THE CHANGING ROLE OF AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH IN MODERN ORGANISATION

Abstract

During the last few decades, the use of exploratory and qualitative research have increased in many institutions. They have been used to explore several areas of human behavior for the development of organizations. The purpose of this study is to provide analysis for exploratory and qualitative research. Exploratory and qualitative research are conducted when enough is not known about a phenomenon and a problem that has not been clearly defined. Although, these research approaches generate ideas or hypothesis for later quantitative research, both qualitative and exploratory research are used to gain an in-depth understanding of human behaviour, experience, attitudes, intentions, and motivations, on the basis of observation and interpretation, to find out the way people think and feel. Scholars have critically opined that in some respects, both methodological and theoretical, in which these research approaches have frequently failed to live up to their appreciative commitment. They established that qualitative researchers have been less ready to seek to understand, and to represent in their own terms, the perspectives of those they regard as playing a more central or dominant social role, and/or those with whom they have little sympathy. In this way, a radical methodological principle of early qualitative research – the commitment to understanding or appreciation became compromised However, exploratory and qualitative research have been justified through their proponents. They argued that exploratory and qualitative research provide a more realistic feel of the world that cannot be experienced in the numerical data and statistical analysis used in quantitative research; it provides flexible ways of collecting, analysing, and interpreting data and information and; the use of primary and unstructured data gives qualitative research a descriptive capability.

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