This article aims to review tips for an empirical work, as it is an essential part of conducting the research. You are a student or research analyst, then, you have to know the approach and structure, methods and techniques in order to complete your empirical work. You are an entrepreneur, and you want to apply the results of the empirical work for your business purposes, then you need to be sure that it was conducted correctly. Hence, being familiar with simple tips for the correct study is very crucial regardless of your final objective.
Empirical work is connected with experience which we gain from the experiment and it involves observation, evaluation, data collection, implications of the results. To conduct an empirical research you should state clearly what is the aim of your research, what is to be investigated, what you are trying to achieve and which impact it might have on the subject you are exploring.
Next, perform an extensive literature review, try to figure out what is already know in this field, what the main concerns regarding the area you are investigating are, where a gap in the literature is (to be honest it is very time–consuming, however it will broaden your knowledge, so you won’t conduct the study which has been already investigated couple of years ago). More difficult is that you have to create a hypothesis, and even try to guess possible outcomes of your study. In essence, your hypothesis should be verified with some experiment or observation. In other words, during your study you manipulate data and try to establish effect of one or more variables on a dependent variable (DV) you are testing.
For example, you have created a hypothesis that “Individuals are different from each other in the way they are willing and able to help the others”. As the results of your test, observation and data collection you might come to the following implication of the study: “Females more willingly help other people and this is dependent on two kinds of variables...”
So, please make sure that you choose right conditions and variables for testing your hypothesis and that correct method of data analysis is selected and that your results are interpreted correctly and presented in the clear manner.
Your results should include:
Last but not least, don’t plagiarise (as there are numerous systems that might detect your plagiarism), don’t forget about the bibliography as the last point of your research, as it is critical. However, always consider that there are different referencing styles, so please use Referencing Style Guides, which you can easily find on line and follow it (e.g. ‘Harvard System of Referencing’).
Good Luck!
That’s how the references might look like:
Knox, S., Maklan, S. and French, P. (2005) “Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring Stakeholders Relationships and Programme Reporting across Leading FTSE Companies”, Journal of Business Ethics Vol.61, No.1, pp.7-28.
Baumol, W. (1977) On the Proper Cost Tests for Natural Monopoly in a Multiproduct Industry, The American Economic Review, 67(5), pp. 809-822.
Webb, T. (2005) Ethical Corporation Journal [online]
Available at: http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=5448 [Accessed 16/04/2009].
