An example of an analysis of a research paper

Neuman, W. L., 2014. Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. 7th ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Normaz Wana Ismail, Peter Smith, Maurice Kugler, 2009. The Effect of ASEAN Economic Integration on Foreign Direct Investment. Jstore, 24(3), p. 398.

In this study, they examine how ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) affects foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into ASEAN countries. There are two main types of FDI flows in this study: the flows of intra-regional FDI and the flows of extra-regional FDI. This research finds out that ASEAN new members (Brunet, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Laos) benefit from the increase of intra-regional foreign direct investments, while, ASEAN 5 countries(Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia) can attract more investments from Japan and US. Furthermore, this research suggests that there is an increase in investments from ASEAN 5 countries to new members; however, those flows do not appear much within the original ASEAN 5 (Normaz Wana Ismail, Peter Smith, Maurice Kugler, 2009). There are factors that are positively related to foreign direct investment such as market size, income, population, language and distance in sources countries. The researchers have used different kinds of research method in order to come out with the above findings. I am going to discuss the research methods use in this study, and also analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this study below.

This research is an applied research and it falls into an evaluation research category of the applied research. The authors of this study want to evaluate whether there is an increase of FDI into ASEAN region or vice versa after AFTA.  This study finds out that ASEAN Economic Integration can actually attract more FDI into the region, but it just changes the pattern of FDI flows into ASEAN. In this way, there is an increase in intra-regional investments from ASEAN 5 to ASEAN new members and there are more investments from US, Japan, and EU to ASEAN 5 origins (Page 385 & 401). However, the AFTA diverts FDI from Australia and New Zealand, East Asian, and North America (Page 400). No one has ever explored the effect of AEI on FDI topic before; hence, this study is an exploratory research. There were many previous studies that have studied about the relationship between REI and FDI, but none of them focus specifically on AFTA. As mentioned in the paper, the relationship between REI and FDI, with a particular focus on ASEAN Free Trade AREA (AFTA), has been largely unexplored (Page 387). This study analyzes sample using both crosses sectional research and longitudinal research.  For longitudinal research, it uses the panel approach. The research gathers data at one point of time in Table 1 (Page 398) and collect data from multiple period of time as shown in Table 2 (Page 399). There are not many experiments that incorporate both cross-sectional and longitudinal research, so this study has a plus for being able to collect and analyze sample using both cross sectional and longitudinal research. The results of this study can avoid the time differences usually happen in cross sectional research.  Inductive approach has been applied in this study. In this respect, researchers of this paper begin their study with some empirical theories about the relationship between REI and FDI, and then generalize from the evidence to build toward increasingly abstract idea  (Neuman, 2014). In addition, the science of this research is positivism. In this regard, the researchers try to find the causes and effects of REI on FDI flows into ASEAN region by observing external causes such as factor endowments and trade costs rather than internal causes like each country’s characteristic and climate. This research relies on empirical evidences and uses standardization measure in order to make an experiment. Standardization measure is used widely in positivist social science. The gravity estimation is the standardization measure in this experiment. The researchers present the results of their findings using positive relationship. A higher value of Gravity estimation, a higher FDI flows into a country. For instance, the intra-ASEAN FDI are significant in 2002 and 2004 because the coefficient is positive and significant (0.756 and 0.714 respectively) (Page 399). The data that uses to experiment in this study is the interval data. There is no real value of zero in this study since zero still represents a low flow of FDI into a country (Page 387).  Similarly, the study uses a random sample. A random effect model is appropriate to estimate typical trade flows by randomly drawn sample of trading partners particularly from a larger population (Page 396). Moving onto literature review part, the authors use meta-analysis technique. The authors start their study by gathering the details about a number of previous studies about REI and FDI, and then synthesizing the results. In Theoretical Literature part of this study, the writers have mentioned about the study of Motta and Norman (1196) that analyzes the effects of economic integration on oligopolistic multinationals in a three country setup, and also talked about the study explore by Neary (2002) on the effects of trade liberalization and inward investment. After discussing the results of these empirical studies, the authors try to synthesis their results to the previous studies results. Additionally, the researchers of this study have followed all the five steps in a meta-analysis: locate all potential studies on REI and FDI, develop consistent criteria and screen studies for relevance and/or quality, identify and record relevant information for each study, synthesize and analyze the information into broad findings, and draw summary conclusions based on the findings. There is one setback of this study I could find is that researchers do not study about Cambodia (Page 393). Cambodia should also be included into the study as it is also in ASEAN region. The findings may be wrong as it did not study all the variables. The study concludes that ASEAN new members do not attract much of extra-regional FDI. This conclusion might be incorrect since the authors of this study cannot collect data/information about FDI in Cambodia. It would be better if the authors able to gathered and analyze all of contributes in this study.

In conclusion, the purpose of this study is to highlight AFTA’s roles in increasing ASEAN countries’ attractiveness for FDI from members and non-members.  This study is an evaluation research as well as an exploratory research. The authors collect data and analyze samples using both cross-sectional and longitudinal research. This experiment has a plus since it can avoid time differences upon analyzing the sample as it incorporates time in two ways. The direction of theorizing for this study is deductive. Positive relationship have been utilizing for interpreting the results of this study. The samples in this study have been selected randomly and the level of measurement is interval data. The researchers use Meta-analysis technique in the literature review part. This study omits one attribute for analyzing. The authors of this study did not study about the effect of REI on FDI flows into Cambodia as they could not collect information about Cambodia. As one attribute of the study has been missed, the result of this study may be not 100 percent accurate.