In essence, research provides the necessary information that guides managers to make informed decisions to successfully deal with problems. The information provided could be the result of a careful analysis of primary data gathered first‐hand or of secondary data that are already available (in the company, industry, archives, etc.). These data can be quantitative (quantitative data are data in the form of numbers as generally gathered through structured questions) or qualitative (qualitative data are data in the form of words) as generated from the broad answers to questions in interviews, or from responses to open‐ended questions in a questionnaire, or through observation, or from already available information gathered from various sources such as the Internet.