Richard A. Swanson and Elwood F. Holton, leading scholars in the field, bring together contributions from more than twenty distinguished researchers from multiple disciplines to provide a comprehensive introductory textbook on organizational research. Designed for use by professors and students in graduate-level programs in business, management, organizational leadership, and human resource development, Research in Organizations teaches how to apply a range of methodolgies to the study of organizations. This comprehensive guide covers the theoretical foundations of various research methods, shows how to apply those methods in organizational settings, and examines the ethical conduct of research. It provides a holistic perspective, embracing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methodology approaches and illuminating them through numerous illustrative examples.
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.
Research Management: Europe and Beyond addresses the myriad responsibilities related to research management and administration. The book incorporates narratives from those working in the field to provide insight into the profession. The book also offers a unique perspective on the topic by incorporating global perspectives to address the growing interdisciplinary nature of research collaboration. The book outlines practical advice for those in the research management and administration profession at all levels of experience. It is also a useful tool that research institutions and research groups can use to assist in planning and streamlining their research support. - Offers a deeper understanding of the research management and administrative landscape through single and collective definitions and experiences - Provides an overview of the research environment and explores the international research arena - Discusses some of the most complex issues in research management and administration by covering topics such as ethics, innovation, research impact, organizational structures, and processes for the project life cycle
First published in 2004. 'Bryman has given researchers who study organizations and people in organizations just what they need, a source book on how such research is done, written for them on them by one of them. There are research methods books aplenty, but not for this particular field. Bryman's compendious knowledge enables him to review every conceivable method, illustrating and assessing each with copious material from actual published research. Hence the book gives a reader an enhancd knowledge of research and researchers as well as of methods. It is both a rich source for newcomers and a thorough reference work for old hands.' - David J Hicks, Professor of International Management and Organization, University of Bradford. Alan Bryman takes numerous examples of research, principally from North America and the United Kingdom, to illustrate his themes. Each research design and method (both quantitative and qualitative) is systematically appraised in terms of its uses and limitations. Experiments, surveys, participant observation and interviewing - and more particular problems such as measurement, levels of analysis and the relevance of epistemological issues - are thoroughly discussed.
This Second Edition of Diana Ridley’s bestselling guide to the literature review outlines practical strategies for reading and note taking, and guides the reader on how to conduct a systematic search of the available literature, and uses cases and examples throughout to demonstrate best practice in writing and presenting the review. New to this edition are examples drawn from a wide range of disciplines, a new chapter on conducting a systematic review, increased coverage of issues of evaluating quality and conducting reviews using online sources and online literature and enhanced guidance in dealing with copyright and permissions issues.
Scholarship establishes a new field of study in the organizational sciences. Just as positive psychology focuses on exploring optimal individual psychological states rather than pathological ones, Positive Organizational Scholarship focuses attention on optimal organizational states --- the dynamics in organizations that lead to the development of human strength, foster resiliency in employees, make healing, restoration, and reconciliation possible, and cultivate extraordinary individual and organizational performance. While the concept of positive organizational scholarship encompasses the examination of typical and even dysfunctional patterns of behavior, it emphasizes positive deviance from expected patterns. Positive Organizational Scholarship examines the enablers, motivations, and effects associated with remarkably positive phenomena --- how they are facilitated, why they work, how they can be identified, and how researchers and managers can capitalize on them. The contributors do not adopt one particular theory or framework but draw from the full spectrum of organizational theories to understand, explain, and predict the occurrence, causes, and consequences of positivity. Positive Organizational Scholarship rigorously seeks to understand what represents the best of the human condition based on scholarly research and theory. This book invites organizational scholars to build upon and extend the positive organizational phenomena being examined. It provides the definitional, theoretical, and empirical foundations for what will become a cumulative body of enduring work.
