I haven’t kept track of the number of university research papers that I have graded over the years. It must be hundreds. Every good research paper will be focused on a good research question. I can tell how much thinking and research that student has done by the quality of the research question or thesis statement. If it’s a great question, it will consider and identify a gap in the academic literature. It can also be reasonably answered with an appropriately selected research methodology.
Research questions focus your efforts as you review the academic literature. The question will delimit the scope of your analysis. This is necessary as you cannot possibly read everything and even if you could, without a question to organize your analysis, your research would lack structure and a clear aim.
It’s difficult to train students to develop the skill of creating good research questions. This is because it’s an iterative process, you need to research to know what to ask, and you need to have a query in mind in order not get lost in the literature. Research production is a blend of curiosity and discipline. There’s also a dialectic element since you have to interact with others, notably your supervisor. You need to be open to changing the direction of your research as the process unfolds. In addition to what is included in the analysis, it is equally important to determine what is excluded. Research limitations further refine the scope of analysis.
Up until this point in my career, I never thought about how the skills in producing a research paper can apply to starting a business. But the skills are readily transferable. When students first pose their questions, they are invariably too broad to be answered in any meaningful way. There’s nothing wrong with ambitious research, but without a clear research question, your analysis will lack focus.
This lack of a clear objective can also be present when starting a business. When I ask students about why they want to start a business, common responses including money, being your own boss, etc. One student said, “so that I could be a billionaire, sit on my yacht and push buttons, while my minions do all the work!” That’s not a business plan, that’s a commercial for Lotto 649!
Having the belief that your research will contribute to the field or your business will be a success in the market is of course essential. Without that belief, you would be reluctant to start the process at all. But as important as it is to realize your potential, it is also necessary to recognize your limitations and the dimensions of the problem you are trying to solve. It is the case that however smart or hard-working you are, there are simply not enough hours to do it all yourself. Understanding what you’re not good at is as important as what you excel at. If nothing else, this helps you appreciate other people.
In my case, when I started, I attempted to do my own accounts. I quickly realized this is something I needed help with. I have new found appreciation for the work of accountants and bookkeepers now. The same is true of people in marketing and sales. Independent research is similar to entrepreneurship in that you hope what you’re doing is innovative, ‘ground-breaking’ or at least a little different, how else will you sell people on your ideas, products, or services? You have to be good at a lot of things to be an academic or an entrepreneur. You also have to be both self-motivated and self-directed. But on the other side, it’s necessary to recognize and learn from your mistakes. It takes a long time to develop the capacity to defend your research without becoming defensive about it. Similarly, understanding your strengths and weaknesses and that of your business is not always an easy process. Research decisions, like business decisions, necessarily involve cutting off other options and that can produce anxiety. After all, we don’t want to be ‘wrong’. But in research, it not so important to have the right answer as it is to be asking the right question. Thus, instead of asking “what does it take to start a business?” or “Do I have enough money”? etc. a better question is “have I decided to start a business.” There are some things you can only really know by doing. Your decision may be wrong, but you will learn from your errors and adjust along the way. Generally speaking, the more informed you are, the better decisions you will make. But just remember decisions are seldom made on the basis of perfect information. If you wait that long, you will be rationalizing inaction. This is a fatal flaw in academic research and just fatal in business.
