Qualitative Research in management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Qualitative Research in management - Essay Example This paper will begin with An Overview of Qualitative Research. There are generally two types of researches i-e., quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative research is structured methods aiming at quantifying the data using the statistical method. They designed to prove reliability, generalizability, and objectivity. Qualitative research on the other hand, is unstructured methods seeking to give insights and understanding of problems. These two types of research are based on different concept. For instance, qualitative research is based on social sciences trying to understand and explain behaviors in particular situations while quantitative research evolved in natural since seeking to find commonly laws, which show the relationship of cause and effect. Qualitative research is a method of social study that focuses on how people think, live, and behaves. It is used in different academic disciplines as well as in social science. In addition, it is also used to gain a depth und erstanding of people attitudes, culture, feelings, values and interests and their social reality as individuals or groups. Marshall and Rossman define qualitative research as â€Å"a form of social inquiry that focuses on the way people interpret and make sense of their experiences and the world in which they live. The decision to use qualitative or quantitative research depends on the nature of issue under investigation. For example, if research aims to investigate the effect of credit supply shocks on firms financial and investment decision, then quantitative research would be more appropriate.... Marshall and Rossman (1998) define qualitative research as â€Å"a form of social inquiry that focuses on the way people interpret and make sense of their experiences and the world in which they live. The decision to use qualitative or quantitative research depends on the nature of issue under investigation. For example, if research aims to investigate the effect of credit supply shocks on firms financial and investment decision, then quantitative research would be more appropriate. However, if the objective were to explore how people respond to government announcement of cutting jobs, then qualitative research would be the best in that case. Therefore, the question of which approach is good for the study depend on the nature of the subject. Although both qualitative and quantitative research has advantages and disadvantages but qualitative research is believed to provide very rich data for analysis. The study by Punch (2005) highlights that qualitative research has advantages of be ing explorative in nature. It is because it allows researchers to explore new ideas, concepts and get new insights. There is also consensus among researchers that it helps in gathering the data in natural and reliable setting, which is not possible in quantitative research. In addition, as qualitative research focus on individuals, group etc., therefore, it helps to gain detailed and complex information about the phenomena under study. It may be because of these advantages that lead researchers to pursue qualitative research especially in social science or when the subject of study is human being (Mack et al, 2005). As mentioned earlier, that qualitative research