The key to conducting any successful quantitative analysis in management lies in choosing a suitable research topic. A suitable research topic is one within which the problem of the study is clearly and unambiguously reflected. It thus follows that before deriving a suitable research topic one must first of all determine an appropriate research problem. An appropriate research problem is one which provides clear and unambiguous answers to the following key questions and steps:

 

1. What problem does your research intends to address? (if you have no answer to this question then there will be no need to conduct a research on it. Similarly, if the answer to this question is not crystal clear then the means of addressing it will not be clear)                  

2. Why is this problem relevant? (In other words, why should we care about this problem? Is the issue(s) it deals with currently contemporary, trending, emerging or considered important to a scholars or practitioners? – No need to re-invent the wheel if it is not broken)  

3. Which other prominent researchers have tackled this problem in the recent past? (Identify the most influential and recent papers which have studied the problem or a similar one. Almost every quantitative research problem has been dealt with in the past. Identify them. On very rare occasions you find a research problem that no one has dealt with in the past.)                                                                                                                                           

4. How have other studies failed to completely examine the problem in question? (what are the current gaps in the existing body of literature?)                                                               

5. How do you intend to contribute to literature by filling one or more of these gaps in extant research? (In other words, how would you design a study that would provide answers to questions pertaining to the gaps in literature you decide to fill, and why is such a study design appropriate?)                                                                                                                         

6. What are the primary variables involved in the research problem you have chosen? (In other words, identify the key variables as well as secondary ones, and identify their nature within the context of the research problem e.g: dependent, independent etc.)                              

7. Who is your target population and how do you intend to collect the appropriate data? (Where necessary, indicate an appropriate target population from which you intend to collect data to study the problem. Also, determine what sampling procedures you intend to use and determine which data collection instruments would be appropriate for collecting your data.)                                                                                                                                                   

8. Write a research topic (Your research topic should be no more than 9 words and should clearly capture your research problem and primary variables)

 

 

CALL TO ACTION: Now it’s your turn. Use the 8 steps outlined above to develop a suitable research topic for your research. Submit your topic using the button below

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(Culled from SW)