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7/28/2019 Lecture 1 Dissertation Development Overview
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MGT7091: Research Methods
and Techniques Module
Overview
Professor Mark Palmer
Queens University Belfast
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Lecture aim
to provide students with an appreciation of theResearch Methods and Techniques module
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Learning outcomes
To introduce the challenges and issues associated
with conducting an academic piece of research
To provide insights into successful academic
research within a variety of settings
To help you to identify a topic for your final year
dissertation
To develop a provisional Research Proposal for your
final year Dissertation
To introduce the 2 main philosophical approaches to
research
To introduce the nature of the research methods
associated with the main philosophical approaches
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Core Reading Saunders et al. Any edition
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Professor of Marketing
Previously Head of the Marketing Department, Birmingham Business
School, University of Birmingham, January 2011 December 2012 Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, July 2003
December 2010
Member of the Advanced Institute of Management
Research expertise lies in market driving behaviours, institutions and
innovation within the value chain
Business consultancy programmes for Goldman Sachs, Sainsburys,
Tesco, DHL, ABCAM
Over 80 articles in refereed journals, books and conference
proceedings
Your Host Dr Mark Palmer
BA MA PhDDipM AIM PGCTL MCIM Chartered Marketer
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Queen's University
Management School
Queen's University Belfast
Room 02.039
Riddel Hall
185 Stranmillis Road
Belfast
Northern Ireland | UK |
BT9 5EET: +44 (0) 28 9097 5612
F: +44 (0) 28 9097 4201
www.qub.ac.uk/mgt
Contact Details
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Lecture and Tutorial StructureLectures
Week 1: Overview of the
course, academic research
and the philosophy of research
Week 2: What is a
dissertation?
Week 3: Selection of topic and
problem
Week 4: Conducting an
analytical literature review and
developing a conceptualization
Week 5 Methodology (Part 1)
Week 6 Methodology (Part 2)
Tutorials
Week 1: Thinking deeply
Week 2: Idea generation,
problem solving and objectivesetting
Week 3: Assessment Writing
your dissertation proposal
Week 4: Searching for
secondary data and building a
literature review
Week 5: Hypotheses
Development, Protocols,
Discussion and conclusions
Week 6: Managing yoursupervisor
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Assessment Assignment One-100%
Assignment Title: MSc Dissertation Research
Proposal. An individual Assignment
An Research Proposal for your dissertation
Defining your topic
Initial background reading and research Designing a research strategy
Number of Words: 3,500 (+ or 10% rule
applies)
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Assignment Deadline & Instructions for Submission:
Assignments must be submitted by 4.00pm Tuesday 8th May 2012.
All assignments will be retained for consideration by the external examiner.Students should therefore submit two copies of their assignmentto the
QUMS Student Office, Riddel Hall, 185 Stranmillis Road and signed for
under the supervision of QUMS Student Office staff on or before the date
above.
A copy should also be emailed to your MSc Coordinator.
Penalties for late submission will be applied. Thus assignments
submitted after the deadline will be penalised at the rate of 5% (5 marks) off
the assessed mark awarded for each working day late up to a maximum of
five working days (i.e. Monday to Friday excluding days of official University
closure) after which a mark of zero will be awarded.
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Instructions for Submission:
Formatting: Assignments should be submitted
in size 12 font, with double line spacing. All
readings should be clearly referenced using the
Harvard Style.
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Why should I produce a research
proposal?
An opportunity to organise your research ideas and get a
focus
Identify the scope and boundaries of the investigation
Kick starting the research process
Evaluating the feasibility of your proposed research A means of establishing a focus for when you
communicate with your dissertation supervisor
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Recommended Proposal Outline
Introduction: context, topic to be addressed, outline of research question(s), aims and objectives,
potential contribution of the research to literature and management practice, potential research
problems and/or constraints (500 words).
Review of relevant literature: justification of topic chosen, bodies of literature being addressed,
what is already known, gaps in what is already known, how the literature reviewed informs the
design of the research (1,500 words).
Methodology: how you intend going about answering the research question(s) and addressing
the research objectives (1,500 words):
Summary of ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning proposed research
Summary of research approach and purpose
Detailed research design methodology including proposed data collection method(s) and dataanalysis, strengths and potential weaknesses of proposed approach
Potential ethical issues
Timeline (Gantt Chart)
Possible resource requirements.
