Research Methodology (GRAV001)

This is an activity course dedicated to acquiring practical experience in planning a research project, designing questionnaires, sampling, statistically analyzing research data, interpreting results and preparing a research report.

The course introduces students to the main research methods used in business and management research. The course is designed to provide students with a solid knowledge and skill basis for conducting their own (MSc) research and to learn them to critically evaluate and interpret other academic research. The course presents the fundamentals of the research process, and will cover qualitative and quantitative research methods, using both primary and secondary data. The knowledge and competencies acquired in this course will enable students to make informed methodological decisions regarding the design, planning, execution and interpretation of the research for their MSc thesis.

During this course, you will:

• Understand the relevance of research in managerial decision- making.
• Have a critical awareness of research issues, methodologies, and methods used in business and management as well as an understanding of potential ethical problems of the research
• Obtain skills to identify a business problem/need, translate it into a research question, and design an appropriate way to answer it.
• Develop skills to identify and understand the main qualitative and quantitative strategies of research, of their advantages and disadvantages and of appropriate application areas.
• Develop skills to design a research project and collect data.
• Obtain skills to analyze data and draw reasonable interpretations as well as communicate research findings in a clear and well-organized way.
• Develop skills to critically evaluate the quality of other researchers’ findings and the process used to obtain them.