Who a person is determines what he makes of things.

Give a research project to three different people with three different temperaments, you’ll get three different results based on how each person views what he is doing.

A project manager will make a research project into the orderly execution of a process. The activities, the output and the sign-off are all milestones to be reached.

A designer will make a research project into the creation of a deliverable. The research findings populate the diagram, and give it content.

A scientist will make a research project into a gathering of verifiable and defensible facts.

A philosopher will make a research project into an opportunity to learn something new. Everything that is done is turned into acquisition of knowledge — preferably disruptive knowledge that reveals old understandings to be insufficient or outright wrong.

A businessman — assuming he is actually a businessman, and not a project manager, designer, scientist or philosopher — will make research into something that helps his business, either through the discovery of opportunities or the uncovering of flaws or the development of a better understanding of his business’ stakeholders.