Business Research Methods

A Practical Approach

Sheila Cameron, Deborah Price

• Publisher: CIPD - Kogan Page
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781843983620
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Organizations need research, and managers have to be able to commission, judge and use others' research as well as conduct research themselves to inform business decisions. Business Research Methods helps you understand the challenges of carrying out worthwhile research into significant issues and develop a wide range of research-related professional skills. Guiding you through the process of selecting, carrying out and reporting on a successful research project, it breaks down the research process, from exploring the literature and crafting a research proposal to practical research management and addressing the transferable skills of project management and communication. Business Research Methods places research firmly in the real world, exploring why research is done and how to ensure that projects are meaningful for organizations. Examples and case studies, including examples of students' projects, give learners with little or no work experience a meaningful context in which to relate their own projects. Online supporting resources for lecturers include an instructor's manual with additional activities and supporting handouts, lecture slides and figures and tables from the text. Resources for students include web links, templates, quizzes, activities, examples of practice and sample questionnaire results for students.

PART 1

FROM FIRST IDEAS TO POSSIBLE TOPICS

Chapter 1

Practical business research: an overview

Sheila Cameron

Chapter 2

The complexities of business research

Sheila Cameron

Chapter 3

The investigative process

Sheila Cameron

Chapter 4

Stakeholders, power and ethics

Deborah Price

Chapter 5

Considering possible topics

Sheila Cameron

CHAPTER 1

Practical Business Research: An Overview

INTRODUCTION

Practical business research is carried out in a wide range of contexts, for different purposes, and in many different ways. It can have a substantial influence, for good or ill, upon organisations and upon the working lives of their employees. This book is intended to develop the skills you will need to carry out or draw on such research. Those skills will be of value to your career as a manager or consultant. Although the book will help you to do a good dissertation on a business-related topic, it is not designed to prepare you for a PhD.

The first part of the book covers the research process and the complexities of doing research in organisational contexts on topics of relevance to their managers. This chapter provides an introduction to most of the issues that you will have to consider when planning or evaluating such research. It aims to give you a clear overall picture of what business research means, what it can achieve, and how you can usefully draw upon theory to help with this. Some of the inevitable complexities involved in researching ‘real’ issues are highlighted and some of the hazards that they present are explored. It is important to avoid such hazards if your research is to be useful rather than misleading. (Many of these issues are developed further in subsequent chapters.)

The complexity of organisational issues makes it hard to grasp them fully at first. Research seldom therefore proceeds neatly by means of separate and self-contained stages. The process is necessarily both more integrated and messier. You are likely to develop your understanding of a complex issue through a series of insights, any of which may suggest profitable redirections in your investigation. To avoid chaos, and other hazards, you must work within a systematic framework, based upon a sound understanding of the business research process as a whole.

The book's structure reflects this belief in the need to understand the whole picture before focusing on specific parts. The last part of this chapter explains the structure we have adopted for the book, the style we have chosen, and the features that we have incorporated to help you use it to best effect. It explores the implications of these aspects for your own reading and thinking about research.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

This chapter should enable you to:

• define ‘business research’ and identify its potential benefits

• distinguish between ‘business research methods’ and the business research process

• identify the different forms that practical business research can take, and outline the range of outcomes that may be achieved

• draw upon theory to help make sense of organisational issues, and identify scope for further theory development during the research process

• give appropriate priority to seeking evidence to inform decisions and actions within organisations

• compare and contrast the academic and the practitioner research process

• plan how best to use the book to meet your specific learning aims

• start to identify ways in which your research might develop your management potential, as well as provide useful information about a real issue

WHAT IS PRACTICAL BUSINESS RESEARCH?

Managers have to make sense of what is going on both within their organisation and in its environment in order to take effective decisions and actions. Business research is about the process of collecting and interpreting the information needed for this.

Practical business research refers to any systematic attempt at collecting and interpreting data and evidence in order to inform thinking, decisions and/or actions in relation to an issue of interest to an organisation and/or its stakeholders.

Questionnaires and interviewing Chapters 15, 16 and 24

Definitions are important: communication depends upon your readers (or listeners) knowing what you mean by the words you use. You will have to pay attention to this in designing any questionnaires and in interviewing, and in writing up any research you do. You can see that the definition has a very practical orientation: the issue addressed is of interest to an organisation and/or its stakeholders.

Contrast this with the more academic perspective on research reflected by Buchanan et al (1988, p67) who stated that

“the ultimate goal of the research enterprise is to gather empirical evidence upon which theories concerning aspects of behaviour in organisations can be based.”

Theory and practitioner-researchers

Our definition is wider – it includes more than Buchanan's. Theory-building is not necessarily the ultimate goal of practical research, although theory can be a rich resource for practitioner-researchers. By our definition business research may lead to theory development, but it may not. Much valuable research is primarily driven by a need to address a particular organisational issue: this is why the book title emphasises that we have adopted a practical approach.

It is worth also looking at what is meant by ‘research methods’. This often has a fairly restricted meaning. For example, Bryman and Bell (2007) say that

“A research method is simply a technique for collecting data.”

As you will discover, practical business research is far from simple. It is therefore reassuring to note that research methods are ‘simply’ techniques. Such techniques are, however, essential if practical business research is to inform rather than misinform decisions and actions which may have significant consequences for an organisation and its employees. Research methods (and related analytical techniques) are designed to help you generate data that is valid and reliable and draw sound conclusions from it.

Conclusions

There are many different approaches to data collection and analysis, some fairly straightforward, some extremely complicated. The book focuses on those in common use by practitioner-researchers, and their role in the wider research process. Unless you understand the strengths of a method and its limitations, you may choose unwisely. If you do not understand how to use the method, even a wise choice may produce misleading data.

Mastering a research method is not enough: the quality of your thinking about all aspects of your research is crucial.

The value of the data you collect will depend upon the quality of your thinking about the purpose of your research, the context in which you are conducting it, how best to collect relevant information and how to analyse and interpret what you find. It is this thinking that will make the research useful or not.

To choose and use techniques to good effect you must understand that the wider research process of data collection is but a part. In p...