Research methodology and Findings
Methodology
The main methodology chosen to conduct the required research is explained in detail in this chapter with reference to the actual source of information from the corresponding primary sources and secondary sources. The research methodology main includes few aspects like the research philosophy implemented and the range of usage done against the primary source of information and secondary source of information and all the aspects followed in this context are given in this chapter. Different ways followed to gather the required source of information and the tools used to analyze this information are discussed in detail in this section. Different research approaches chosen are analyzed in this chapter along with the required reasoning to choose a particular philosophy or approach is also given in this chapter. Research strategies are play an important role in understanding the key strategy implemented to gather the primary source of information and the actual strategy implemented in this context is explained in detail in this chapter as below.
Research philosophy
Research philosophy can be defined as the process followed to understand or gain the required knowledge on a particular problem area considered. All the required steps implemented to gain the knowledge and understand the nature of knowledge are well covered across the research philosophy aspects. Research philosophy main deals with the assumption based approach and it purely depends on the view of the researcher against the key research problem considered. The basic inputs to the research philosophy are not dependent on any published content or class room trainings and the main input to develop the required research philosophy is the nature and behavior of the researcher and the way he or she looks in to the problem considered and ends up with few assumptions against the research process.
Always the researcher will choose the best way to understand the problem considered and then the required analysis on the research problem is done as per the assumptions and few facts that were gathered from different sources and there is no clear and accurate structure to the philosophy in most of the cases. All the required data is gathered based on the beliefs and assumptions and the corresponding analysis is done against the data gathered. Doxology and Epistemology are the basic types of research philosophy and one can chose these types based on the nature of the data being gathered against the research process. The basic difference in this context is that doxology deals with the data that is believed to be true, where Epistemology has the logic in analyzing the data that was gathered by knowing what is true(Bolt,2011). Apart from these two types there are few other important categorizes that fall under research philosophy and they are explained as below.
Positivism
As discussed in the previous section research philosophy is all about the assumptions and beliefs and in this context positivism deals with the data which is believed to be real and accurate. Few important aspects like the stability of the reality is also considered across positivism and also it is assumed the reality considered is stable across the process of the research. There is a major assumption considered in this context and it is that the researcher always believe that the observations gained from the research is constant and they are repeated till the end of the research and they remain for a long time. Based on the research objectives identified there could be some modifications to the reality across the positivism and these modifications are done against the key aim and objective of the research and they are not met then the corresponding manipulations to the reality are encouraged through the desired assumptions.
Always a cross verification to the observations is done against the reality based on few aspects like sense and general knowledge of the researcher. All the predictions considered should be explained against the reality and for this purpose a detailed level of subject inquiry is done across the positivism research philosophy. True results should be achieved against the positivism assumptions all the time and this type of philosophy is well suited for natural and physical sciences.
Interpretivism
Interpretivism is also another important type of research philosophy and this concept can be considered to be quite opposite to the positivism. It can be considered as the critic to the positivism and the complete implementation procedure is different from the positivism. In general the solutions to the complex business problems can be derived using the interpretivism and deals with the facts behind the reality and proposed the simple solution across the research problem considered. Different interpretations are imposed by different people involved in the research and thus based on these interpretations the corresponding solution is derived using the interpretivism.
There is no scope for the assumptions across this type of research philosophy and interpretivism has no defined history across the research and this purely depends on the maximum interpretations done towards the research problem considered and places quite opposite interpretations that were derived using the positivism. Based on the maximum interpretations derived from the different people involved in the research the core objectives and aim of the research can be modified where it is quite opposite with the case with the positivism and to derive the basic aim of the research interpretivism holds two other important aspects like phenomenology and hermeneutics. Thus across most of the researches proposals interpretivism is implemented and proved to a successful research philosophy.
Realism
Realism differs with the positivism and interpretivism in terms of the logic implemented to solve the research problem and in general realism should follow the core rules of sociology. All the hidden facts behind research problem are considered as major inputs for the realism and this deal with only the real and proved facts and these facts are considered across realism. Realistic analysis to the research problem explored across this research philosophy and this analysis will lead to the accurate and optimal solutions to the research problem and the main disadvantage with this approach is that will all the real facts sometimes the research is paused forever and in most of the cases this is not preferred except the proved phenomenon’s .
Research philosophy implemented in this research
Interpretivism is used as the research philosophy in this project as it is always required to interpret the things rather than the simple assumptions. As the main aim of this research is to evaluate the importance of HR outsourcing, few managers and employees should be interviewed and also their interpretations on the research area are considered to derive the solution.
In general the HR outsourcing will include different tasks and all the tasks should be critically evaluated where the scope for assumptions like in the case of positivism and realism is not possible and thus always interpretative is the best suited research philosophy in this context. Different areas of HR outsourcing like staffing, employee welfare and payroll should be analyzed and these aspects are gathered from the different managers and employees and their opinion towards the HR outsourcing should be interpreted to proceed with this research.
Different research approaches
In general research approaches are used to proceed with the research and the approach implemented in this context plays an important role in estimating the quality of the research done. There are different types of research and key among them are inductive and deductive and they are explained as below
Inductive research approach
A set of observations are used for the inductive research and these observations plays the role of input for the inductive research and in general a bottom up approach is followed in this context. This inductive approach is composed of four important steps and these steps when implemented in a sequence it will form the basic structure to the inductive research and they are as listed below
- Observation
- Pattern
- Tentative hypothesis
- Theory
These four steps should be followed to form the inductive research approach and in general each and every step has a significant role in proceeding with the research. The core foundations to the inductive approach are formed with the qualitative research methodology and all the important aspects involved in the qualitative approach are covered across this inductive research approach.
A simple case study can be chosen to derive the hypothesis for the inductive research approach and thus the qualitative methodology issues are well dealt with the inductive research approach. The required information is gathered from different sources like interviews, questionnaires and semi structure interviews with the inductive approach and this information is analyzed further to derive the facts that resembles the solution for the research problem considered.
Few observations are derived from the data gathered from different sources and based on these observations the required research patterns are obtained which in turn acts as the input for tentative hypothesis and finally the desired theory is proposed based on the analysis done from the considered hypothesis and with this the inductive research approach can be concluded.
Deductive research approach
The basis of the deductive research approach depends on the theory which is quite opposite to the inductive research approach. A specific research point is considered and it is proved against the theory considered and this approach involves lot of theoretical content and a simple top down approach is implemented across the deductive research approach. If the research process involves a large sample size then this deductive research approach is chosen and this is similar to the quantitative research methodology and the required source of information is collected from conducting the surveys against the large sample size.
If a general theory required some testing aspects then the deductive research is implemented and based on the large set of data gathered the required empirical investigation is done to prove the theory considered. A complete reverse direction is followed in terms of the four stages of the inductive approach where the first step in the deductive research is theory and the last step is observations based on the theory.
Required hypothesis is done once the theory is built and later the required research patterns are developed and from these patterns the observations are concluded across the deductive approach. Few statistical analysis is done to prove the theory considered against the observations and thus in all the cases the deductive approaches is not suited expect the theoretical sciences.