Complete and clear summary of the course Business Research Methods (section given by M. Cools). The summary contains all slides from the lectures, supplemented with own notes.
NOTE: the summary does not include the lessons taught by K. Cleeren
TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................... 2
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN GENERAL............................................................................................................................ 2
CASE STUDIES ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS...................................................................................................................... 10
CONTENT ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................................... 14
COMPUTER ASSISTED QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE (CAQDAS) .................................................................... 15
REPORTING ON QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ..................................................................................................................... 17
GETTING PRACTICAL .............................................................................................................................................. 19
FINAL COMMENTS AND ADVICE ................................................................................................................................ 21
SURVEY DESIGN ........................................................................................................................................... 22
DEFINITIONS AND EXAMPLES .................................................................................................................................... 22
BASIC CONCEPTS ................................................................................................................................................... 23
SUCCESS FACTORS AND BOTTLENECKS........................................................................................................................ 24
THE SAMPLE......................................................................................................................................................... 25
TYPES OF SURVEYS ................................................................................................................................................. 28
THE QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................................................................. 29
COMMON ERRORS ................................................................................................................................................ 39
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN ............................................................................................................................... 40
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND METHOD SBM ................................................................................................ 49
1
,QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN GENERAL
Description of qualitative research
- Reason for knowledge creation: to understand HOW people/organizations act and
HOW they attach meaning to events
- Nature of (social) reality: complex, constructed and subjective
- Evidence: comes from interaction with people
- Knowledge accumulation: by conducting research in or close to natural setting
Two broad research paradigms
Quantitative research
- Logical positivism/modernism
o Social scientists borrowed methods from physical and life scientists
o Concerned about counting and measuring subjects
o Methods prevailed until 1960s
o Researcher-centered approach
Qualitative research
- Post positivism/post modernism
o Social scientists began to re-examine assumptions about positivism, adopted
concepts and methods from anthropology
o Concerned with watching, listening, talking with subjects
o Participant-centered approach
Types of qualitative studies
- To understand how/why things happen
- Descriptive studies
- Theory-building studies
- Hypothesis-testing studies
Theory-building qualitative studies in situation when
- No existing/ only partial theories
- Complex phenomena
- Lived experiences of people
- Temporal or practice dynamics in organizational life
2
,Approaching qualitative research
- ‘Qualitative research can mean many different things, including a wide range of
methods, and can be informed by contrasting models’
- Case study
o Exploration of a single entity or phenomenon bounded by time and activity
(e.g. program, event, institution, group)
o Using variety of data collection procedures: quantitative and qualitative data
- Grounded theory
o Inductive development of a theory which is ‘grounded’ directly in the empirical
data
- Ethnography
o Long term investigation of a group (often a culture)
o Based on immersion and, optimally, participation in the group
- Phenomenology
o Descriptive study of how individuals experience a phenomenon
o Often searching for commonalities across individuals
All of these approaches require
- Time in the field: extensive
- Data analysis: complex, time-consuming process
o Writing up the study:
• Writing long passages
• Claims è evidence
• Reflecting multiple perspectives
- No firm guidelines or specific procedures, qualitative research constantly evolving
and changing
Designing a qualitative study
Conventional image: field research keeps pre-structuring and tight designs to a minimum
HOWEVER
‘Contrary to what you might have heard, qualitative research designs do exist’
(Miles & Huberman 1998, Silverman 2017)
Purpose: Why are you doing the study?
- Understanding the meaning
- Understanding the context
- Identifying unanticipated issues and generating grounded theories
- Understanding the processes by which events and actions take place
- Developing causal explanations
3
, Conceptual context: What do you think is going on?
- System of concepts, assumptions, expectations, beliefs, theories that informs your
research
- How to build a conceptual framework?
o Experiential knowledge
o Existing theory and research
o Pilot and exploratory studies
o Thought experiments
Research questions: What do you want to understand?
- Evolving because embedded in purpose and conceptual framework
- Help to focus your study
- Give guidance for how to conduct the study
- Sources of confusion
o Research issues versus practical issues
o Example: research questions versus interview questions
Methods: What will you actually do?
- Decisions about data collection
o Field research: observation, participant observation, ethnography
o (In-depth) interviewing: one-on-one, focus groups
o Textual analysis: content analysis
- Decisions about data ordering and analysis
o Categorizing, contextualizing, memos and displays
Quality: How might you be wrong?
Sampling
- Poor case selection impedes making valid causal inferences
- Select cases in such a way that they enable in-depth understanding
- Purposeful/purposive sampling
o Set of procedures whereby the researcher manipulates analysis, theory and
sampling activities interactively during the research process çè statistical
sampling
- Changing the size of your sample during your research may be appropriate
Purposeful sampling
- Theoretical: select participants/ texts/ situations based on their usefulness to
examine the issue of interest
- Deviant case: select participants/ texts/ situations because they might contradict
other evidence
- Quota/stratified: select participants/ texts/ situations to represent features of a
population
4
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