Business Research Methods 2/e provides essential guidance on the practice of business research and how to carry out a small-scale research project or dissertation for the first time. It offers an encyclopaedic introduction to the core concepts, methods, and values involved in doing business research, from formulating research questions, reviewing the literature, and designing a questionnaire to carrying out data analysis and presenting research results. The strengths and weaknesses of each research method are examined to help students choose an appropriate methodology, and the wider philosophical issues and ethical controversies that affect business research are discussed to help students make informed research decisions. Importantly, the book examines in depth the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research techniques and how and when they should be used, and marries theoretical issues with topical case examples from a number of work-related fields (such as management, strategy, and marketing). It has also been comprehensively updated to reflect the growing use of the internet as a source of data and medium for conducting research, and places new emphasis on the student experience of research by relating the activities of real student researchers back to the research process.

Table of Contents

PART 1; 1. Business research strategies; 2. Research designs; 3. Planning a research project and formulating research questions; 4. Getting Started: reviewing the literature; 5. Ethics in business research; PART 2; 6. The nature of quantitative research; 7. Sampling; 8. Structured interviewing; 9. Self-completion questionnaires; 10. Asking questions; 11. Structured observation; 12. Content analysis; 13. Secondary analysis and official statistics; 14. Quantitative data analysis; 15. Using SPSS for Windows; PART 3; 16. The nature of qualitative research; 17. Ethnography and participant observation; 18. Interviewing in qualitative research; 19. Focus groups; 20. Language in qualitative research; 21. Documents as sources of data; 22. Qualitative data analysis; 23. Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis: Using NVivo; PART 4; 24. Breaking down the quantitative/qualitative divide; 25. Combining quantitative and qualitative research; 26. Internet research methods; 27. Writing up business research

Author Biography

Alan Bryman is Professor of Organizational and Social Research in the Management Centre, University of Leicester. Emma Bell is Senior Lecturer in Organization Studies in the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London.