Doing Business Research

A Guide to Theory and Practice

Nick Lee, Ian Lings

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781446259610
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

`It?s not often that you?ll find an article or book that explains what you need to know in such plain, simple terms. Treasure it? - Andrew Farrell, Doctoral Researcher, Loughborough University

`Entertaining and authoritative without being patronising? - Professor Chris Hackley, Royal Holloway, University of London

`This is a gem of a book from two of the outstanding management researchers of their generation. Easy to read and entertaining, yet rigorous and comprehensive in its approach, this book will be adopted as an essential aid for students undertaking final year projects, masters dissertations, and as a primer for doctoral researchers? - Professor Graham Hooley, Aston University

`This book will fill a vital gap for post graduate research? - Professor Rod Brodie,

University of Auckland Business School

For anyone involved in developing a research project, this textbook provides an integrated, accessible and humorous account that explains why research methods are the way they are and how they do what they do.

Unrivalled in its nature Doing Business Research addresses the research project as a whole and provides:

-essential detail of philosophical and theoretical matters that are crucial to conceptualising the nature of methodology

-a pragmatic guide to why things are important and how they are important

-a huge range of things to consider that the reader can use to develop their research project further

-a resource book, providing extensive suggested reading to help the researcher do their research.

Chapter 1

What is research, and why would anyone want to do it?

Nick Lee and Ian Lings

SUPERVISOR’S VIEW: PROFESSOR KWAKU ATUAHENE-GIMA

Research, contributions, knowledge and who knows what! As you embark on an academic career, the two potholes that will make or break that journey are in the form of two words: ‘contribution’ and ‘new’. When I was in graduate school, my professors always told me to endeavour to ‘make a contribution’ – not only that, but also that the conrtibution must be ‘new’. When I began my academic career, the emphasis on these two words became deafening at research conferences, seminars and workshops. When pressed for better explanations of what is a ‘new contribution’, many presenters would respond with something like: ‘say something interesting’, ‘create new knowledge’, ‘develop new theory’, etc. Hardly ever would anyone explain what ‘interesting’ and ‘new’ meant. More important, how one judges the ‘interestingness’ and ‘newness’ of a research contribution is a question that is often left unanswered.

Coupling my industry and research experiences, I have come to realise that research is about conversations, and that I am on a personal journey of learning and discovery – learning from what others have done and are doing to discover how and why I can contribute to their conversations. I believe that I do not create knowledge with my research and publications – rather, I participate in a conversation about issues of interest to academicians and practitioners. To the extent that my participation leads the audience to judge that I have enhanced the conversation with insights and understandings that are new to them, I have contributed new and interesting knowledge. Yet, I have not created new knowledge – rather the audience has created new knowledge that helps in their continuing the conversation along new and different avenues of understandings. As you read onwards, think about this and how you will offer opportunities for your academic and practitioner audiences to create their own new and interesting knowledge. This, in my view, is the beauty of research and is what makes the research journey interesting and worthwhile in spite of the deep potholes.

VIEW FROM THE TRENCHES: ANOUCHE NEWMAN

When I try to explain to my friends and family what I do, nobody really understands me, or their eyes glaze over and I change the subject. A friend recently asked me what I would do when I finished my Ph.D.: ‘Are you going to get a real job afterwards?’ Well, this is my real job. Why do I do research? I don’t know why I am doing what I am doing. I just fell into it and here I am. Some days I wake up and think it is the worst thing in the world. Research is not easy and it can be incredibly frustrating. On other days the very reason I hate being a researcher is why I love my job, because I like to be faced with research problems that are exciting and challenging at the same time.

