Qualitative methods in economic sciences

Research involves creative work that is systematically undertaken to increase knowledge related to certain issues and phenomena, confirm facts, solve problems, develop new theories, or provide innovative solutions. Throughout its existence, social sciences have had an undeniably greater number of problems and conflicting relationships between their theories and empirical facts than natural sciences. These significant differences arise primarily from differences in the objects of research themselves, and then from differences in methodological capabilities. This chapter will show that although qualitative methods are often considered less reliable, less precise than quantitative methods, they also have their advantages, i.e., their usefulness depends on the specificity of the issues being studied. Namely, qualitative methods are very indispensable for good insights into 'reality' based on local-level perspectives. Moreover, qualitative research can be used to test assumptions that are directly relevant to decision-making on economic issues. At the same time, it enables openness to different research approaches such as the variety of research questions. Despite the diversity of qualitative methods and research approaches, there is a high premium upon thinking differently because economic life is never wholly predictable. Thus, for the methods to be selected in the right way and applied correctly, it is necessary to determine in advance what the purpose of the forecast is and how much precision is required from it. Further, the chapter suggests that to deal with the increasing diversity and complexity of forecasting problems in economics, many qualitative techniques have been developed in recent years. These new tools have made qualitative research much more useful for organisations - and at the same time more accessible. Not only can new platforms help them get quality data faster and cheaper, they also enable companies to make better business decisions.