SCIENTIFIC METHODS

Management initiates and determines the activities of an enterprise. It makes plants, offices, computers, materials, and equipment productive through human effort. It gives competence and effectiveness to organizations in rendering goods and services to society. The aims of the management are to motivate the employees in the organization to achieve a high degree of work performance in competitive situations, utilize resources efficiently, and to provide high quality goods and services. In trying to achieve these aims, the manager faces many hurdles and problems, which he needs to, overcome and solve. He does this by taking appropriate decisions.

 A decision-making situation is one in which a manager is faces with a number of possible courses of action to solve a problem and a number of possible states and conditions of problem situations, which arise with uncertainty. The manger, in order to be effective, has to choose the curse of action which is the most suitable against a set of criteria (like minimum cost and maximum profit in a particular situation though in practice there may be other criteria).The procedures for decision making in an organization range from simple rules to complex analysis, individual decision-making to group decision making, from application of precedence and experience to considerable amount of enquiry and investigation.

Defining Research

Research is defined as a systematic, self-critical enquiry. The enquiry is aimed at understanding a thing or phenomenon or solving a problem. When an enquiry is aimed at understanding, it is practical or commercial use. When the enquiry is aimed at applying the available knowledge for practical or commercial use, for solving a problem faced in practice, it is termed as applied research.

Research is a systematic enquiry, whether scientific or otherwise. Scientific research, on the other hand, employing scientific method, (to be dealt with later in the chapter) has well defined objectives and methods, generates dependable data, reliable and unambiguous findings, and justifiable conclusions.