How to Do Research for the Award of Ph.D. Degree in Management Studies?

The goals of Ph.D. research

The main aim of effort for Ph.D. award is new knowledge creation. The insights should be useful to the industry or academic community. It should bridge the gap between what the current knowledge is and what knowledge is required. It should clear the suspicions or find answers to major questions which have been lingering in the minds of practitioners and academics for quite long. These questions are called dilemmas or hypotheses .

What does not qualify to be called research for Ph.D.:

!. "ollection of material from different sources and writing a voluminous book does not qualify to be called Ph.D. research . Ph.D. research is not about writing a book. #. $riting a thesis based on a few books or a few newspaper articles or internet sites is not Ph.D. research. %. Ph.D. is not a survey with some questions & like 're you married( )ow many children have you( )ow long are you employed( $hich soap do you prefer( *or some kind of form+ filling feedback. The research should use standard instruments &also called measures, scales, standard scales and published scales*.

How to Go About Research for Ph. D. in Management Studies?

!. The researcher has to do e-tensive literature review. he has to download as many as /00 research articles from online libraries like1 ebscohost, emeraldinsight, proquest, jostor etc. & If you don t know how to get access to these web libraries, contact me on mobile1 0+23434!0!!*The primary purpose of literature review is1 identification of research gaps. It means that you have to understand where e-tant research has stopped or what is left unresearched. The gap so found can be converted into hypotheses. #. )ypotheses +framing &hypotheses formulation or identification of hypotheses* is the most critical part of research. )ypotheses are the research questions or dilemmas that the academic community is faced with and are waiting to be resolved by a scholar like you.

%. ' hypothesis looks like a question. 5or e-ample, 're women more satisfied than men on their jobs( is a hypothesis. This is just an e-ample. &This might have already been resolved by a research scholar like you.* Ideally, a Ph.D. thesis should comprise resolution of !0+/0 most critical and interesting hypotheses. 4. 6iterature review reveals to you what hypotheses were already resolved and you don t have to solve again. 6iterature does not mean anything that you find in the newspapers, maga7ines, websites, te-tbooks etc. 6iterature should primarily comprise the articles made based on empirical research. 8mpirical research is the one done based on e-periments, observations and data collected with scientifically+developed research instruments. 9esearch articles are found in scholarly journals, particularly online journals carried by online libraries like emeraldinsight, jstor, proquest, ebscohost etc. /. 6iterature review, if diligently done, will provide the researcher with a proper background of his research for logical documentation. The background presented in the thesis will e-plain how the subject or research question evolved or how it was understood till now, where it stands now and what the researcher is going to do on that. :. 6iterature review gives1 &!* research questions; hypotheses,&#* justification for the study; research topic. <. It is needless to say that research topic should be identified only after e-tensive literature review. It is quite sad that the universities ask for research topic and hypotheses at the time of application for enrolment itself &at a time when the candidate did not read even a single research article yet*. Ideally, the universities should have identified research questions;hypotheses. but it is never the case with our universities over here. 3. $hile doing literature review, the important findings should be noted. These notes are the main part of the thesis under heads like1 introduction, background, literature review, etc. 'll the referred articles should be properly listed under 9eferences. There should be cross linkages between the articles noted in the references list and te-t in the thesis. $hat you note in the main te-t is called in+te-t citation . It means that if you have something in the list of references, it should appear in the main te-t. In+te-t citation looks like &for e-ample*1 &=eesala, #0!!*. This should be e-panded in the references list. The way these references are noted is called , academic referencing style , academic format , academic style etc. 2. The referencing style follows certain order in noting authors names, year of publication etc. and also the punctuation. 9ead the information by >oogling. There are many academic formats like )arvard style, 'P' style, =6' style, "=? style etc. !0. 9eferencing for your thesis is very easy if you are familiar with how to use 9eferences in =? $ord #00<. If you don t know how to use, you can visit me and I will give you a brief tutorial for a small fee.

Help and Services fro

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If you want research articles, they will be supplied to you for a fee. If you want a personal tutorial on hypotheses identification, you are welcome to visit me. I can give you a short tutorial on how to write references list in line with a standard format. I also give the end+to+end & complete* guidance on Ph.D. till award.

