The nature of research problems could vary. Problems may refer to some undesirable situation or these may refer to simply a curiosity of the researcher that may be agitating his or her mind. For example, in a recent BA/BS examination of the Punjab University 67 percent of the students failed. That is a colossal wastage of the resources, hence an undesirable situation that needs research to find a solution. The researcher may come up with a variety of reasons that may relate with the students, the teachers, the curricula, the availability of books, the examination system, the family environment of the student, and many more. So a study may be carried out diagnose the situation, and the recommendations to be applied to overcome the undesirable situation of mass failure of students. In the same examination result one finds that girls have captured a good number of top positions; and that is happening for the last couple of years. One gets curious and tries to do research for finding out the reasons. This is an academic problem but certainly a research problem. Conducting such research offers the pleasure of solving a puzzle. Why the girls are catching most of the top positions in different examination? This might be a puzzle that the research may like to explain. Such findings make a good contribution to the body of knowledge i.e. making some good discoveries as part of the basic research. Finding answer to any enigma is self satisfying.
The researchers try to make use of their findings for generating theories and models that could be used for understanding human behavior and the functioning of different structures both at the micro (organizational) and macro (societal) level. Therefore, research may be considered as an organized, systematic, data based, critical, objective, scientific inquiry or investigation into a specific problem, undertaken with the purpose of finding answers or solutions to it. In this way research provides the needed information that guides the planners to make informed decisions to successfully deal with the problems. The information provided could be the result of a careful analysis of data gathered firsthand or of the data that are already available with an organization.
The value of research for policy makers, planners, business managers, and other stakeholders is that it reduces uncertainty by providing information that improves the decision-making process. The decision making process associated with the development and implementation of a strategy involves four interrelated stages:
1. Identifying problems or opportunities;
2. Diagnosing and assessing problems or opportunities;
3. Selecting and implementing a course of action; and
4. Evaluating thee course of action.
Identifying problems and solutions to the same problems is in fact applying the research findings to overcome an undesirable situation. Initially a problem may appear to be simply a ‘tip of the iceberg’ but the study by a professional might help locating the magnitude of the issue as well as its solutions. Such research is usually referred to as applied research, which shall be discussed in detail in the coming lectures.
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