Purposes Of Social Research Research Articles

Social Research Methods and Methodologies

This article examines the methods and methods of social research. Social research is an activity carried out to search for explanations of a particular social situation. This article involves systematic data collection to understand patterns and changes in social conditions. The purpose of social research as a project is to transform the researcher's social science knowledge into social science skills. Social research, in-depth interviews, participant observation, non-participant observation, focus group discussions, case studies, grounded theory, etc. are some of the data collection methods in social research. The paper describes the nature of the study, theoretical stance, and research design including action research, naturalistic research, and ethnographic research, research design, interpretation, and ethical considerations. In this article, we considered case studies and participant observation as more reliable methods than other methods. Direct involvement of researchers in the subject area increases the level of reliability and usefulness of data in social research.

Re‐aligning the Stakeholders in Management Research: Lessons from Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology

The publication of the Starkey and Madan (2001) report represents a timely and valuable contribution to an ongoing debate across a range of applied disciplines, concerning the nature and purpose of social research. The call for stakeholder alignment, culminating in the production of new knowledge that is both theoretically and methodologically rigorous on the one hand, and socially relevant on the other, is, in our view, to be greatly welcomed. However, the Mode 2 approach advocated by Starkey and Madan will not satisfy these fundamental requirements. Drawing on recent analyses of the nature, causes and consequences of the academic‐practitioner divide in the subfield of industrial, work and organizational psychology, we offer an alternative, four‐fold taxonomy of the varieties of managerial knowledge. Within our alternative framework, research that is low on rigour but high on relevance (a likely consequence of the wholesale adoption of a Mode 2 approach) is characterized as ‘Popularist Science’. ‘Pedantic Science’, by contrast, is high on rigour but low on relevance, while ‘Puerile Science’ meets neither requirement. Only ‘Pragmatic Science’ will meet the twin imperatives of rigour and relevance. Whilst it is highly desirable that Pragmatic Science should dominate the management field, there are considerable barriers that impede its widespread adoption at the present time, not least the limited availability of researchers who possess the requisite sociopolitical and methodological competencies. The immediate imperative that has to be addressed, therefore, is the question of how best to close this competency gap, a fundamental precondition of stakeholder realignment.

The Design, Application and Future Development of the F.T.-Actuaries Index

SynopsisNow that the original Actuaries Investment Index has been replaced by the F.T.-Actuaries 500 Share series, the Authors felt it appropriate to prepare a sequel to their earlier paper “Investment Policy and Index Numbers” submitted in 1956.The first part of the paper deals with the selection of the constituents and of the groups for the Equity indexes, and with the methods of averaging and weighting that are used.The new index with its wide coverage and its daily quotation represents a considerable advance over the earlier Actuaries and F.T. series and should be widely used for checking portfolio performance and for determining investment policy. Representing as it does the experience of a large and comprehensive sample of U.K. industry the index display should be of considerable application for long-term historical studies and for purposes of social research and national economic planning.Suggestions are made for extending the index coverage so as to include items such as the asset value, the cash flow, the stock level and the capital expenditure as used for investment analysis.In the final section entitled “Investment Analysis by Computor” the Authors draw attention to the value of the index statistics for investment analysis. These statistics might be used to build up data from which a form of investment analysis by computor could be developed.Altogether the question of further development of the index coverage and of making proper use of the statistics is a most fruitful field for further research by members of the profession.