What To Do "fter #dentification $f Hypotheses%

If there are no hypotheses identified, there is no research at all. 9esearch on management issues is about resolving the hypotheses, not book+writing, mind you. )ypotheses formulation is followed by research design. 9esearch design is about determining how to collect the data &primary data*. $hen hypotheses are clearly identified, the constructs are clearly identified and available in your hands. &8-amples for constructs are 1 personality type, job satisfaction, engagement, commitment, and innovative behavior*. In your research based on your hypotheses, you may have to deal with !/ to #0 constructs. 5or each construct, there is a specific, standard, published instrument & also called questionnaire ,measure , or scale *. 'n instrument is a set of questions whose reliability and validity are already established. @isit this site for some scales. This is an e+handbook of management scales. http1;;en.wikibooks.org;wiki;)andbookAofA=anagementA?cales Bou can find many marketing scales in one book if you are affiliated to a big library like the one in Indian ?chool of Cusiness. ?earch >oogle for D=arketing ?calesE. $hat to do if ready research scales are not found in the published journals;books( It is not possible to find a scale for every construct that is related to your research. Bou have to construct the scale yourself. The process is1 &!* conduct a meeting of some e-perts, and with their help, generate as many statements as possible, on that particular construct. Delete all the duplicates. $ith the remaining items, conduct a pilot survey. Do item analysis by arranging all the responses to an

item in ascending order and finding t+statistic for two groups of e-treme responses. If the t+value is !.</ or more, the item is good and can be retained. 'fter that, for all the items in the construct, find out Cronbachs alfa. If the Cronbachs alfa is more than 0.:0, the construct is reliable. 9eliability means that the items &statements in the questions* are well+correlated. It is the average of item+to+item correlations. I can find out "ronbach s alfa for your constructs, if you give your data in an 8-cel sheet. 5urther, the researcher has to work out "ontent @alidity Inde-. If the inde- is more than 4.00, the scale can be considered a valid scale. ?earch google for content validity inde-. It should be noted with care, that questionnaire should relate to hypotheses but not any questions that occur to an innocent researcher s mind. The instrument, of course, should contain a section consisting of questions about the respondents profile like age, gender, income, length of service etc. The data on these items can be checked for their relationship with other constructs.

Deter ination of Sa ple Si&e

?ample means the number of respondents from whom the responses on the questionnaires should be taken &with how many respondents the questionnaires are to be administered*. ?ample si7e should be large enough. The number may be in the range of #00 to !000. ' large sample only is valid and valuable. The research done on a large sample only earns the respect of academics and research scholar community. ?ample si7e is determined by the si7e of the population, e-pected standard deviation, and confidence interval. There are formulae for sample determination. They are1 "ocheran s formula and ?lovin s formula. 5or learning about them, google+search those terms and use the formulae. Fne important point to note is that the validity of your research is improved by randomi7ed sample but not by selection of respondents by convenience. If you want me to determine the sample si7e for you, you can meet me for a discussion or call on my mobile for free advice.

Tabulation and "nalysis

'll the collected responses should be entered in an 8-cel ?heet. Fne row should be allotted to enter the data given in one questionnaire. 5or /00 filled questionnaires, /00 rows should be allotted. Data entered in 8-cel sheet can easily be imported into ?P?? for analysis. The tabulation of data is made easier by use of =? 8-cel. 5or a tutorial, meet me by an appointment. ' small fee is charged. 5or high quality analysis, use ?P?? &?tatistical Procedures for ?ocial ?ciences*. 8ven without ?P?? software too, alternatively, Data 'nalysis Tool Pack in =? 8-cel can be used. $ith the help of this, descriptive statics, regression analysis, inter+correlations, 'nova tests etc. can be done. 5or ?P?? analysis, you can meet me and get the analysis done.

'eport (Writing
I can give a tutorial on making table of contents, thesis statement, tie+in;transitional phrases, tie+ in words, topic sentence etc. I can also arrange 8nglish grammar corrections for a fee.