Do you think that Phil and Mark had good reasons for choosing the research topic “The use of internaI and word-of-mouth recruitment methods” initially?
One can say that a good topic for research is the gauge of its success. To choose a topic is to determine the course of further investigation, and it should be done according to some rules.
Firstly, the topic should be interesting for the researchers and their target audience. To their credit, Phil and Mark had the interest; however, it may seem that they got a somewhat overexcited about it. It appears that the initial source of inspiration for them was not the subject of their investigation but the very fact that they were making an investigation. Consequently, when they started working, they overlooked the important step of researching: the brainstorming.
It means that after selecting a research topic, one should spend some time collecting all ideas that come to one’s mind in relation to it. Then the ideas are sorted through: the brightest ones should be included in the outline while others should be discarded. Brainstorming is what helps to overview the subject from various points and select the best. Mark and Phil skipped this step and went on directly to the outline.
If they brainstormed the topic first, it would probably occur to them that they had had a ready-made answer before they actually conducted the research. Their mistake was that they chose a topic that was not debated or even debatable. What they got was a mere statement of the fact that internal and word-of-mouth recruitment were the main modes of hiring employees in local organizations because of the lack of applicants. It turned out to be a well-known fact which is why it did not impress the respondents.
All in all, before starting to write their research, Phil and Mark should have thought why exactly they wanted to write on this topic and what questions they had to answer. Instead, they focused on what they had already known, and the main reason they made the research was, to put it bluntly, because they just wanted to make something. Thus, choosing the path of least resistance did not seem to work in this case.
Draft a possible first research question or Mark’s and Phil’s idea as described in the first three paragraphs of the case study.
If Phil and Mark wanted to create a piece of work that would be of some use to organizations, they should have done more analysis. It would do them good to define the advantages and disadvantages of both internal and word-of-mouth recruitment strategy and provide solutions to this problem. Thus, the research could have been called something like “Internal and Word-of-mouth Recruitment Strategy: Strengths and Weaknesses.”
The body of the research could have included some relevant data from business journals and interviews with employers and employees expressing their opinion on the strategy. Then the information should have been analyzed, and the conclusion should have included the summary of the research outcome and the researchers’ propositions on how to enhance the strategy.
What lessons can you learn from Phil’s and Mark’s experience?
The lessons learned from this case study include the following. First, it is necessary to think thoroughly over the research topic since it is the key factor of the course of the research and its success. The researchers should make sure the topic is fresh and can be further discussed by their target audience. What is more, simply repeating generally known facts is not the feature of a successful research: it should offer some new observations or solutions to an existing problem.