Doing research in Business and Management: An Introduction to process and method

The original universities are medieval institutions. Most modern institutions of higher education still have a touch of the Middle Ages. One of the most obvious has been the apprenticeship system for educating postgraduate researchers. In many departments the relationship between doctoral candidates and their supervisors is still feudal. Scholars still conceive research to be an art best learned by a thoughtful student observing his master. A PhD provides entry to the guild of master craftsmen. Hierarchy is still very important. However, in an age of mass education we are also encouraged to make knowledge less tacit, more explicit, more transferable. It is important that we should succeed in doing this because democracy requires widespread education. Giving students the pretence of learning will not serve the best interests of society. It will only ensure that ‘more means worse’ as Kingsley Amis once quipped. In the last few years innovations, such as the MRes, have even infiltrated the training of academic researchers. With it has come the increase in books, which describe unambiguously how to do research. Doing Research in Business and Management is a contribution to this literature. My greatest concern with this book is its market focus. Its title suggests that its audience is business and management students, but several of the authors have a background in IS research. This is clear from most of the examples which the authors use. In fact it seems to me that the book contains too many references to IS research to be wholly satisfactory to business and management students. A book such as Management Research: an Introduction (1994) by Easterly-Smith et al, might be a better bet. On the other hand, by focusing on an IS audience, the authors might have made alterations which would make it even more relevant to IS students, as Cornford and Smithson (1996) have done in their book Project Research in Information Systems: a Student’s Guide. The structure of this book consists of three sections which consider the nature of postgraduate research, its conduct, and its presentation and evaluation. It is important to begin any text like this one with a discussion of the nature of research and the MPhil/PhD process. In my experience, students submit themselves to research degrees in order to promote their careers. Unfortunately, they rarely realise what they are getting themselves into. They are likely to find it a daunting experience at first. The introductory section of Doing Research addresses many of the issues, which puzzle students, in a straightforward manner but it avoids the more subtle issues such as how to select a supervisor. My students find that the text by Phillips and Pugh (1994) entitled How to Get a PhD provides such intelligence. The one omission from this section, which I think is important, is a discussion of the balance between depth and breadth in research training. The core of the book is the section which considers research. It begins with two chapters which discuss the positive and the phenomenological philosophies of knowledge. The authors deal with these in a simple manner, which is not always characteristic of such discussions. It is particularly notable how hard they try to maintain impartiality when discussing their two doctrines. It makes me wonder whether their intended audience is the supervisor or the student. More importantly, they ignore the rational and the pragmatic philosophies of knowledge, both of which have advocates. Having discussed the dichotomy between theoretical and empirical research earlier in the book, the authors then treat only methods which begin with data collection. The third chapter in this section describes a process for doing research. While some would quibble with the details of their approach, I particularly like the way the authors have incorporated Czarniawska’s (1997) work on narrative as an attempt to teach induction. This technique, however, does not help new researchers to make a bridge between their subject and their research question—a step which guides data collection. For this I can recommend Booth et al’s treatment in The Craft of Research (1995). The remaining chapters in the second section consider the nature of evidence and offer competent introductions to research techniques such as: questionnaires; case studies; sample selection; statistical analysis. The chapters on research are terse and will need supplementing with whole texts, which they suggest in their end notes. My one criticism of the authors’ discussion of evidence is that it is far too brief concerning the perils of using the World Wide Web. They might say more about evaluating evidence, particularly in this context. The final section begins with a chapter on ethics—a topic rarely discussed. I find the chapter on writing a dissertation the least detailed. This is unfortunate since most of the suggested readings are predominantly about research techniques, not writing. Books such as The Craft of Research, which are far more germane, are not cited. The section closes with a chapter on how dissertations are evaluated, another murky topic, and this is tactfully done. In short the book offers a competent introduction to most topics of importance to a novice researcher. In a few areas it proposes some innovative techniques. In others it is lacking. Like any such text, each chapter is a window into a more detailed literature. I am just a little concerned that it may not do as well commercially as it might because it tries to be all things to all research students. This would be a pity because such books are important if we are to introduce more students to the intellectual habits of research. These habits are as important for the citizen as for the scholar and should not be thought of as arcane knowledge.