Definition 3 - Research in Business - Encyclopedia of Business and FinanceIn the competitive global economy of the 21st century, managers are challenged to make tough business decisions, such as how to keep an annual growth rate of 20 percent, how to increase employee productivity, how to improve product quality, how to cut down costs, and how to reduce the employee turnover rate. To make such decisions correctly, managers need research, which is a systematic inquiry that provides scientific findings and conclusions to guide business decisions.