What Is Research? Definition, Purpose and the Body of Knowledge
Before you can design a study you need a working test for what counts as one. This page takes the definitions the supplied teaching source actually uses, pulls out what each phrase obliges you to do, and traces how one completed project ends up changing what the field knows.
Two definitions, and what each phrase obliges you to do
The supplied teaching source takes an unusually plain route into the subject. Rather than constructing a definition of research from the methods literature, it quotes two dictionary entries and treats them as the working definition for everything that follows.
Read side by side, the two entries do different work. The first is a definition of process: it names the manner of the work (systematic), the object of the work (materials and sources) and a two-part endpoint (establish facts and reach new conclusions). The first entry alone would exclude a great deal of legitimate practitioner enquiry.
The second entry widens the door on two axes at once. It admits work that collates old facts as well as work that discovers new ones, and it admits critical investigation as an alternative route to scientific study. That second axis is what makes room for the interpretive and qualitative traditions later in the material, and it is the reason a well-built synthesis of existing evidence can be research in its own right.
EACH PHRASE, AND WHAT IT ASKS OF YOUR PROJECT
| Phrase in the definition | What it obliges you to do | Where it lands in your project |
|---|---|---|
| Systematic investigation | Work to a design settled before you collect anything, not one reconstructed afterwards to fit what you found | Your methodology, and the order in which you run the research process |
| Into and study of materials and sources | Engage with what already exists before you generate anything new | The literature review and the theoretical framework |
| In order to establish facts | Separate evidence from opinion, and be able to show where every fact came from | Data collection, and the audit trail behind it |
| And reach new conclusions | Finish somewhere your sources did not already say. A faithful summary is not a conclusion | Analysis, theorising and the conclusions you draw |
| Discover new or collate old facts | Either original data or a defensible synthesis of existing data qualifies | Your choice between primary and secondary sources |
| By the scientific study of a subject or by a course of critical investigation | Two admissible routes are on offer, not one. Sustained critical examination counts alongside scientific method | Your philosophical framework and methodology |
The phrases in column one are the source's. The obligations in columns two and three are our reading of them; the source does not gloss its own definitions.
All research generates knowledge
The claim the source opens with is broader than the definitions that follow it: all research is about the generation of knowledge, and as every research project concludes and makes its contribution to the relevant domain, the body of knowledge grows.
Two things follow. The first is that research is generative by definition. A study that ends where its inputs ended has not failed to be a good piece of research; on this framing it has failed to be research. The second is that knowledge is cumulative — a point the source repeats when it lists the characteristics of scientific research.
The mechanism sits at the far end of the process. The source describes analysis as the point where you begin theorising your data: you establish where and how your data supports, or contradicts, the theory you set out in the literature review, and what results is new theory or an extension of existing theory. That is treated in detail on conducting the research and theorising the data.
- Idea
- Gap in the literature
- Research question
- Evidence
- Theorising
- Contribution
Why the definition matters to a delivery decision
The source is direct about why a project manager should care, and it repeats the point in both the study notes and the slides.
The primary purpose of research is to reduce the level of risk of a business decision. To resolve management dilemmas you should be able to answer questions with the greatest level of confidence. This requires you to have a good understanding of research methodology whether you are doing the research yourself or employing others to do it.
Note the last clause. The requirement to understand methodology does not lift when you outsource the work. If you commission a study, the definitions above are the first filter you apply to what comes back: was it systematic, did it engage the existing material, does it reach a conclusion the inputs did not already contain? The wider argument for these skills is set out on why project managers need research skills.
The same definition, three different jobs
You are the researcher
The definitions set your minimum bar. Design before you collect, read before you design, and be able to state the conclusion your sources could not have given you.
You are buying the research
Ask for the design, not just the findings. A supplier who cannot describe how the evidence was gathered has given you an opinion with a chart on it.
You are relying on someone else's study
Apply the same two tests to published work before you let it move a decision: systematic method, and a conclusion that goes beyond the material it reviewed.
What sits outside the definitions
The supplied source never says what research is not. That boundary matters in practice, because a great deal of organisational enquiry looks like research and does not meet either definition. The split below is our reading of the two definitions rather than a list the source provides.
Meets the definitions
- A structured synthesis of existing studies that reaches a conclusion none of them states on its own
- A survey designed, piloted and issued to a stated sampling approach, then analysed against the design
- An interview study analysed with a declared and consistently applied method
- A model or simulation compared against a documented baseline
Does not, on its own
- A lessons-learned workshop recorded but never analysed
- A benchmarking spreadsheet assembled without a question behind it
- A vendor paper whose method is not stated and cannot be inspected
- A collection of well-chosen anecdotes that confirms what was already believed
How one project adds to a body of knowledge
The library's exemplar volume — a published collection of seventeen master's-level project management research projects — is a useful demonstration of the claim, because the seventeen designs are modest in scale and were completed under the same constraints you are working under. Almost every one pairs a literature review with one or two primary collection methods. Those designs are examined in detail on seventeen worked research designs.
