Significance of Research in Social and Business Sciences
According to a famous
Hudson Maxim, “All progress is born of inquiry. Doubt is often better than
overconfidence, for it leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to invention”. It
brings out the significance of research, increased amounts of which makes
progress possible. Research encourages scientific and inductive thinking,
besides promoting the development of logical habits of thinking and
organization.
The role of research in
applied economics in the context of an economy or business is greatly
increasing in modern times. The increasingly complex nature of government and
business has raised the use of research in solving operational problems.
Research assumes significant role in formulation of economic policy, for both
the government and business. It provides the basis for almost all government
policies of an economic system. Government budget formulation, for example,
depends particularly on the analysis of needs and desires of the people, and
the availability of revenues, which requires research. Research helps to
formulate alternative policies, in addition to examining the consequences of
these alternatives. Thus, research also facilitates the decision making of
policy-makers, although in itself it is not a part of research. In the process,
research also helps in the proper allocation of a country’s scare resources.
Research is also necessary for collecting information on the social and
economic structure of an economy to understand the process of change occurring
in the country. Collection of statistical information though not a routine
task, involves various research problems. Therefore, large staff of research
technicians or experts is engaged by the government these days to undertake
this work. Thus, research as a tool of government economic policy formulation
involves three distinct stages of operation which are as follows:
· Investigation of
economic structure through continual compilation of facts
· Diagnoses of events
that are taking place and the analysis of the forces underlying them; and
· The prognosis, i.e.,
the prediction of future developments
Research also assumes a
significant role in solving various operational and planning problems
associated with business and industry. In several ways, operations research,
market research, and motivational research are vital and their results assist
in taking business decisions. Market research is refers to the investigation of
the structure and development of a market for the formulation of efficient
policies relating to purchases, production and sales. Operational research
relates to the application of logical, mathematical, and analytical techniques
to find solution to business problems such as cost minimization or profit
maximization, or the optimization problems. Motivational research helps to
determine why people behave in the manner they do with respect to market
characteristics.
More specifically, it is concerned with the analyzing the
motivations underlying consumer behaviour. All these researches are very useful
for business and industry, which are responsible for business decision making.
Research is equally
important to social scientist for analyzing social relationships and seeking
explanations to various social problems. It gives intellectual satisfaction of
knowing things for the sake of knowledge. It also possesses practical utility
for the social scientist to gain knowledge so as to be able to do something
better or in a more efficient manner. This, research in social sciences is
concerned with both knowledge for its own sake, and knowledge for what it can
contribute to solve practical problems.
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