Business Research Projects [antikvár]

Preface to the third edition A preface is a good place in which to comment on what's new, and what has remained the same, in the field of business and management research methods. And that's what I did in the preface to the second edition, reporting on the increasing popularity of qualitative approaches to business research, the growing awareness of the value of a constructivist, as distinct from positivist, basis to research methodology, and the increase in topics with an international theme. It has to be said that these changes have continued, and in the same direction -more of each! - so far it's possible to judge from personal and colleagues' impressions as we act in the roles of tutor, internal examiner and external examiner. And these have been reflected by means of appropriate emphases here and there within the present edition. However, it's worth drawing your attention to material which is entirely new. The first major addition has been to provide a series of structured Action Checklists at the end of each chapter. These have been carefully designed to help you to manage, and structure, your work on and towards your project in a way which ensures that, once you have completed them, you should also have completed your project and written your dissertation! This reflects the wish, observable in a number of other handbooks on research methods, to foster the reader's learning by practising the techruques described in each chapter. However, these kinds of exercise are very often generic in nature, designed to help the reader learn the techruque in a way which suits all projects and dissertations in which the reader might subsequently engage. That's all well and good if one's trairung people to become researchers; but I have a more practical and immediate objective in mind, which is to help you complete a particular project — one whose deadlines are already staring you in the face. Many people using this book will be managers whose commitment to an academic research dissertation, while sincere and energetic, is oiUy to a single piece of work. So the exercises should be designed around that single piece of work, and that is what I have done. Besides, all research (with the arguable exception of a Ph.D., at which this book has never been aimed) is a matter of single projects. When you've finished the present project, should you decide to take on another one (for example, in going on to do an MBA after finishing an undergraduate business degree, both of which usually feature project work) you can always return to this book, and run through the exercises, again as required. As I say provided you work through the Action CheckHsts systematically, you will have completed your dissertation by the end of that time.