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Explore science by method, field & evidence.

One catalogue of research methods — learn how each one works, when to use it, and what it can’t do.

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Entries are compiled from published sources for reference. Verifying the accuracy and suitability of any information for your own use remains your responsibility.

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410 methods in Business & FinanceClear
Real methods matching your filter.
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organizational behavior

360-Degree Feedback

360-degree feedback, also called multisource feedback, gathers ratings of a focal person's work behavior from the full circle of people around them, self, supervisor, peers, and direct reports, and sometimes customers, rather than from a single boss. The aim is to give a more complete, less biased picture of performanc

3 sources1995
strategic management

Absorptive Capacity Scale

Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) refers to an organization's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit external knowledge to enhance innovation and performance. Zahra and George (2002) reconceptualized absorptive capacity into four distinct but interrelated processes in their foundational Academy of Management R

3 sources2002
organizational behavior

Abusive Supervision Scale

The Abusive Supervision Scale measures subordinates' perceptions of the extent to which their supervisors engage in sustained displays of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact. Bennett Tepper introduced both the construct and the scale in his 2000 Academy of Management Journal study, framin

2 sources2000
accounting

Activity-Based Costing

Activity-Based Costing (ABC) is an advanced costing method developed by Robert Kaplan and Robin Cooper that allocates overhead and indirect costs to products or services based on their actual consumption of activities. Rather than using arbitrary allocation bases (e.g., machine hours or direct labor), ABC traces costs

2 sources1987
marketing research

Adaptive Conjoint Analysis

Adaptive Conjoint Analysis (ACA) is a hybrid, computer-administered conjoint method that builds each respondent's part-worth utilities by combining a self-explicated priors stage with a sequence of adaptively chosen paired-comparison trade-offs. Developed by Richard Johnson at Sawtooth Software in the mid-1980s, ACA wa

2 sources1987
marketing

Advertising Effectiveness Study

Advertising Effectiveness Studies are research methods designed to measure the impact of advertising campaigns on consumer awareness, attitudes, purchase intention, and sales. Developed through work in marketing science and media measurement, these studies employ experimental designs, multivariate analysis, and attribu

3 sources1990
organizational behavior

Affective Events Theory

Affective Events Theory (AET) is the macro framework that reoriented organizational research toward emotions and the events that cause them. Proposed by Howard Weiss and Russell Cropanzano in 1996, it argues that features of the work environment give rise to discrete events — daily hassles and uplifts — that trigger af

2 sources1996
strategic management

Agent-Based Model of Competitive Strategy

An agent-based model of competitive strategy represents firms as autonomous, heterogeneous, adaptive agents whose decision rules and local interactions generate emergent industry-level dynamics that no single firm designs. Davis, Eisenhardt, and Bingham's 2007 roadmap for developing theory through simulation places thi

1 source2007
operations management

Aggregate Planning

Aggregate Planning (or Sales & Operations Planning, S&OP) is a collaborative, iterative process that balances demand and supply at a high level—typically grouping products into families and planning over a 3–18 month horizon. Developed formally by Tom Wallace and popularized through APICS, aggregate planning helps orga

2 sources1992
economics

Almost Ideal Demand System

The Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS), introduced by Angus Deaton and John Muellbauer in 1980, is the workhorse flexible demand system in applied microeconomics. It models each good's budget share as a linear function of the logarithms of all prices and of log real total expenditure, derived from a flexible (PIGLOG) co

1 source1980
finance

Altman Z-Score

The Altman Z-Score is a linear discriminant model developed by Edward I. Altman in 1968 to predict corporate bankruptcy using five accounting-based financial ratios. Derived through multiple discriminant analysis on a matched sample of 66 US manufacturing firms, the model combines liquidity, profitability, leverage, so

1 source1968
marketing management

American Customer Satisfaction Index

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), developed by Fornell and colleagues in 1996, is a structural equation modeling-based approach to measuring and predicting customer satisfaction across industries and over time. ACSI assesses customer expectations, perceived value, perceived quality, complaints, and loyal

2 sources1996
strategic management

Analytic Hierarchy Process for Strategic Priorities

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) applied to strategic priorities is a multi-criteria decision method that structures a complex strategy choice into a hierarchy of goal, criteria, and alternatives, then derives priority weights from expert pairwise comparisons. Thomas Saaty developed AHP in the 1970s and set out its

2 sources1980
accounting

Analytical Procedures in Auditing

Analytical procedures are evaluations of financial information made by studying plausible relationships among both financial and non-financial data. Rather than testing individual transactions, auditors develop expectations about what numbers should be and compare them to actual results, investigating significant diffe

