Business Research Methods 3e

Designed as an introduction to doing business research, this book acts as a comprehensive guide for students embarking on their research projects. The authors, together with real students and supervisors, draw on their own experiences so that readers can take note of their tips for success and avoid making their mistakes. Developed specifically with business and management students in mind, this book explores the issues which business research entails, as well as providing students with practical advice on doing research. A new feature has been added to this edition that sees supervisors of research projects from various universities give guidance on how to decide on a project and see it through to a successful conclusion, avoiding common pitfalls. Other changes include the expansion of the discussion of ethics, an increased emphasis on practical content such as planning a project and writing it up, and a substantially updated chapter on internet research methods. Online Resource Centre For students: An interactive research guide, providing guidance and advice on every aspect of business research Video interviews with research students Datasets from the text Self-marking multiple-choice questions for revision Annotated web links to useful articles, reviews, models and research guides A guide to using Excel in data analysis For lecturers: A lecturer's guide including lecture outlines, reading lists and teaching activities A suite of customisable PowerPoint slides Figures and tables from the text

1 - Business research strategies
2 - Research designs
3 - Planning a research project and formulating research questions
4 - Getting Started: Reviewing the literature and formulating research questions
5 - Ethics and politics in business research
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
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 V7
24 - Breaking down the quantitative/qualitative divide
25 - Mixed methods research: combining quantitative and qualitative research
26 - E-research: using the Internet as object and method of data collection
27 - Writing up business research

Emma Bell is a Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at the University of Exeter.