Business Research Methods

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

Emma Bell is Professor of Organisation Studies at the Open University, UK. She has an enduring interest in methods and methodological issues and has published widely in this area. Emma is a past Co-Chair of the Critical Management Studies Division of the Academy of Management, current joint Vice-Chair of Research and Publications, British Academy of Management, and joint Editor-in-Chief of Management Learning. Alan Bryman was Professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of Leicester from 2005 to 2017. Prior to this he was Professor of Social Research at Loughborough University for thirty-one years. His main research interests were in leadership, especially in higher education, research methods (particularly mixed methods research), and the 'Disneyization' and 'McDonaldization' of modern society. Alan was also the author of the bestselling textbook Social Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 2015) as well as contributing to a range of leading journals: he was an extraordinarily well-cited and internationally renowned social scientist. Bill Harley is Professor of Management in the Department of Management and Marketing at The University of Melbourne. Bill's academic research has been motivated by an abiding interest in the centrality of work to human life. His work has been published in journals including the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Industrial Relations, and Work Employment and Society. Bill was previously General Editor of Journal of Management Studies and is currently on the editorial boards of the same journal, as well as Academy of Management Learning and Education and Human Relations.

Undeniably the gold standard textbook in research methods Dr Charlotte Smith, University of Leicester