2 sources1983
economic history

Anthropometric History

Anthropometric history reads the material conditions of the past from the human body itself, using mean adult stature by birth cohort as a barometer of the biological standard of living. Final height reflects net nutritional status during the growth years—the food a child consumed minus the energy claimed by disease an

2 sources1995
marketing

Aspect-Based Review Mining

Aspect-based review mining is a natural-language-processing technique that turns large volumes of consumer reviews into feature-level opinion summaries useful for product and brand insight. Rather than scoring a review as merely positive or negative overall, it identifies the specific product features, or aspects, that

1 source2004
operations management

Assembly Line Balancing

Assembly Line Balancing is the problem of distributing a sequence of assembly tasks across a series of workstations on a production line such that work is evenly distributed, idle time is minimized, and throughput constraints are satisfied. The goal is to assign tasks to stations such that the total work time at each s

2 sources2010
organizational behavior

Assessment Center Method

The assessment center method evaluates people, most often candidates for managerial roles, by observing their behavior across multiple job-relevant simulations and pooling the judgments of several trained assessors. It is a method, not a place: a standardized procedure in which candidates work through exercises such as

2 sources1982
marketing

Attraction Market-Share Model

The attraction market-share model expresses each brand's market share as its own 'attraction' divided by the total attraction of all brands competing in the market, guaranteeing shares that are non-negative and sum to one by construction. Its theoretical foundation is the 1975 'market share theorem' of Bell, Keeney, an

2 sources1975
accounting

Attribute Sampling in Auditing

Attribute sampling is a statistical sampling method used primarily in testing the operating effectiveness of internal controls. Rather than measuring the dollar impact of errors (as in substantive sampling), attribute sampling answers a yes/no question: 'Does this control exist and is it operating as designed?' By dete

2 sources1972
accounting

Audit Risk Model

The Audit Risk Model is a foundational framework developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that structures audit planning by decomposing overall audit risk into three components: inherent risk, control risk, and detection risk. This model guides auditors in allocating resources and des

2 sources1983
organizational behavior

Authentic Leadership Questionnaire

The Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) is the dominant instrument for measuring authentic leadership, a positive leadership construct developed in the mid-2000s by Bruce Avolio, William Gardner, Fred Luthans, and colleagues. Authentic leaders are defined as those who are deeply aware of their own values, transpar

2 sources2008
organizational behavior

Authentic Leadership Scale

The Authentic Leadership Scale (ALS) is a 16-item instrument measuring four dimensions of authentic leadership: self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and internalized moral perspective. Developed by Walumbwa, Avolio, and colleagues in 2008, the ALS assesses leadership grounded in self-knowledge

2 sources2008
healthcare management

Balanced Scorecard in Healthcare

The Balanced Scorecard is a strategic performance management framework that translates an organization's mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures across four perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. Developed by Kaplan and Norton in 1992 for general bu

3 sources1992
strategic management

Balanced Scorecard Performance Measure

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management system that translates organizational strategy into a coherent set of performance measures across four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Learning and Growth. Developed by Kaplan and Norton (1992) in Harvard Business Review, the BSC addresses

3 sources1992
quantitative finance

Bates Model

The Bates model (1996) combines stochastic volatility and jump diffusion to capture both the volatility smile and the implied volatility skew observed in equity and currency option markets. It extends the Heston model by adding a Poisson jump component to returns, making it suitable for pricing options when sudden pric

2 sources1996
strategic management

BCG Growth-Share Matrix

The BCG growth-share matrix is a portfolio-analysis tool that classifies a diversified company's business units on two axes — the growth rate of their market and their market share relative to the largest competitor — and uses that classification to guide cash allocation across the portfolio. Devised by Bruce Henderson

2 sources1977
organizational behavior

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) are performance-appraisal instruments whose scale points are defined by concrete examples of job behavior rather than by vague adjectives like 'good' or 'excellent.' Patricia Cain Smith and L. M. Kendall introduced the method in 1963 with their technique of retranslation of ex

1 source1963
economics

Benefit Transfer Method

Benefit transfer is the practice of estimating the economic value of a nonmarket good — clean water, a recreation site, an endangered species, an avoided health risk — at a new 'policy site' by adapting value estimates from one or more existing 'study sites' where primary valuation research was already conducted. Becau

2 sources1992
environmental economics

Benefit Transfer Valuation

Benefit transfer is the practice of using economic value estimates from existing valuation studies to estimate the value of an environmental change at a new policy site where conducting a fresh primary study is not feasible. As systematized in Johnston, Rolfe, Rosenberger and Brouwer's 2015 guide, it ranges from simple

