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

Table of Contents

PART ONE; 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; PART TWO; 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; PART THREE; 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; PART FOUR; 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