BUSINESS
RESEARCH
Arti Srivastava
• How does job satisfaction vary with work-life balance across different employee tenures?
• What factors most strongly correlate with employees’ intention to leave (turnover intention)?
• Is there a relationship between stress levels and employee absence rates?
• How do employees perceive the fairness of promotions, and what impact does this perception
have on their engagement and morale?
• Which specific skills or training opportunities do employees feel are lacking, and how does
the availability of these resources affect career satisfaction and growth intentions?
• What personal and organizational factors contribute to employees’ sense of belonging, and
how does this affect their long-term commitment to the company?
• How do employees perceive and respond to the company's approach to well-being and
mental health support, and what improvements would they suggest?
Qualitative Research Methods
- Provides understanding of complex human side of a phenomenon.
- Helps answer “how” and “why” questions?
- Effective in identification on intangible factors such as social
norms, gender roles underlying values
- Understanding people from their point of view, not yours.
- ” EVERYTHING IS DATA!”
Qualitative Research Methods
- Detail
- No right or wrong
- Not limiting the responses in categories
- Purposive recruiting followed by snowballing
- Homogenous group of people
- Tied to the researcher
“A good qualitative research study may simply begin with the
question, “What is going on here?” It will avoid early
hypotheses and definitions and instead will seek to
understand how participants define the situation.
Why do we need qualitative research?
Year 2009– A leading phone manufacturer had two different types of data available
Why do we need qualitative research?
Focus Group
- Moderators
- Setting up expectations and extracting information
- Questions (Engagement, Exploration, Exit)
- Respondents (8-10)
- Homogenous group of people
- Selectively recruited (Purposive/Snowball)
- Impact each other
Focus Group Moderators
- Break the ice
- Be flexible
- Take notes
- Paraphrase
- Open opportunities for everyone, probe, guide, direct, and interject
Focus Group Process
- Opening
- Describe the study
- Consent of the participants individually
- Introduction of the moderator and the note taker
- Highlighting that you are the moderator not an expert
- Prepare them for moderation
- Ground rules (Interruption, confidentiality, values and behavior)
- Participants introduction
- Icebreaker (Not necessarily)
- Build group dynamic
Focus Group Process
- Engagement and Exploration
- Conversational, Open ended
- Short, clear, and one dimensional
- Non-judgmental
- Non-dichotomous questions
- Pose questions to groups, not individuals
- Minimum intervention from the moderator
- General to specific or specific to general
- Begin with positive questions
- Follow but not stick to interview guide
Focus Group Process
- Exit
- Participants’ conclusion
- All things considered questions
- Summarizing key questions (Audience’s views)
- Main purpose of the study and what they think
Focus Group Process
- Exercises
- Lists (Make these interesting)
- Choosing among alternatives
- Magic potion
- Portrait
- Worst idea
Other Qualitative Data Collection
Methodologies
- Interviews
- Observations
- Participant journals and self-records
- Case Studies
- Ethnography
- Phenomenology
- Archival
- Internet
Interviews
- Most-used tool for ANY qualitative research– Don’t use for quantifying: that is a statistical process
- Structured, semi-structured, or unstructured interactions between an interviewer asking primarily
open-ended questions and a respondent or informant providing unscripted answers
- How many interviews?
- Individuals’ perspective on a topic or phenomenon
HOW MANY PEOPLE TO TALK TO
(SOURCE: GRIFFIN AND HAUSER 1993)
100%
90%
% of Total 80%
Needs 70%
60%
Identified
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
0
2
4
6
8
Number of People Interviewed
Before you begin
Interviewing • Clearly outline information required
• Know your respondent
Tips While you are at it
• Be careful how you start the interview
• Build rapport and trust
• Don’t give away study’s context and questions
• Pay attention
• The art of questioning
• Don’t ask whether someone wants ice cream
• No leading questions
• Probe and converse
• Capture actual behavior, experiences, and processes
• Dig for details
• Elicit stories
Eliminate your biases
Interviewing Techniques
- Narratives and story telling
- First time
- Last time
- Best case
- Worst case
- Comparison
- 5 whys
- Laddering
- A day in the life
Laddering
- Higher value abstractions and
underlying reasons
- From concrete to abstract
Projective Techniques
- Word Association
- Complete the sentence
- Third person technique
- Human or animal traits
Finish the following
sentence
- People who drive a Honda…
- Mercedes is a brand that…
- I saw a man coming out of a Hummer and he was…
Come up with personality traits or "human characteristics" for the villages as well as the cities
within in your area
Fruitzone India Ltd. (B)
You are invited to a party!
Harley Davidson
is throwing this party and
Nestle you are invited to it
Wildcraft
McDonalds
FedEx
Tommy Hilfiger
Tesla
Take some time to imagine this party:
- How excited you are at the prospect of going to the party?
- Where is this party being held?
- How would you dress for this party?
- Who will you take along for this party?
- What sort of a party it is (e.g. dinner party, cocktail party, tea party, surprise party, costume party etc.)
- What is the mood in the party when you arrive?
- What else do you first notice upon entering?
- What different types of people are at the party?
- The sort of music being played?
- The conversations you can overhear?
- What is good about the party – and what isn’t?
- Who is enjoying the party who isn’t – and why?
Take a day to put
together your
thoughts. You can
use…
- Words
- Pictures
- Music
- Description of party props
- And more
Go ahead… be creative
Each group will go to
party thrown by any
one brand
Prepare a presentation of no longer
than 2 mins to share this party
experience with us
