Outline:

RESEARCH

1) NATURE AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH

1.1) Definition – purposive, systematic and scientific process of gathering, analyzing, classifying, organizing, presenting and interpreting data for the solution of a problem, for prediction, for invention, for the discovery of truth, or for the expansion or verification of existing knowledge, all for the preservation and improvement of the quality of human life. 1.1.1) History of Research Historical records reveal that there is no written document on the beginning of business research as an organized business activity, but this is definitely of modern origin. During the Middle Ages, the merchant families of Fugger and Rothschild prospered in part because their organizations enabled them to get information before their competitors did. These studies were unsystematic, but considered to be well organized during that time. In 1879, more by accident than foresight, N. W. Ayer and Son conducted a crude but formal market survey, to measure markets for agricultural machineries, manufactured by Nicholas-Shepard Company. This market survey is probably the first real attempt at business research in the United States. The Curits Publishing company is generally conceived to have formed the first formal business research department with the appointment of Charles Parlin as manager of the Commercial Research Division of the Advertising Department in 1911. His original idea was that advertising space could be sold more effectively by presenting well-organized business data to prospective advertising clients. Several years later, in June 1915, the United States Rubber Company appointed Dr. Paul H. Nystrom as head of the Department of Commercial Research Program. Dr. L. D. H. Weld from Yale University was employed by Swift and Company as a general economist in 1917. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Weld organized a Department of