This text provides an overview of management research and research methodology. Taking the reader through all the major stages of the research process, the wide-ranging text introduces the key methods that are available to students as researchers in management and business. Highlighting first the different contexts and purposes, strategies and tactics, and programmes and processes of management research, the authors then move on to a more detailed review of the relevant research approaches and methods. They discuss the inter-relationship of theoretical and empirical research, as well as the differences between positivism and phenomenology, and discuss how these different approaches are used in practice. The implications of using quantitative and qualitative methods are examined and the book also contains practical advice on available analysis techniques and software packages. It concludes with a look at how masters and doctoral degrees are evaluated by examiners, including a checklist for students to ensure that they have complied with the main course requirements.
Ethne M. Swartz, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University. She served as a chair and associate dean at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Silberman College of Business. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a Justin G. Longenecker Fellow of the United States Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship. She has taught in the UK, Mexico, Germany, Iceland, and South Africa. She serves as a research associate at the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute of Business Science. Her research publications appear in * Long Range Planning * Risk Management: An International Journal * Journal of Applied Management Studies * Leadership and Organisational Development Journal * Business Horizons * International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research * Facilities * Education and Training * Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship * International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurship, Theory & Practice (ET&P).
PART ONE: CONTEXT AND PROCESS Business and Management Research in Perspective Philosophical Background to Research Research Strategies and Tactics The Research Programme and Process PART TWO: APPROACH, METHOD AND DATA The Positivist Approach to Empirical Research Phenomenology: The Non-Positivist Approach The Research Process Collecting Empirical Data The Questionnaire The Case Study The Sample Statistical Analysis PART THREE: REPORTING RESEARCH Ethical Considerations Writing Up the Research Evaluation of Masters and Doctoral Degrees
`Postgraduate students should find this a useful book, since it focuses on issues specific to their requirements. The philosophical underpinnings, methodology and practicalities of research are all discussed within the context of postgraduate research' - International Small Business Journal '[T]here is, as with all the chapters, an excellent set of suggested further reading...' - Management Learning
