h17bm BK Taster
h17bm BK Taster
Methods for
Business and
Management
Devi Jankowicz
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Contents
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3
1/1
1.1
Manager and Research
1.2
Your Own Research Project
1.3
The Text and Your Business Specialism
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 1.1: Reflections on the Knowledge Transfer Partnership Scheme
Glossary
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2/1
2.1
The Purpose of a Project
2.2
Choosing a Topic for Your Project
2.3
Planning the Work
2.4
Organising and Using Resources
2.5
Managing Roles and Relationships
2.6
Ethical Issues
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 2.1: Working with Personal Preferences
Case Study Exercise 2.2: Developing a Topic
Case Study Exercise 2.3: Drawing up a Workplan
Case Study Exercise 2.4: Handling Ethical Issues
Glossary
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3/1
3.1
Basic Assumptions about Research
3.2
Design, Methods and Techniques
3.3
Ensuring the Generalisability of your Findings
3.4
Knowledge Generation
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 3.1: Metaphysical Assumptions at Purvis Industrial Paints
Case Study Exercise 3.2: Identifying a Model onto a Situation
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Contents
Module 4
Module 5
vi
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4/1
4.1
The Importance of the Literature Review
4.2
Literature Searching
4.3
Literature Reviewing
4.4
Literature Referencing
4.5
Preparing for Assessment
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 4.1: Starting an Internet Search
Case Study Exercise 4.2: The Structure of a Literature Review
Case Study Exercise 4.3: Recognising When a Reference Is Required
Case Study Exercise 4.4: Preparing a Draft of the Final Proposal
Glossary
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5.1
Planning the Use of Techniques
5.2
Research Conversations and Storytelling
5.3
The Semi-structured Individual Interview
5.4
The Key Informant Interview
5.5
The Focus Group
5.6
Preparing for Assessment
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 5.1: The Bosses at Hughes Aircraft
Case Study Exercise 5.2: A Simple Content Analysis
Case Study Exercise 5.3: The Reliability of Marika Weiks Content Analysis
Case Study Exercise 5.4: Analysis of Stakeholder Positions, or Trubble at ttill
Glossary
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Contents
Module 6
Module 7
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
6/1
6.1
From Semi-Structured to Structured Work
6.2
Structured Observation
6.3
The Structured Questionnaire
6.4
The Structured Interview
6.5
The Ethics of Collaborative Work
6.6
Preparing for Assessment
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 6.1: Emotional Labour Among Catering Staff
Case Study Exercise 6.2: Simple Tabular Presentation of Three Answer Formats
Case Study Exercise 6.3: Predicting Job Performance
Case Study Exercise 6.4: Looking for National Differences in Aptitude
Glossary
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6/35
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Writing A Dissertation
7/1
7.1
Review of Activities
7.2
Basic Requirements of Format and Structure
7.3
Delivering your Argument
Learning Summary
Action Programme
Review Questions
Case Study Exercise 7.1: Language and Style
Glossary
7/1
7/2
7/5
7/10
7/11
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7/12
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Statistical Tables
Two Types of Reader, One Examination
Introduction
An Approach to the Text
The Research Proposal
Researchers Only: Format and Criteria for Dissertations
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
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A2/1
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A3/1
A4/1
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4/4
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vii
Contents
Appendix 5
Index
viii
A5/1
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Module 1
Learning Objectives
When you have completed this module, you will be able to:
list the similarities and differences between the day-to-day project work you carry out as
a manager, and research project activity;
distinguish between informal definitions of research and more formal definitions;
recognise why knowledge creation is usefully viewed as a social activity;
identify that good research depends on the careful application of technique in execution
and reporting, rather than unusual genius or expertise in the researcher;
understand the approach taken in this workbook and the implications for the use you
make of it, in the absence of a dissertation tutor, and depending on whether you intend
to write a dissertation;
understand the approach taken to assessment;
state the ways in which the approach taken in this workbook matches the requirements
of any professional body that may be involved.
