3.2 Research method
According to Caouette and Altman(2008), country risk is the external risks not in domestic investment …show more content…
Generally, the aim of the comparative research is to find similarities and differences of objects, and explore the special or universal law behind the phenomenon(Heidenheimer, Heclo & Adams, 1983). This approach often applies multiple disciplines in one research. Generally, comparative research is to analyse the existence of differences, which seems simple and feasible. However, when it refers to specific methods, the majority researchers agree that there may be no methodology peculiar to do comparative research(Heidenheimer et al., 1983). Usually, it is accepted that the combined approach is a good way to implement the comparative research (Jones, …show more content…
Usually, the aim of vertical comparison is to test whether a thing is different over time to understand the development process and reveal the law of development of things(Deacon, 1983). This dissertation would collection the data about FDI inflows of Chinese enterprises over 11 years to do trend analysis or examine whether a rating 's effects differ over a duration of time.
3.2.1.2 Qualitative and quantitative analysis
Quantitative analysis seems to be much more frequently applied than qualitative analysis, which is shown by the many comparative researches which utilise quantitative data(Clasen,2004). Secondary data analysis is relatively common in comparative studies, because collecting primary data for some large project like a country’s economic index would be a huge cost (Deutsch, 1987). This dissertation will mainly apply the quantitative methods to analyse the data. This is because the most of data collected will be