Wednesday, 4 January 2012

An example on theory-driven research objective and research questions

I refer to the article of Liu and Forsythe (2010) to illustrate what are (a) theory-driven research objectives and (b) research questions.

Briefly, for research objective, the article is: to evaluate the validity of the following:

  • Drivers behind initial acceptance of online shopping can explain/ predict post adoption usage of online shopping channel

Liu and Forsythe (2010) also formulate related research questions as follows:

Question 1: Do online shopping motives inherited from traditional consumer studies affect post-adoption online shopping behaviour?

Question 2: Why is it that consumers who perceive a high level of risk associated with online shopping may still choose to shop online?

These writers further indicate what major management theories to use, thus making clear the academic value of their study: This study is the first  attempt to integrate 2 dominant theories, ie the technology acceptance model and the prospect theory, to gain understanding of why consumers,who perceive online shopping risk, still choose to maintain online shopping.  This clearly indicates that the study is theory-driven with some innovative initiative.

From the information provided in their article, it should be clear that the formulation of research objectives and research questions require literature review efforts. It also indicates that literature review discusson (mainly in a separate chapter in a dissertation report) is not just lecture notes to explain concepts. Literature review drives the dissertation proposal formulation and, subsequently, the research design of a dissertation project.

I need to remind students formulating dissertation proposals not only to make clear their research objectives and questions, but also justify these objectives and questions in terms of practical and academic values.


Reference
Liu, C. and Forsythe, S. (2010) "Sustaining Online Shopping: Moderating Role of Online Shopping Motives", Journal of Internet Commerce 9, pp. 83-103.

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