1.1
1/1
As you will see, both types of reader will be asked to plan an actual research project in
some detail. This is because some knowledge of the research project process is a useful
preparation for any professional management practitioner. The project activity will help you
to integrate the material you have learnt in the other courses of this programme; it will allow
you to think through, in depth, some of the detailed implications of what you have learnt in
those courses as you seek to apply some of what you have learnt; and it will almost certainly
lead you to challenge the applicability of some of that material en route. It will teach you new
skills, and may enable you to position yourself for your next career move. None of your
other courses is quite as effective as a research project in doing all this. At this point please
turn to Appendix 2, which provides you with further briefing on the requirements of this
case in the case of Researchers and Practitioners. Refer to Introduction and An Approach to the Text in detail, and skim read the remainder of the appendix.
Project work is, of course, an activity with which all managers are familiar, regardless of
their role and function and regardless of whether they are members of a professional body.
This raises two rather immediate and practical questions:
Is a research project any different from any of the other kinds of project activity in which
you engage?
Why do you need a complete course in doing research? What, if anything, is there to be
learnt?
1.1.1
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So much for your day-to-day project work as a manager. The interesting thing is that all
of these characteristics apply to the research project as well! You might argue that youre well
equipped already to engage in research! So wheres the difference? Do you really have to
complete a course in order to do what you know how to do perfectly well already? The
answer is yes, and the reasons reveal a lot about whats to come.
Lets examine some of the ways in which that word research is used.
Its such a commonly used word, within business enterprises and elsewhere. Your boss
asks you to research the competency coverage and price of the psychological tests available
from a range of suppliers. Next years sales campaign for your firm may depend on the care
with which a manager researches an industry benchmarking study for the main items in
your product line. Opposition politicians employ research assistants to check what
government ministers said when they were in opposition themselves. When your friend sets
out to buy a second-hand car, he sees himself as engaged in a process of research as he
discovers where he might find the model he wants at a price that suits his pocket. Market
researchers stop you on the street to obtain your opinions about the latest soap powder as
recently advertised. Can they all be referring to the same thing?
Perhaps the term is so frequently used because its so vague. All of these examples of
popular usage involve finding things out for a purpose, but, beyond that, there seems to be
very little consensus about what is involved.
The people who make a living out of research, in contrast, tend to agree on some basic
characteristics that make their work different from the laypersons.
1.1.1.1
Differences of Degree
The major differences are of degree. What the professional researcher does is seen as
involving:
more systematic data collection and interpretation. We all draw on our experience and try
to make sense of it (see e.g. Kelly, 1955/91), but the professional researcher follows a
publicly agreed system in a way the individual tends not to do.
more focused and specific methods and objectives that are more than common-sense
(Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2002). People in general tend to use plain reasoning and common sense when setting targets and getting down to a job; the researcher seeks to use
methods and techniques that have known characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.
greater care to avoid political and organisational biases than is often the case in ordinary
project work (Bryman and Bell, 2003: 45). Granted that no-one is completely free from
bias, and that all behaviour is value-laden, nevertheless professional researchers use a
range of robust techniques that minimise those biases theyre aware of. They also subscribe to one or other code of research ethics, as we shall see in Section 2.6 and Section
6.5.
the more deliberate, explicit, and self-conscious use of a theory to provide a background
to the work undertaken (Anderson, 2004: 18). We all have personal theories and try to
make our practice consistent with them (Kelly, 1955/91 again). Professional researchers
use publicly shared theories, models and analytical schemes as the main organising
frameworks to underpin their work.
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All four factors, it should be emphasised, are matters of degree. We are not saying they
are totally absent in the day-to-day project and completely present in the research project. (In
fact, we shall see in Section 3.1.3 how the notion of the person as scientist expresses one of
the two fundamental assumptions about what research-based knowledge is and how it is
developed by everyone, not simply scientists.) But they do help to give the day-to-day
project and the research project their different flavours.