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Lecture Attendance
Formal lecture
Tutorials (Q&A)
Six formal lectures, Thursdays, 1- 3pm 3 Tutorial Groups (3-5 Thursday & Fridays 9-11am and
11am to 1pm
Lectures provide the bones of the subject
Preparatory reading required to get the most fromlectures
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Module outline
Lecture notes
Assessment Readings (3-4 Journal articles in PDF format for
each lecture)
NoticesN.B. Access to the files is either through Microsoft PowerPoint or
through the file manager / windows explorer
Queens Online
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Surgery Office Hours Attendance
Fridays 1-5pm
Your chance to bring issues of concern. What you dont understand from lectures and
readings
Ask Mark
Low risk environment. I cant help if you dont ask
"A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner."
English Proverb
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Lecture Room Etiquette
Talking Eating, Drinking and Smoking Mobile Phones, iPods, MP3 players and similar interactive electronic
communication devices Concentration, taking notes and asking questions Good Manners is Good Business!
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Creating the The Red Queen Effect in the Classroom!
Any company, in trying to keep ahead of thecompetition, constantly seeks ways to improve its
efficiency and performance. Often, this searchresults in organizational learning that increasesthe companys competitive strength. Similar to achain reaction, this turns rivals into strongercompetitors and thus again triggers learningresponses (search for improvements) in the firstcompany. In this way, organizations learn overtime as a response to competition, which in turnintensifies competition in a self-reinforcingprocess (Barnett et al., 1994; Barnett andHansen,1996).
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The ant on a balloon flat or round??
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Mindful of Mindwandering A state ofdecoupled attention
Harvard study
said left them happy
and sharply focused.
It was, they said,"making love."
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A Wandering mind is an unhappymind?
During waking hours, peoples minds seem to wander about 30 percent of
the time
Those seated in the front third of the lecture experienced significantly fewer
(Lindquist & McLean, 2011)
The everyday cognition tradition focuses on the investigation of thinking in
contexts more akin to those that individuals encounter in the course of their
day-to-day lives (Cohen & Conway, 2008). This tradition provides a
welcome complement to mainstream cognitive psychology that focuseslargely on tasks that bear little to no resemblance to tasks one might
encounter beyond the confines of the laboratory (Neisser, 1978).
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Implications for your researching?
Our working memory -- the part of our memory system that guides
us through our daily chores, from remembering where you left thecar keys to telling the difference between a red light and a green
light -- lets us simultaneously juggle multiple thoughts
This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a
remarkable degree, by the non present (Killingsworth and Daniel
Gilbert, 2011)
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On Becoming an Academic Researcher
Everything is possible in academic research until itis proven otherwise
Ideas are your currencydont throw your currencyaround
Only share ideas once your work is published
Researchers always leave a trace!
Maliciously record your tracks every step of theway
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Academic research
It is sometimes possible to explore basic questions in the university
that are tough to raise in other settings. John Gardner (1968, p. 90)
put it well when he said that the university stands for:
things that are forgotten in the heat of battle
values that get pushed aside in the rough and tumble of everyday
living
the goals we ought to be thinking about and never do
the facts we dont like to face
the questions we lack the courage to ask
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Were all entrepreneurs now!
We identify market opportunities for our ideas
We find sources of funding for them, if needed
We allocate resources to these ideas
We produce and market these ideas to various
audiences
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And marketing managers too!
We manage a portfolio of ideas
We promote these products
Distribute them
And price them too from time to time
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The Nature of the Academic
Entrepreneur of knowledge an emancipationof work
Plough the lonely furrow independence.Master of your own destiny. Your Business.
Becoming the Rocky of the Academy: pain,rejection, written off. Bounce Back! TheLazarus effect
Resilient stubborn, tenacious, hope, positive
They are human!
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Imprisoned by ourselves? Stanford studies August
1420, 1971 The Stanford prison experiment was a
study of the psychological effects of
becoming a prisoner or prison guard.
Twelve students were selected out of
75 to play the prisoners and live in a
mock prison in the basement of theStanford psychology building. Another
twelve of the same 75 were selected to
play the Guards.
Roles were assigned randomly to the
24 men. The participants adapted to
their roles well beyond what wasexpected, leading the officers to
display authoritarian measures and
ultimately to subject some of the
prisoners to torture.
Implications for you?
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Academic Research Why does it Matter?
Rigour or Relevance - the tyranny of the Or
Evidence management
Who reads it? Academics, practitioners, policy makers?
Traditional impact channels primacy of the peer ranked journal
being questioned by the social influence agenda
Scientific activity in the modern world is more importantself-
appointed-online-pundits
Boundaries between science and non-science have become eroded
by disruptive technologies such as Google, Wikipedia etc
An insatiable demand for new scientific knowledge
More spent in bailing out the banks than on the entirety of science
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The Dissertation Journey
Prejudices you carry a prejudices into yourresearch. Things are not always what they
appear to be.
