In Chapter Five “Clarifying the Research Question through Secondary Data and Exploration”, the authors Donald R. Cooper and Pamela S. Schindler examine the functions and methods of exploratory research along with analyzing the incorporation of secondary data into the research process. Exploratory research is very important to researchers in many ways such as; giving researchers obvious ideas of the issues they may encounter while doing the investigation and the enhancements of concepts. Overall, the exploration of research will advance the research project.
Exploring research is also important because some of the information researchers receive is so ambiguous that exploration is a necessity. In the exploratory stage of the research, researchers should achieve the following: 1) Increase your understanding of the management dilemma by observing the way others address these situations; 2) Enhance the research question by collecting background information on your specific issue; 3) Find and collect data to articulate investigative questions; 4) Identify resources to ask questions that may be applied as measurement questions, and 5) Gather records of likely participants that could be used in sample design. Literature search; an evaluation of books, articles in journals, or professional writing, that may pertain to your management dilemma, is usually the first phase in exploratory research.
The examining of secondary sources can be extremely tricky and difficult for researchers. Researchers must shift from management questions to research questions, so they use internal and external secondary resources. There are five types of Internal Sources comprised of; 1) management documents; 2) Financial documents and databases; 3) Human resources documents and databases; operations documents, and 4) Databases and, marketing documents and databases. External Sources