The theoretical underpinning, for example, may be invisible in a day-to-day project; it
tends to be less explicit in practitioner research projects; but it is very deliberate and explicit
in more academic research, including research aimed at the fulfilment of the membership
requirements of the professional bodies. A day-to-day project about employee turnover and
how it might be reduced may draw on assumptions about employee motivation and job
satisfaction without setting out to contribute to those theories; or a MSc project that uses
Belbins Team-Role questionnaire (Belbin, 1981) to investigate optimal composition of new
workgroup arrangements may carry forward assumptions about group cohesiveness and
effectiveness that are implicit in Belbins approach, without setting out to advance the theory
of group effectiveness.
The implications for your own work are quite clear:
1.1.1.2
Differences in Kind
There are, in addition, some clear differences in kind and not simply of degree. All of the
authors whose work has been mentioned emphasise that the overall purpose of a research
project is not simple description or intelligence-gathering (an activity that Phillips and Pugh,
2000: 4748 call the what questions), but the advancement of knowledge in a particular
academic field or profession. By this, they mean addressing the why of the case:
The findings dont just fit with what is known already; they are interpreted in the light
of existing knowledge, principles and published material in a way that allows for the
development of new knowledge.
The researcher seeks to understand why things happen better than s/he did before.
Considerable attention is paid to methodology: the explicit and deliberate choice of an
approach, method and techniques that will be best suited to identify and illuminate what
is going on.
In other words, there is a feeling of progression, and of building on what went before.
Academic researchers view their single investigation as part of an ongoing, never-completed
process of continuing improvement in our understanding, rather than as the resolution of a
one-off problem. The immediate outcomes of the investigation should be immediately
obvious; but the longer-term significance may be different, as further research is carried out
within the community of researchers.
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This makes for a second major way in which your research work differs from your dayto-day project work. You have to interface with other people in a particular way. We
mentioned earlier that the evidence used in any project activity, and the conclusions to which
that evidence leads, frequently have to convince other people as well as yourself. In the case
of research work, the issue is much more fundamental than that. The development of all
knowledge is in itself a social process, and the outcome new knowledge itself is a social
product, not a personal one (Berger and Luckmann, 1976). In a very deep sense, which we
shall examine in more detail in Section 3.1, knowledge does not exist until you have reported
on it. Of course, personal conviction matters. But we treat this social perspective very
seriously, because it is your only protection against subjectivity, solipsism and cant as we
shall see!
1.1.2
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1.2
1.2.1
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T
h
e
P
r
o
j
e
c
t
Choose a topic
section 2.2
P
r
o
c
e
s
s
Organise resources
section 2.4
T
h
e
R
e
s
e
a
r
c
h
Generate knowledge
section 3.4
Literature reviewing
Module 4
Semi-structured techniques
Module 5
P
r
o
c
e
s
s
Figure 1.1
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1.2.2
1.2.3
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ongoing case study exercises together with suggested solutions, which you should
compare with your own solutions;
final exam-standard case study exercises, which should be tackled last; you are asked to
assess your answer to these by making a comparison against a model solution that is
provided.
Additionally (and this is not provided in your other course workbooks), you will be provided with an action programme at the end of each module. As you can see from Table 1.1,
this replaces the tutors function in setting you learning tasks and monitoring your progress
over time. It is essential that you engage in these activities. Researchers should do all of these
and practitioners some, as indicated.
Table 1.1
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All five resources have been carefully planned to substitute, as far as is possible, for the
functions of the research supervisor or tutor. There is, of course, no substitute for sheer
human contact. There again, many students on full-time and part-time programmes make
little use of the tutorial opportunities offered to them. It has to be said that, while they do
pass, they tend to do more poorly than those who have used the tutorial facilities! This
workbook is so structured as to provide you with a comparable level of support to the
conventional programme students who make a full and good use of their tutors. Section
2.5.2 has some suggestions for human alternatives to the tutor, the sponsor and the mentor.