1 source2015
finance

Beneish M-Score

The Beneish M-Score is a statistical model developed by Messod Beneish in 1999 to identify whether a company has manipulated its reported earnings. The model combines eight financial-statement ratios into a single composite score using coefficients estimated from a probit regression on a sample of detected earnings man

1 source1999
marketing

BG/NBD Model

The BG/NBD (Beta-Geometric/Negative Binomial Distribution) model is a probabilistic buy-till-you-die model that predicts how many times a customer will transact in the future and whether that customer is still active, using only their past purchase recency and frequency. Introduced by Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie and Ka L

2 sources2005
finance

Binomial Option Pricing

The binomial option pricing model, introduced by John Cox, Stephen Ross, and Mark Rubinstein in 1979, prices options by modelling the underlying as a discrete tree in which the price moves up or down by fixed factors at each step. Working backward from the option's payoff at maturity using risk-neutral probabilities, i

1 source1979
finance

Black-Litterman Model

The Black-Litterman model, introduced by Fischer Black and Robert Litterman in 1992, is a Bayesian portfolio allocation framework that blends market-equilibrium returns with an investor's own views to produce more stable, intuitive portfolios. It was designed to cure the extreme concentration and input sensitivity of c

2 sources1992
finance

Black-Scholes Model

The Black-Scholes-Merton model, published by Fischer Black and Myron Scholes in 1973 with the theoretical framework extended by Robert Merton, gives a closed-form no-arbitrage price for European options. By assuming the underlying asset follows geometric Brownian motion with constant volatility, it derives a partial di

2 sources1973
strategic management

Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas Analysis

Blue ocean strategy canvas analysis is a framework for escaping crowded, competitive 'red ocean' markets by creating uncontested 'blue ocean' market space through value innovation. Developed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne in their 2004 Harvard Business Review article and 2005 book, it centers on the strategy canvas

2 sources2005
strategic management

Board Interlock Network Analysis

Board interlock network analysis treats the corporate economy as a network in which two firms are tied whenever they share a director, and studies how these interlocking directorates channel information, influence, and the diffusion of practices among companies. Mizruchi's 1996 Annual Review of Sociology synthesis crys

2 sources1996
marketing

Brand Equity Measurement

Brand Equity Measurement is a comprehensive framework developed by David Aaker in 1991 for quantifying and assessing the value that a brand name adds to a product or service. It provides organizations with methods to understand how consumers perceive their brand across multiple dimensions, enabling better strategic dec

3 sources1991
marketing management

Brand Equity Scale

The Brand Equity Scale (BES) measures customer-based brand equity through perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand associations, and brand awareness. Developed by Yoo, Donthu, and Lee (2000), building on Aaker's foundational brand equity framework (1991), the BES operationalizes brand equity as the differential effect o

2 sources1991
marketing research

Brand-Price Trade-Off

Brand-Price Trade-Off (BPTO) is a pricing-research technique that measures how consumers trade off brand preference against price by presenting competing brands at varying prices and asking, repeatedly, which one they would buy. In the classic procedure the respondent chooses a brand from a set shown at given prices, a

3 sources1975
marketing

Brand-Switching Markov Model

The brand-switching Markov model treats a consumer's sequence of brand purchases as a Markov chain, in which the probability of buying a given brand next depends only on the brand bought last. Its central object is the brand-to-brand transition matrix, whose rows record, for buyers of each brand, the probabilities of s

2 sources1992
health economics

Budget Impact Analysis

Budget impact analysis estimates the financial consequences (net costs or savings) of implementing a new health technology in a specific healthcare system or population over a short time horizon (typically 1–5 years). Distinct from cost-effectiveness analysis (which compares health outcomes per dollar), BIA answers a b

3 sources2005
operations management

Bullwhip Effect

The Bullwhip Effect is a phenomenon in supply chain management where small fluctuations in end-customer demand cause progressively larger fluctuations in orders as one moves upstream from retail to distributors to manufacturers to suppliers. First formally documented by Jay Forrester in his 1961 system dynamics work, a

2 sources1961
strategic management

Business Model Canvas Analysis

Business Model Canvas analysis describes and evaluates how a firm creates, delivers, and captures value using nine interlocking building blocks arranged on a single visual canvas. Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur popularized the tool in their 2010 book Business Model Generation, building on the business-model ont

2 sources2010
finance

CAMELS Rating

The CAMELS Rating System is a supervisory framework used by US bank regulators to evaluate the overall condition of financial institutions across six dimensions: Capital Adequacy, Asset Quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity, and Sensitivity to Market Risk. Each component is scored on a scale of 1 (strong) to 5 (crit

