According to a famous Hudson Maxim, “All progress is born of inquiry.
Significance Of Research
According to a famous Hudson
Maxim, “All progress is born of inquiry. Doubt is often better than
overconfidence, for it leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to invention”. It
brings out the significance of research, increased amount of which makes the
progress possible. Research encourages scientific and inductive thinking, besides
promoting the development of logical habits of thinking and organisation. The
role of research in applied economics in the context of an economy or business
is greatly increasing in modern times. The increasingly complex nature of
government and business has raised the use of research in solving operational
problems. Research assumes significant role in the formulation of economic
policy for both, the government and business. It provides the basis for almost
all government policies of an economic system. Government budget formulation,
for example, depends particularly on the analysis of needs and desires of people, and the
availability of revenues, which requires research. Research helps to formulate
alternative policies, in addition to examining the consequences of these
alternatives. Thus, research also facilitates the decision-making of
policy-makers, although in itself is not a part of research. In the process,
research also helps in the proper allocation of a country’s scarce resources. Research is also necessary for
collecting information on the social and economic structure of an economy to
understand the process of change occurring in the country. Collection of
statistical information, though not a routine task, involves various research
problems. Therefore, large staff of research technicians or experts are engaged
by the government these days to undertake this work. Thus, research as a tool
of government economic policy formulation involves three distinct stages of
operation: investigation of economic structure through continual compilation of
facts; (ii) diagnosis of events that are taking place and analysis of the
forces underlying them; and (iii) the prognosis i.e., the prediction of future
developments (Wilkinson and Bhandarkar, 1979). Research also assumes
significance in solving various operational and planning problems associated
with business and industry. In several ways, operations research, market
research and motivational research are vital and their results assist in taking
business decisions. Market research refers to the investigation of the
structure and development of a market for the formulation of efficient policies
relating to purchases, production and sales. Operational research relates to
the application of logical, mathematical, and analytical techniques to find
solution to business problems, such as cost minimization or profit
maximization, or the optimization problems. Motivational research helps to
determine why people behave in the manner they do with respect to market
characteristics. More specifically, it is concerned with the analysis of the
motivations underlying consumer behaviour. All these researches are very useful
for business and industry, and are responsible for business decision-making. Research is equally important to
social scientists for analyzing the social relationships and seeking
explanations to various social problems. It gives intellectual satisfaction of
knowing things for the sake of knowledge. It also possesses the practical
utility for the social scientist to
gain knowledge so as to be able to do something better or in a more efficient manner. The research in social sciences
is concerned with both knowledge for its own sake, and knowledge for what it
can contribute to solve practical problems.
Tags : Research Methodology - Introduction
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