When I first started ‘doing’ research, I had no idea what ‘research’ really meant. I just thought it was cool that I was getting paid to carry on studying. To be honest, I am still getting to grips with what doing research involves, and my views and opinions regarding what research actually means are evolving as I gain more experience. Research can mean different things to different people. And what constitutes ‘good’ research can also mean different things to different people. It is important that you form your own opinions. That’s one of the things that makes your research unique – along with the fact that you are supposed to be doing something that no one else has ever done before. Some people might disagree with what you believe; that’s what research is all about. You have to show those people why your opinion is valid. Of course, there is no right or wrong answer to any one research problem and, on occasion, your best ideas are from people who see the world in a different way to you. Be open to the different views and opinions that exist around you.

I cannot offer you a definition of research that will help you understand what it is or how to do it. You have to live it to know it and you will always be learning something new about what you think research is supposed to be.

So, you stand here at the beginning, or somewhere along the way, of a journey, that of discovery. You’ve already heard from some people who have successfully negotiated many of the hazards of that journey (Professors Clegg and Atuahene-Gima), and from Anouche – soon to be Dr Newman – who is only just beginning to lose sight of the early shores (we like to call this ‘leaving the beach’). If you are reading this book, we can only assume that you are interested in research in some way (well, you could be one of our Mums we guess, hello Mum – you appear later so keep reading!) You might be a research student who is only just starting out, you might be a more experienced researcher who is looking for some ideas, or like us, you might just be interested in reading and writing about research itself. Whoever you are, as long as you are interested in thinking about research, we are writing this book for you.

This chapter is about setting out very clearly a perspective on research, and also about explaining exactly what this book is trying to do, and maybe more importantly what it is not trying to do. Furthermore, we are hoping desperately that you will enjoy it enough to keep reading the rest! After all, it’s taken us two years to get this far so we’d really like you to read it.¹ This chapter is being written about 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean on a flight to Reykjavik in Iceland. While we are there we will present the results of various research projects, some conducted with our students. Two weeks ago Nick was invited to Helsinki to speak on a panel about research, and in a month or so he will be doing the same in Disneyworld, Orlando, in the US. Research has provided each of us with what many would see as an amazing life so far. We’ve been to places we’d only ever heard about as kids growing up in small towns in New Zealand (Nick) and England (Ian). We’ve done things we’d never have dreamed of, and met some of the most amazing people in the world, many of whom have done us the honour of working with us (in fact, lots of them will appear throughout this book), and it never ceases to amaze both of us that even one person is interested in what we have to say. It’s fair to say that this thing called ‘research’ is responsible for all of this. Well, it certainly can’t be our respective good looks!

But what is research? This chapter is aimed at explaining that question in some way. However, as you will see as you read on through this book, there are many, many, different perspectives and answers to that question. We have our own perspective for sure, but we really want to give you enough information so that you can make your own mind up. Nevertheless, one really important thing to keep in mind is that to be a great researcher, you can never stop learning. We spoke above about the idea of this being a journey, and it is exactly that. However, the journey of discovery never ends. Every day we learn something new, and the day we stop being excited by that is the day we will think about finding a new job.

Moving on, at the end of this chapter we really hope you have come to terms with these key ideas:

• What is the purpose and added value of this book over other books on the same general subject?
• What is academic research, and what is knowledge?
• How can you ‘contribute’ to knowledge?
• There are many ways of doing research, and no one single right way.
• What the four ‘ologies’ are, and how they link together.
• How research can link the theoretical world, to the real world, and how this then relates to knowledge creation.

Why is it Important to Know This Stuff?

This chapter is a very important one for a number of reasons. First of all, it ‘sets the scene’ for all of the information to come. This is necessary because there is a heck of a lot of information, theories, ideas and questions all about to hit you. You are going to need some kind of structure in place to help you try to absorb all of that information, or else you will get overwhelmed. In fact, the information in this book is the culmination of probably a decade of doing, thinking and writing about this kind of thing, so mainlining it straight into your brain is probably going to be a bit of an overdose!

We are hoping that this chapter will give you an idea of what the book is about, and also about our own personal perspective on research. From here, you’re going to be in a good position to learn more, or even decide whether you want to learn more, before you commit to the whole thing (you have bought this already haven’t you? If not, go and buy it, then come back and continue reading).