1.3
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Table 1.2
A worked example: How and where this text maps onto a professional body
requirements
Professional Body Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Nature of dissertation
A Management Report of 7000 words focusing on an issue in professional HR practice. A typical MSc dissertation
is a longer document of 1218 000 words, which maps onto the CIPD requirements as listed below.
CIPD requirement
as outlined in the CIPD professional standards specification (CIPD 2001); see also CIPD (2004).
Performance indicators: Personnel practitioners must be able to
identify a suitable project for their management report, in terms of its feasibility and
relevance to an organisation, as well as to key issues in personnel and development
plan and design a project that demonstrates an awareness of strategic issues and has the
potential to make a contribution to improvements in organisational performance
access and interpret data from primary and secondary sources in compiling material for their
management report
analyse the data that have been collected for their management report, by the use of
qualitative and quantitative methods as appropriate
present their management report in a clear, logical and systematic manner in order to
persuade key decision-makers of its merits
prepare a plan for implementing the recommendations made in their management report
within a reasonable time-frame
undertake a critical review of their management report and identify ways in which their
project could have been undertaken more effectively
Knowledge indicators: practitioners must understand and be able to explain
the rationale for their choice of project aims and management report
the nature and importance of a number of major issues in the existing personnel and
development literature and contemporary personnel and development practice
the range of primary and secondary sources from which information can be gathered for a
management report
the advantages and disadvantages of different research methods and their relevance to
different situations
the use and value of different analytical tools for interpreting data
the principal techniques of communication and persuasion that are used when writing and
presenting a management report
Section
2.2
2.3
4
4, 5, 6
5, 6
5, 6
7
3.4, 7
4.3
7
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Learning Summary
Research project work shares a number of characteristics with the day-to-day project
work in which you engage as a manager, but it also has characteristics that make it different.
It follows that there is nothing particularly difficult about doing good research, so long as
you carefully follow a number of principles and procedural guidelines, which this workbook sets out to convey.
You should read this account in conjunction with Appendix 2.
You will not have a project tutor, but you should be aware of the ways in which this
workbook sets out to provide some of the support functions usually found in a tutor.
This will require you to work through the usual multiple-choice questions and case study
materials, noting the feedback provided; it will also require you to engage in projectrelated activities in the here and now as you progress through the workbook.
Action Programme
There is little for you to do at present. Youve barely started! Just two activities.
1. Use the feedback
(a) Build good habits. Make sure that you have worked through the multiple-choice
items and the case study exercises, read the answers and understood the feedback before you progress to the next module. As you will appreciate from Table 1.1, this is
your substitute for the tutorial process, and is an essential part of the learning experience.
(b) Do something about your mistakes. If you cant understand the feedback, need explanations and arent sure why an answer was wrong, then go over the text of the
module until you have puzzled it out.
2. Buy a research diary
(a) Researchers in particular should go into a stationers shop and buy a simple A4-sized
hardback notebook. You will use this for a great variety of purposes as you conduct
your research, as we shall see in the next two modules. By the time researchers are
ready to write up their research project, the diary will be a goldmine of information
and resources.
(b) A literal diary, i.e. something with pre-printed calendar dates on each page, is not a
good idea since you wont be making entries every day. A thin accounts ledger is ideal.
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Review Questions
Multiple-Choice Questions
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
One of the following information sources is not available to you as you progress through this
course. Which is it?
A. A tutor.
B. A sponsor.
C. A mentor.
D. A workbook.
1.5
Which section of this text deals with the basic technique of literature searching?
A. Section 4.2.
B. Section 4.3.
C. Section 7.2.
D. Section 7.3.
1.6
Which three CIPD performance indicators are covered by Module 2 of this workbook?
A. Conducting a data analysis, drawing appropriate conclusions, implementation.
B. Accessing data, engaging in a critical review, reviewing the literature.
C. Using appropriate techniques, interpreting data, using quantitative methods.
D. Identifying a topic, planning and designing a project, presenting a clear written report.
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Table 1.3
Alan Stevensons extract from the KTP Partnership database
Knowledge
Company
Partnership
No.
base partner
partner
objective
49
Grantchester
University
Handley
Manufacturing
Systems Ltd.