1 source1998
finance

CAPM

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), developed by William Sharpe and John Lintner in the mid-1960s, links the expected return of an asset to its systematic risk, measured by beta. It states that in equilibrium investors are rewarded only for risk that cannot be diversified away: the expected excess return of an asse

2 sources1964
organizational behavior

Career Adapt-Abilities Scale

The Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) measures the psychosocial resources and competencies that enable individuals to navigate career challenges and transitions. Developed by Savickas and Porfeli in 2012, the 24-item scale quantifies four dimensions: concern (future orientation), control (agency), curiosity (explorat

3 sources2012
quantitative finance

Carr-Madan FFT

The Carr-Madan Fast Fourier Transform (1999) is a highly efficient method for computing option prices across a range of strikes using characteristic functions and FFT. It enables rapid pricing of European options under any model with a known characteristic function (Heston, Merton jumps, Variance Gamma), with computati

2 sources1999
quantitative finance

Change of Numeraire

Change of numeraire is a mathematical technique for simplifying option pricing by changing the choice of discount factor (numeraire). By selecting a numeraire aligned with the payoff structure, complex problems become simple. The technique is essential for LIBOR market models and multi-currency derivatives.

2 sources1995
economics

Choice Experiment Valuation

A choice experiment (discrete choice experiment, DCE) is an attribute-based stated-preference method that values non-market goods by describing them as bundles of characteristics and asking respondents to choose repeatedly among competing alternatives — one of which always carries a cost. Grounded in random utility the

2 sources1974
marketing research

Choice-Based Conjoint

Choice-based conjoint analysis (CBC) measures how consumers value the features of a product by observing the choices they make among competing, attribute-defined profiles rather than by asking them to rate attributes directly. Each respondent completes a series of choice tasks, picking the single most preferred alterna

3 sources1983
tourism management

Citizen Satisfaction Survey

The Citizen Satisfaction Survey (CSS) measures public satisfaction with government services, infrastructure, and institutions across multiple dimensions (access, responsiveness, quality, fairness, transparency). Rooted in expectancy-disconfirmation theory (James, 2009) and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (Forn

4 sources1996
healthcare management

Clinical Audit

Clinical audit is a systematic, cyclical process that measures the quality of clinical care against evidence-based standards and benchmarks, identifies gaps, and implements improvements to bring practice into alignment with current best evidence. Originating in the UK NHS, clinical audit is now a fundamental quality as

3 sources1989
healthcare management

Clinical Handover Quality Scale

The Clinical Handover Quality Scale (CHQS) is a comprehensive framework and measurement tool for assessing the quality of clinical handovers—the critical communication process by which responsibility for a patient's care is transferred from one provider or team to another. Handovers occur multiple times daily in health

3 sources2008
economic history

Cliometric Counterfactual Analysis

Cliometric counterfactual analysis is the signature technique of the 'new economic history' pioneered by Robert Fogel: it tests claims about the historical importance of an innovation, institution, or event by constructing an explicit, quantified hypothetical economy in which that factor is absent and measuring how muc

2 sources1964
operations management

Closed-Loop Supply Chain

A closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) integrates forward logistics (moving products to customers) with reverse logistics (recovering products, components, or materials from customers) to optimize resource recovery, reduce waste, and minimize environmental impact. Products flow forward for customer use, then flow backward f

2 sources2003
organizational behavior

Common Method Bias Remedies

Common method bias remedies are the procedural and statistical tools researchers use to detect and reduce the spurious covariance that arises when constructs are measured with the same method — typically a single self-report survey. Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff's 2003 review crystallized the problem, catalo

3 sources2003
strategic management

Competitive Dynamics (Action-Response) Analysis

Competitive dynamics analysis studies the actual sequence of competitive moves and countermoves between specific rival firms — who attacks, who responds, how fast, and with what consequence — rather than treating competition as a static structural condition. Ming-Jer Chen's 1996 Academy of Management Review article int

2 sources1996
economics

Computable General Equilibrium

A computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is a numerical simulation of an entire economy in which optimizing producers and consumers interact through markets that all clear simultaneously. Building on Walras's general-equilibrium theory and a benchmark social accounting matrix, a CGE model is calibrated to reproduce

2 sources1960
economics

Concentration Curve and Index

The concentration curve and concentration index, established as the standard tools for measuring socioeconomic inequality in health by Wagstaff, Paci, and van Doorslaer in 1991, capture how a health variable is distributed across the population ranked by socioeconomic status. The concentration curve plots the cumulativ

1 source1991