Preface to the fourth edition xi
Aims and purposes of the book xiii
Guided tour xiv
Companion website xvi

Part I Issues and Processes in Management Research 1

1 Introduction 3
Innovation and diversity in management research 3
Making methodological choices 6
The management research process and management development 8
Approaches to management research 13
The rationale and structure of the book 16
Conclusions 18
    Further reading 19

2 Starting management research 21
Topic selection 22
    Sources of research topics 22
    Some characteristics of a good research topic 23
    Techniques for generating research topics 25
Planning the project 27
Reviewing the literature 30
    What is a literature review? 30
     Undertaking the review 32
    Planning the literature search 32
Structuring of a literature review 33
Conclusions 36
    Further reading 36

3 The role of theory in management research 38
The methodological importance of theory 39
Theory and practice 40
    Theories and hypotheses 43
    Theory and management control 45
Deduction 46
    The use of concepts and hypotheses 47
    Operationalization 48
    Testing theory 51
    Popper's hypothetico-deductive approach 52
Induction 56
    Debates and disputes 62
Conclusions 64
    Further reading 66

Part II Key Methods in Management Research 69

4 Experimental research designs 71
Deductive logic and the structuring of management research 72
    Problems in deductive research design 74
'True' or 'classical' experiments 75
    The logic of the true experiment 75
    The process of matching experimental and control groups 77
    Biases arising during the course of a true experiment 79
The Hawthorne studies 82
    The Hawthorne effect 84
Alternatives to the true experiment 87
    Quasi-experiments 89
Conclusions 92
    Further reading 93

5 Action research 95
Conceptualizing action research 95
Kurt Lewin and action research 97
    The aims of action research 100
The processes of action research 105
    Diagnosis 110
    Planning and intervening 112
    Evaluation 116
Ethical dilemmas in action research 119
Conclusions 120
    Further reading 121

6 Survey research design 123
Approaches to survey research 123
Planning survey research 124
    Analytic surveys 124
    Descriptive surveys 126
Sampling 127
    Calculating sample size 127
    Contacting samples 131
The choice of questionnaire format 140
    Questionnaire focus 140
    Questionnaire phraseology 141
    The form of response 142
    Question sequencing and overall presentation 144
Fieldwork 144
Data analysis and the presentation of findings 145
Ethics and survey research 145
    Further reading 146

7 Qualitative methodology: the case of ethnography 147
Defining qualitative research 148
Ethnography and its development 151
Defining ethnography 154
Ethnographic methodological commitments 155
    1 Verstehen 155
    2 Avoid ethnocentrism 155
    3 Induction 158
    4 Behaviour varies according to the social situation in which it takes place 158
Undertaking ethnographic research: methodological decisions and choices in the field 160
Field roles in ethnography 161
    Participant and non-participant observation 161
    Overt and covert observation 165
    Access 167
    Direct and indirect observation 169
Ethics and ethnography 171
The analysis of qualitative data: theory building through induction 171
Methods for inductively developing theory 173
    Stage 1 175
    Stage 2 175
    Stage 3 177
    Stage 4 181
Conclusions 182
    Further reading 183

Part III Philosophical Issues and Developments in Management Research 185

8 Philosophical disputes and management research 187
The nature of human behaviour 190
Epistemology 191
    Factors that might influence observation 196
    Implications 199
Ontology - status of social reality 200
Methodological implications: alternatives to positivism and neo-empiricism 202
    Postmodernism 202
    Critical realism and pragmatism 205
    Critical theory: reconfiguring action research and ethnography 207
Conclusions 211
    Further reading 212

9 Conclusions: Evaluating management research 214
Positivist evaluation criteria 215
The application of positivist criteria to evaluating research methodologies 218
    Ideal or laboratory experiments 218
    Quasi-experiments and positivistic forms of action research 219
    Analytical surveys 219
    Ethnography 220
    Multi-methods: the criteriological justification 221
Methodological pluralism 223
    Mixing methods: case study research 224
Re-evaluating evaluation criteria 227
Social constructionist evaluation criteria 231
    Critical theory 232
    Affirmative postmodernism 235
Conclusions 237
    Further reading 238

Glossary 240
References 243
Index 260