This book brings together key theories behind qualitative research, whilst drawing attention to novel, cutting-edge approaches to data gathering, such as visual anthropology and storytelling. Offering a comprehensive guide to qualitative analysis, this book goes further than examining research methods to open a discussion on the roles of reflexivity, imagination, emotions and ethics in qualitative research, Covering topics such as reflective analysis, sociological paradigms, action research and organizational ethnography, this book is ideal reading for those who wish to address the gap between undergraduate and postgraduate research-based edited books and encompasses a wide array of methods. Those exploring organization studies will find this two-volume collection extremely valuable as it contains robust contributions from highly-skilled authors who are actively researching in this field.
What is science? How is it performed? Is science only a method or is it also an institution? These are questions at the core of Managing Science, a handbook on how scientific research is conducted and its results disseminated. Knowledge creation occurs through scientific research in universities, industrial laboratories, and government agencies. Any knowledge management system needs to promote effective research processes to foster innovation, and, ultimately, to channel that innovation into economic competitiveness and wealth. However, science is a complicated topic. It includes both methodological aspects and organizational aspects, which have traditionally been discussed in isolation from each other. In Managing Science, Frederick Betz presents a holistic approach to science, incorporating both philosophical and practical elements, in a framework that integrates scientific method, content, administration and application. Illustrating all of the key concepts with illustrative case studies (both historical and contemporary, and from a wide spectrum of fields), Betz provides in-depth discussion of the process of science. He addresses the social, organizational, institutional, and infrastructural context through which research projects are designed and their results applied, along the path from experimentation to innovation to commercialization of new products, services, and processes. This practical approach to science is the foundation of today's knowledge-intensive and technology-enabled industries, and positions the management of science within the broader context of knowledge management and its implications for organizations, industries, and regional and national technology management policies. Managing Science will be an essential resource for students in all areas of research, industry scientists and R&D specialists, policymakers and university administrators, and anyone concerned with the application of research to economic growth and development.
Organizing Words presents a series of essays on some 220 widely used - and much debated - terms in the social sciences, and organization studies. Each essay explores the meanings and uses of the word; and also the controversies they have sparked. The book aims to be a first port of call for students, researchers and scholars who wish to familiarize themselves with these key ideas and use them in their own work. The book is neither an encyclopaedia nor a dictionary, but a thesaurus. As such it combines both the original meaning of a thesaurus as a treasure trove, with its more contemporary characteristics of an accessible and practical resource. Primarily aimed at those interested in social and organizational studies, it will appeal to all those interested in the human sciences. It does not claim to be canonical or all-inclusive, but each entry seeks to enlighten and help, without patronizing or obscuring disagreements and difficulties. The book seeks to be re-assuring without being complacent or 'comfortable', to be authoritative without being doctrinaire, and to be critical without being destructive. Words help us express ourselves, and make sense of our experiences and our actions; and they help us to organize ourselves, our thoughts and our universe. Organizing Words will be an invaluable resource for essay-writing and a useful tool in planning and carrying out projects and dissertations. Most of the entries have been written by Yiannis Gabriel, with 40 essays coming from other experts in particular areas.
Since 1986, the British government, faced with dwindling budgets and growing calls for public accountability, has sought to assess the value of scholarly work in the nation’s universities. Administrators have periodically evaluated the research of most full-time academics employed in British universities, seeking to distribute increasingly scarce funding to those who use it best. How do such attempts to quantify the worth of knowledge change the nature of scholarship? Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra examines the effects of quantitative research evaluations on British social scientists, arguing that the mission to measure academic excellence resulted in less diversity and more disciplinary conformity. Combining interviews and original computational analyses, The Quantified Scholar provides a compelling account of how scores, metrics, and standardized research evaluations altered the incentives of scientists and administrators by rewarding forms of scholarship that were closer to established disciplinary canons. In doing so, research evaluations amplified publication hierarchies and long-standing forms of academic prestige to the detriment of diversity. Slowly but surely, they reshaped academic departments, the interests of scholars, the organization of disciplines, and the employment conditions of researchers. Critiquing the effects of quantification on the workplace, this book also presents alternatives to existing forms of evaluation, calling for new forms of vocational solidarity that can challenge entrenched inequality in academia.
