On Saturday, February 20th, 2021, MYRA hosted a half-day Covid-safe programme titled “Building a Research Mindset”. The session was delivered by Professor Prakash Nair (Associate Dean, MYRA) and was held in the Maya Floating Classroom. It was attended by scholars, lecturers, and academic faculty from across South India.
Key takeaways from the session included:
- Academic research can help solve problems (societal, environmental, or business). It can help build theoretical knowledge. It can provide new information that is significant to our understanding of a relevant topic. And it can help guide business decisions.
- Researchers should become well-versed in all aspects of The Scientific Method, from defining problems to proposing hypotheses, reviewing the literature, devising empirical tests, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions, to providing recommendations for future research.
- Scholars and social-problem solvers should be familiar with two broad approaches to research. There’s an exploratory approach that has a loose structure – and is aimed at expanding understanding, providing insight, and developing hypotheses. And a formal approach that has precise procedures – and begins with a hypothesis and seeks to answer specific research questions.
- Researchers should become experts on collecting both qualitative data (interviews, focus groups, ethnographic observations, letters, historical records) as well as quantitative data (databases, surveys, numbers, and reports).
- Research methods and findings can be applied in small companies – as well as across large enterprises.
Lively discussions were had around the following questions:
How does one choose a research topic and plan their research project? How does globalization affect research? How is technology affecting research? What is good research? What are the realities of executing research projects in Mysore? How can research be conducted in the fields of consumer behavior, women entrepreneurship, employee motivation, and charismatic leadership? Can research be conducted (and funded) in partnership with large companies?
Future Research Events
The MYRA School of Business strongly believes in linking academic theory with business practices – and has taken many initiatives to help foster high-quality research projects across Mysore, India, and the globe. Encouraging research is even more important in the Post-Covid era, and therefore more workshops in the “Building a Research Mindset” series are being planned. For further information, please contact knowledge@localhost.
