respond to their needs. Given the current emphasis on providing quick customer response under the Total Quality Management concept the organization is following, you conclude that the system does not provide prompt, quick and useful information to assist in production and inventory decisions.

After reviewing the results of your initial data collection effort, you investigate the latest inventory management techniques that might be applicable in designing a new material planning and inventory control system. More data is collected on a sample of product ordered, the frequeency of their orders, the cost of carrying inventory, the cost of replenishment/production orders and other pertinent data. You develop several designs for information planning and reporting systems and types of replenishment and production cycles which might be employed to improve performance. You next build a computer simulation model that mimics the flow of information and material through the order processing and production function. From this simulation you identify the most profitable alternative to managing the operations in the organization. Based upon your analysis, you recommend to the general manager that the company follow a specific procedure and justify your position from the expected dollar savings generated through the simulation analysis.

EXAMPLE 3. Let us return back to the university for our final example. Like many universities throughout the United States, enrollments have increased over the last couple of decades and significant congestion now exists on campus. Because of this fact, a strong desire exists to convert your campus to a pedestrian environment and limiting vehicle access. The university would like to open parking garages and lots on the perimeter of the campus and have shuttle buses run from these parking locations to the interior part of the campus. Both students, faculty, and staff would be expected to ride these buses into the core of the campus. Such a significant change in the traffic patterns of the campus life clearly would have significant implications to how people perceived the quality of their campus experience. The dean of faculty and the dean of students have approached you to conduct a study which would collect information from individuals about such a major change in the lifestyle of students, faculty, and staff. In particular, the following three questions are to be addressed in the study: (1) Would such a significant change increase or decrease the attractiveness of the campus to prospective students in the future? (2) Would the presence of a pedestrian campus dramatically alienate the current faculty since they have historically had more convenient access to their offices and classroom? (3) Would the presence of a pedestrian campus significantly handicap the efficient operations of various administrative units on campus to such a degree that operating costs would be significantly increased?

With study goals clearly articulated, you design a set of questionnaires to be sent to different segments of the campus community to gather information on the above questions. Using your extensive experience in the social sciences areas, you design questions with elaborate scales to measure respondent's preferences to different aspects of these important campus questions. The questionnaire is distributed, data are collected, data are analyzed and statistically evaluated. A report is written and the findings are sent to a campus committee.

The above three examples illustrate the breadth of applied research that can be conducted by individuals and/or organizations. In all three examples, there was a major decision motivating the need for inquiry. Today's managers in both private and public organizations have a growing need to understand scientific findings and incorporating them into their decision making. They also need to understand how applied research is conducted and how the gathered information/conclusions can be implemented in a more effective manner. Finally, they should be prepared to support research in a more scientific manner so that our body of knowledge grows and adds to our quality of life.

As faculty members at major research institutions throughout the United States, it is our duty to contribute to this growing body of knowledge by training qualified researchers and identifying new avenues of inquiry. For a business school, that avenue of inquiry should fall along a more applied direction. The three examples cited above illustrate common applied problems that organizations often face. Business research should have a practical problem-solving emphasis which is the critical feature of applied research. We should expect such studies to be closely related to actions or policy needs by organizations, public or private. It is in this respect that all three of these examples appear to qualify as applied research. Pure research is also a problem-solving endeavor but usually with a different focus. It is aimed at solving perplexing questions of a more theoretical nature that often have very little impact on actions or policies. Both applied and pure research are directed, but applied research leads us to a set of decisions that have more immediate impact.

I would argue that business faculty should be in the business of applied research and that should be their primary focus. Because of this position, all research should, therefore, be closely linked to applied problems in organizations like hospitals, manufacturing plants, universities, etc. Conducting pure research on business type problems is probably inappropriate and of little value given the professional focus of business education. I equate business research in the same dimension as engineering research. The engineering field has been recognized as being an applied field for decades and research in that area focuses upon taking ideas developed through pure research projects and finding practical applications in both the public and private sector. Developments in physics and chemistry have allowed engineers to design products to enhance our quality of life.

In a similar sense, business researchers should be taking theories and research information in psychology, sociology and mathematics and use them to enhance the quality of life by the more efficient utilization of our scarce human and natural resources that exist on our planet. To conduct more pure research is not our mission.

Therefore, the challenge I present to you is straightforward. For those of you who are at the beginning of your career, look to relevance with management decision making and see if your research stands that test. For the rest of us who are getting long-in-the-tooth, like myself, the challenge is different. We must lead by setting a good example for those who follow. Much of our research in the past has been of narrow focus and myopically limited in its applicability, probably leaning toward pure research. This needs to change and I feel the transition is slowly occurring. Business research is an applied field and we must retain our relevance to the real world if we are to make a lasting contribution to business education and the quality of our life.

VINCENT A. MABERT is chairperson and Professor of Operations Management at The Ohio State University.