95
University of
Westlothian
Southern
Borders
Constabulary
127
Bedfordshire
University
Intego Design
Associates
In which one of the three objectives can you recognise a research project, just as its stated?
What opportunities do you see for fine-tuning each of the other two objectives, so that they go
beyond the description of a management project and demonstrate the attributes of a research
project? (If you dont remember what these are, refer to Section 1.1.1.)
References
Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. London:
Random House.
Luce, S. and Lynch, B. (1998). Competency: Frameworks and Tools. Research
Directorate, Canadian Public Service Commission.
www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/research/personnel/comp_frame_e.htm, accessed 10 March 2004.
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Glossary
Argument: a set of assertions backed up with evidence.
Dissertation: in the case of researchers, the 1218000-word document that is the outcome
of their research project activity. Project is sometimes used as a synonym, but is best
reserved to stand for the actual activity as distinct from the written outcome.
Empirical: results or outcomes based on observation and other forms of direct datagathering; people who emphasise experience are known as empiricists. Contrasted with
theoretical, which involves results or outcomes based on the use of principles and logic;
people who emphasise theory in this way are known as rationalists.
Generalisability: you gather data in a company or from a particular situation, but there is
little point in doing so unless your findings have more general relevance. For this to happen,
you need to draw an appropriate sample, or arrange for appropriate replications in your data
collection.
Mentor: someone who is sufficiently interested in what you are doing to keep up with your
progress and act as a sounding-board for your ideas; ideally, a person who has done a
professional management report or project him/herself.
Methodology: not a list of methods and techniques, but a careful and explicit account that
argues for the suitability of the research approach taken: the research design, methods and
techniques adopted.
Research topic: what your research is about: for example, improving the portfolio appraisal
process, partnership in manufacturing organisations, improving our supply chain. A topic
can have several research questions that could be asked.
Research question: the particular question to which you seek answers in order to be
successful in addressing your research topic. By and large you only ever work with one
research question. For example, Are our difficulties with the appraisal system due to poor
assessment instruments or poor user training? might be one question within the appraisal
topic. How might our union get most from the proposed partnership agreement? and
What are the costs and benefits of taking ownership of some of our suppliers? exemplify
research questions within the other two topics.
Solipsism: a philosophical position that asserts that the only things one can be certain about
are oneself and ones own direct experiences. It follows that the solipsist cannot tell, one way
or the other, whether other people see things the same way as s/he does. Not a very useful
belief if one takes the view that knowledge is a social product.
Sponsor: someone in the organisation in which you are collecting data (often your own
company or workplace) who cares about what you are doing, hopefully because you have
involved that person in choosing your research question. This role is not available in a project
that is industry- or library-based; in either of these two cases, you would look for a mentor.
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References
Anderson, V. (2004). Research Methods in Human Resource Management. London: CIPD.
Belbin, R.M. (1981). Management Teams: Why they Succeed or Fail. London: Heinemann.
Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1976). The Social Nature of Reality. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2003). Business Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
CIPD (2001). CIPD Professional Standards. London, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development,
pp. 212.
CIPD (2004). Applied Personnel and Development Standards: Management Report.
www.cipd.co.uk/mandq/standards/prac/apds/manrep.htm, accessed 3 May 2005.
Ghauri, P. and Gronhaug, K. (2002). Research Methods in Business Studies. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Jankowicz, A.D. (2005). Business Research Projects. London: International Thomson Business Press 4th
edition.
Kelly, G.A. (1955/1991). The Psychology of Personal Constructs. New York: Norton.
Phillips, E.M. and Pugh, D.S. (2000). How to Get a PhD. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 3rd
edition.
SQW Consultants (2002). Evaluation Report on the Teaching Company Scheme, cited in Knowledge Transfer
Partnerships How are Partnerships Funded, Department of Trade and Industry,
www.ktponline.org.uk/companies/funding.html#benefits, accessed 3 May 2005.
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