A research strategy consists of the research approach, designs, and methods that will be used to address the research questions, thereby achieving the aim of the research.
Research approach addresses the type of reasoning that determines the relationship between theory and empirical data; research design reflects the purpose of the research and in doing so provides a framework for the collection and analysis of data; whilst research methods are the practices and techniques used to collect and analyse data (Saunders et al., 2009; Bryman and Bell, 2011; Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). This section addresses the first two of these three areas, with the following sections (3.4, 3.5 and 3.6) addressing the methods used for the collection and analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data in turn which are summarised in Table 3.3 below.
Method Type Number Date(s)
Focus Groups Focus groups were
conducted with a total of 9 participants who had used a financial adviser in the
generation of items for the quantitative questionnaire.
66 who had used a financial adviser within the previous
generation of items for the quantitative questionnaire.
Sorting of items for the online questionnaire by 5 groups of 2 judges; 2 consisting of an academic and PhD student, one of 2 PhD students, one of two administrative staff, and one of two individuals who met the criteria for the main study. who met the criteria for the main study in ‘focus group’
type setting. distributed to staff at a university. Table 3.3 Overview of the Employed Research Methods
3.2.1 Research Approach
The research approach adopted essentially addresses the issue of what should come first:
theory or data. Deductive reasoning is theory driven and focuses upon theory and hypothesis testing and confirmation, often seeking to establish if the theory applies in a particular context. Inductive reasoning is driven by data or observation, and focuses upon theory generation, often seeking to establish if that theory can be generalised across different contexts. Typically, quantitative research will employ deductive reasoning whilst qualitative research will employ inductive reasoning. However, it is often impractical to separate the two, and most studies combine both approaches often without the researcher
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recognising this to be the case (Hyde, 2000; Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004, Saunders et al., 2009; Polsa 2013; Mirza et al., 2014). A third approach is that of abductive reasoning, effectively a middle way between the two that supplements both, first introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce as a way of introducing new ideas. Abductive reasoning is defined as reasoning in which new ideas and explanatory hypotheses are conceived and formed and then evaluated in order to explain a pattern or phenomena (Thagard and Shelley, 1997;
Polsa 2013; Mirza et al, 2014).
Given that this study seeks to address a subject area where little, if any, previous empirical research has been conducted with a consequent lack of knowledge, an abductive approach is appropriate and will therefore be adopted for this study, as it allows the generation of new ideas which neither a deductive or inductive approach would allow.
3.2.2 Research Design
In the literature, the three research purposes most often described are exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory. Exploratory research aims to establish what is happening, ask questions, and seek new insights, and is often associated with the initial stages of research into phenomena where little, if any, prior knowledge exists. Descriptive research aims to provide an accurate profile and establish the characteristics of the situations, events, or persons being studied, and is often a forerunner to explanatory research. Explanatory research aims to explain the phenomenon being studied in causal terms by explaining the relationship between two or more variables, where the change in one variable (the effect) is caused by the other variable (Saunders et al., 2009).
As the primary aim of this study is to identify the predictors of environmental based trust, in effect the ‘causes’, the description of explanatory research seems to most closely fit the overall aims and objectives of this study, as it is a typical causal research problem of identifying the relationship between different factors or variables whereby a change in one factor or variable will cause change in another. However, as little, if any, previous research has addressed the subject area of this study, the description of exploratory research is also relevant to this study, particularly in the initial stages. Indeed, Robson (2002) points out that the purpose of research may change over time. Therefore, in order to achieve the research aims and objectives, this study will initially have an exploratory focus, before moving to an explanatory focus in later stages.
In accordance with this discussion, for the initial research, semi-structured qualitative interviews will be used, as suggested by Saunders et al., (2009) as an appropriate technique to use in exploratory studies. Structural equation modelling (SEM) will be used as the main quantitative analysis technique, as it is suggested as an appropriate method of analysis to use when studying causality (Keat and Urry, 1975; Sayer, 1984; Byrne, 2010). The semi-structured interviews are described in detail in Section 3.4.8, and SEM in Section 3.6.
A further consideration when considering the framework for a study are the time horizons of the study. A cross-sectional study considers phenomena at a particular time, whilst a longitudinal study considers how phenomena change over time (Saunders et al., 2009). This study can therefore be classified as cross-sectional, as it aims to establish the predictors of environmental based trust, rather than how those predictors may change over time. In doing so, this study acknowledges that it can be difficult to incorporate the components of control into a cross-sectional study that are necessary to establish causality. However,
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despite this, inferences about causality can still be drawn from cross-sectional studies, but without the same level of credibility as other designs, such as experimental designs, where comparisons can be made both before and after the manipulation of variables (Bryman and Bell; 2011).