In the development of a learning session where the type of business that should be useful for the practice of business diagnosis has to be identified, the following case was presented in the Research Methodology class.
Previously, students had at hand a business diagnostic matrix that they had prepared in advance and targeting a particular business. The professor asked that the diagnosis should be applied in a business where the student-researcher has a lot of familiarity, direct access or it is a family business. Then, the teacher asks for the participation of a volunteer to provide information about the business problems that the student-researcher has planned to analyze. Claudia raised her hand as a volunteer to carry out the exercise with the help of the teacher and a screen projected the activity on the wall in order to socialize the information with the rest of the class.
The teacher asked Claudia to name the deficiencies she found in the business under her study. Responses to the intersections raised in the matrix began to flow with difficulty. The professor had noticed the weakness and vagueness in these responses and asked Claudia about the business line she has planned to analyze and her familiarity with him. She replied that it was a bakery near her home and that she had some contact with the owners. The teacher clarified to the entire class that this situation thus posed limits the performance of the researcher and it is difficult to achieve an adequate diagnosis and, if they are training as researchers, then they need to get as close as possible to reality.
Claudia reacts and offers to answer the questions of the business diagnostic matrix that she had built but this time adapting it to her family's business: a hardware store. The teacher accepts and congratulates Claudia's participation and argued that the diagnosis should be made with total discretion and respect for the name of the family business; that is, to analyze the real cases but using fictitious names. The other students must understand this fact and keep the reservation of the case.
Claudia confidently accepted the professor's rationale and began to provide information on the shortcomings of her family business. The teacher noted each of the deficiencies that were simultaneously read by the whole class and, at the same time, each of these deficiencies was argued. Then the teacher asked Claudia to specify a key deficiency. She indicated one.
Several students asked to intervene as a result of Claudia's decision. Then, the professor authorized Carlos to make use of his arguments. Carlos pointed out that Claudia was wrong because the key deficiency was another and argued her point of view.
Therefore, this case merits an analysis of the development of a business diagnostic matrix and the relevance of its application. First, the certainty of the answers to the matrix's questions are more closely tied to the truth in the answers of Claudia, who lives the needs of the business and her arguments are based on business processes. Carlos, on the other hand, externally judges the occurrences of the business. Carlos's critical judgment has a procedural basis. Research is enriched when it is based on processes; however, the procedures only generate the application of knowledge of the standards and norms that can be externally certified.
The validity of the processes is carried out with the argument of the experts, while the validity of the procedures corresponds to their conformity with the established quality or certification standards. The potential risk that is had in the processes resides in the investigator's capacity and her previous experience to reason correctly and according to the reality that she observes where omissions can occur due to ignorance; on the other hand, the potential risk of the procedures lies in the researcher's ability to apply her expertise based on her knowledge where the saying "I know and lie" can be fulfilled.
The evolution of personal capacities are increased when mental exercise is frequent in the process of data and information for the generation of new knowledge: being, thinking and doing to know. Personal skills will be enhanced through the practice of procedures: knowing to know. In other words, processes determine thinking beings in what they do, while procedures generate routines based on knowledge.
