According to Socialresearchmethod.net “research design provides the glue that holds the research project together. A design is used to structure the research, to show how all of the major parts of the research project — the samples or groups, measures, treatments or programs, and methods of assignment — work together to try to address the central research questions”. Doing research is a very serious activity and hence the importance of a good design.
There are many types of designs, and the main ones are given here. They are exploratory research, descriptive research, and causal research. The first one is where something new to the researcher is being studied. This is to understand the basic issues involved, to understand the variables, and to find information to enable a detailed or descriptive study. A descriptive study, as the name suggests, will study the problem in great detail. This will give a full picture of the state of affairs of a particular study. Causal research is used in case a relation between a cause and effect. The study of whether lowering the price of a product will increase its demand is an example.
So, the above sentences reveal that a design is chosen according to the nature of the study. If the study is to know why sponsorship is falling in the Formula 1 sport, an exploratory study can be done to see whether this is true and also understand the basic issues involved. Then a descriptive study can be undertaken to get a complete picture of why this has happened. Causal research can be done to see if changing some variables in Formula 1 will bring in more sponsorships. Descriptive research usually follows an exploratory one. Causal research can be conducted alongside exploratory research once the basic issues have been confirmed.