In this chapter, we are going to try to set out a few key things we wished we’d known before starting out, which would have helped us a lot. We are also going to try to give you some indications of the unique features of this book, and why we spent two years writing it, rather than just recommending some other book to people who ask. With this knowledge in hand, you should be able to get the most benefit out of the book, which is very important to us.

However, maybe the most important idea we are trying to get across is that research is fun. Well, perhaps it’s more accurate to say research can be fun, when you are confident in yourself and what you are trying to do. The task we set ourselves at the start of this project was to give you that confidence. Research is also a human process; it’s done by people like you and us, not computers or robots. Researchers are real people, who have alternative opinions; they disagree, argue, make mistakes and are subject to all of the other natural social interactions like any other group. We want to get this feeling across here, and in the rest of the book. Ignoring these processes paints a very inaccurate picture of how most academic research gets done. So, read on, learn and laugh (or at least pretend to laugh when it looks like we are making a joke – that’s just common courtesy).

Why (yet) another research book?

Trust us, you don’t have to ask that question! Over the last couple of years we have asked ourselves that question so many times we’ve lost count. Actually, there are two questions: (a) why did we start writing the book; and (b) why did we continue writing it when things got tough? The answers to both are linked, but also quite separate. And both those answers illuminate the purpose of this book nicely.

The idea behind this book came from a conversation between us, Dr Nick Lee and Dr Ian Lings, in a bar called ‘The Sacks of Potatoes’. If you want to find it, it’s pretty well located on the campus of Aston University in Birmingham (that’s in the UK, not Alabama). They do a lovely pint of bitter. Both of us had had our Ph.D.s for a couple of years, and we had each been teaching at Aston for maybe five years. We had just been given the opportunity to create a course in ‘Marketing Science’, which was designed to give students the academic research skills to do a good research dissertation, and maybe inspire some of them to go on to do a Ph.D. We took this as a chance to teach students ‘our way’ of doing research. In other words, the way we had been taught by our own supervisors and senior colleagues. However, when it came to finding a textbook for this course, we were shocked to discover that there was no single book which set everything out in one place. In fact, we had to take chapters from maybe 10 or 15 books and put them together in a readings pack. At the same time Nick was trying to teach research methods to our Doctoral students, and again finding it very hard to locate appropriate material all in one place.

What we were looking for was not a book which went through the fine details of statistical formulae or sampling, or the ‘technical’ side of research. That kind of thing is pretty easy to find (and you know what, it’s not really the hard part). No, what we wanted was a book which taught you how to think about doing research. We wanted an easy-to-follow resource which showed how philosophical issues linked with practical and technical issues, and then how students should think and write about those things. In other words, how do you make decisions about what to do when you are doing research, and then what are the implications of those decisions for your research? Bits and pieces of this were available in many different books and articles, but we couldn’t locate an integrated source. As well as this, we were beginning to find that we were continually answering the same questions asked of us by research students. We began to think ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow clone ourselves in miniature, and sit on people’s bookshelves ready to answer those fundamental questions’. This would save a lot of time. However, we were informed that such technology was not available right now (and to be fair it might be a bit weird). So, we decided that the next best thing would be to try to pack all of the experiences and things we had discovered about research (mainly through making mistakes) into a book. Then, we could just force – I mean suggest – that people buy that book.

This is the book you now hold in your hands. To us, it’s the cumulative result of a lot of mistakes, a lot of questions, not as many definitive answers and a heck of a lot of fun over the last ten years since we both started researching. We both hope you enjoy it, and, most importantly, that you learn from it.

So, what is research?

If you open up any research methods text, you’ll get a definition about what research is. However, most texts, even those which are supposed to be aimed at doctoral and postdoctoral-level researchers, will give you a definition which is implicitly (or explicitly) based on the viewpoint of the author. You may, or (more likely) may not yet, understand that there ar...