That distinction is worth holding on to when your research is embedded in live delivery. You do not control whether the intervention you are studying succeeds. You do control whether the study is designed well enough that the result — either way — is interpretable.
From one project to the body of knowledge
State what is already known
Build the theoretical framework from the literature so that the current state of knowledge in the area is on the record before you add to it. See checking the literature.
Name the gap
The source treats the literature review as the thing that identifies flaws or gaps in previous research, and that justification is what makes your question worth asking.
Gather evidence to a declared design
The design is what makes the evidence admissible later. The sequence is set out on the seven-stage research process.
Theorise the data against the literature
Establish where your data supports the theory in the field and where it contradicts it. This is the step that converts findings into a contribution.
Report and store it so others can build on it
The source treats storage as a discrete step for exactly this reason: an unstored dataset cannot be extended by anyone else.
Where the supplied source stops
This page is built on a short passage. Being clear about its edges is more useful to you than filling them in.
Before you call your work research
Use the definitions as a pre-flight check rather than a post-hoc justification. Every item below maps to a phrase in one of the two entries.
Six checks against the source's definitions
- The design exists in writing before collection starts, and you could hand it to someone else to run
- You can name the materials and sources you engaged with before generating anything new
- Every fact you intend to assert has a traceable origin in your data or your literature
- You can state, in one sentence, a conclusion that none of your sources states
- You have decided whether you are discovering new facts, collating old ones, or both — and your method matches that choice
- You can say which route you are on: scientific study, or critical investigation
What to carry forward
- Research is defined here by method and endpoint, not by topic or by scale. Systematic work that reaches a new conclusion qualifies; a competent summary does not.
- The second dictionary definition is the permissive one. Collating old facts and critical investigation are both admitted, which is what makes practitioner and qualitative work possible.
- Knowledge generation is the point of the exercise, and it is cumulative — your project is supposed to leave the field in a different state from the one you found it in.
- The commissioning case and the doing case impose the same requirement: you cannot judge research you do not understand methodologically.
- The source defines research and then leaves the body of knowledge, the significance test and the ethics treatment undefined. Do not fill those in from memory — check them against your own institution's requirements.
Frequently asked questions
Does a literature review on its own count as research?
On the source's second definition it can, because that definition admits an endeavour to collate old facts by critical investigation. The condition is that the synthesis reaches a conclusion none of the reviewed works states individually. A review that only reports what each paper said is a summary, not research.
What does the source mean by the body of knowledge?
It does not say. The material asserts that the body of knowledge in the relevant domain grows as each research project concludes and makes its contribution, but it offers no definition, no boundary and no curation mechanism. Treat the phrase as the source's shorthand for the accumulated published knowledge of a field, and be aware you are supplying that reading yourself.
If my study finds nothing, have I wasted the project?
Not on this framing. A study that documents why an intervention did not work adds knowledge the field did not previously hold, and one chapter in the exemplar volume does exactly that. What does waste the project is a design too weak to tell you whether the null result is real or an artefact of your method.
How is research different from the analysis I already do at work?
Usually by two things: the design is fixed before collection rather than assembled afterwards, and the engagement with existing published material is explicit. A great deal of good delivery analysis meets the first test and skips the second, which is why it informs a decision but does not add to a body of knowledge.
Why does the source define research through a dictionary rather than a methods text?
The material does not explain the choice. What it achieves in practice is a definition broad enough to cover both the scientific and the interpretive traditions the rest of the material goes on to describe, without committing the reader to either at the outset.
References and source attribution
- The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, p. 972 — the two definitions of research quoted in the supplied teaching source.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge (set as the introductory reading, pp. 1–6).
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford (listed among the source's references).
- An edited volume of master's degree research projects in project management, 2018, academic publisher, 378 pp. — the exemplar volume; design summaries paraphrased from the published abstracts.
- The supplied teaching source: master's-level teaching material introducing research methods for project management, supplied as study notes and accompanying slides.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Explain the difference between the two dictionary definitions of research used in this library.
- Give me a one-sentence test for whether a piece of work I commissioned counts as research.
- How does a single master's-level project actually add to a body of knowledge?
- What does the supplied source say about research reducing the risk of a business decision?
- Which parts of the definition of research does the supplied teaching source leave undefined?