Inertia you stop acting when you stumbleupon a problem
Procrastinationyou dont want to
Joy and elation when you find out stuff
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Prejudices
We often have closed ears and then prejudice and our
own ignorance of the communities we serve tempts us
to parodies of what we think people might want
(Marland and Rodgers, 1991).
We bank, therefore we think we understand
banking!
We are exposed to marketing, therefore we
think we understand marketing!
We use a smartphone, therefore we think we
understand technology!
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My Style & Course
Interaction and a number of small exercises
Challenging but rewarding!! (deep learning rather than strategiclearning)
Using rhetorical questioning can lead to better decisions (i.e. playing devils advocate)
can be informative. (i.e. questions are used to introduce course content,topics and to request clarification)
can help to identify and challenge assumptions, but also to explore andimagine alternatives
Benefits include: enhances your ability to recognise the virtues of strong and weak
arguments
makes them sceptical of single answers to questions (2 sidedarguments)
most effective means through which ingrained assumptions can bechallenged
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Lecture Style & Course
Textbook is the core reading Saunders et al. Research Methods forBusiness Students
Using Journal articles as supplementary reading for the course randomquestions about articles
Expectations that you read TWO articles per week (How?)
The Benefits:
More informative and situational specific. Knowledge is best conveyedin specificsituations/contexts
More timely and up-to-date than dated text books
Illustrative of MBA-centric learning
Research-driven teaching and knowledge dissemination
Avail of the vast electronic databases available for students in the library(e.g. emerald, Sciencedirect etc.).
More cost effective
Environmentally friendly
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Philosophy of Research
The Chambers twentieth century dictionary
defines philosophy as:-
..pursuit of wisdom and knowledge.
..knowledge of the causes of things.
Research is defined as:-
..systematic investigation towards increasing the
sum of knowledge.
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Science
Science is defined as:-
..knowledge ascertained by observation and
experiment, critically tested, systemised and
brought under general principles.. Science is also cumulative with each generation
building on the ideas of the preceding ones
either through rejection and change or
conformity and development.
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Science, Philosophy & Research So Philosophy uses Research to test established ideas and identify
their limitations which in turn provides the basis for the formulation of
new explanations and continues the process of philosophical
evolution. Science provides the mechanisms through which Research is
conducted.
New scientific knowledge defined as new theory that articulates or
has the potential to articulate new phenomena (Lakatos, 1970).
The term "theory" a variety of forms including abductive theory (i.e.,
theory prompted by surprising observations -- Hanson, 1958) and
theoretical models that posit causal relationships among terms (cf.
Suppe, 2000).
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Differing approaches to research
Data collection
methods
Research strategies
Time horizons
Research approaches
Research philosophy
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Philosophical Issues and Debates Scientific knowledge producers see the world through TWO distinctiveontological and epistemological lenses.
The lens you adopt will have real consequences in terms of the organization
of knowledge production.
There are two fundamental philosophical issues which have influenced the
development of science:
The nature of reality
The ontological questions are:Do scientific theories represent reality?
What can be known for certain?;
Ontology concerns the analysis of the types of things or relations that
can exist. In science, a major ontological issue concerns whether
scientific theories represent reality -- objects, events, and processes
outside the human mind; or whether scientific theories comprise
explanatory fictions whose terms (such as "electron") are conveniencesinvented to guide research.
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Philosophical Issues and Debates
The epistemological questions are: Is there such a thing as
absolute truth?
Does science gets closer and closer to the truth?
Epistemology concerns how one gains access to
knowledge and the relationship between knowledge and
truth. In science, a major epistemological issue concerns
whether or not scientific theories over time move closer
and closer to the truth.
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Philosophical Issues or Epistemology Debates
Therefore need to consider the basic questions of meaning (i.e., ontology)
and knowledge (i.e., epistemology) in order to either study/research.
There have been two paradigm shifts in Western thinking. But there are a
variety of positions across the two spectrums, but broadly speaking the aretwo positions.
These are Positivism (scientific method) and Interpretivism.
Note: They are often in warring camps.
Some see these oppositions as false and detrimental to research.
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Positivism
Auguste Comte, 1798-1857
R h hil h
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Positivism (a.k.a Logical Positivism andObjectivism)
Positivists attempt to mirror the methods of the naturaland physical scientists.
Through observing reality you can produce laws of the social
world which can be generalised from one context to another
e.g Laws of Supply and Demand in Positive Economics.
Stylised facts - facts uncontestable
Research philosophy
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Positivism or Objectivism
Your role is to be an objective analyst, collecting data and
interpreting it in a value free way.
You are detached, neither affect nor are affected by the
subject of your research.
Emphasise the quantifiable, the observable, and replication
(the ability to repeat research)
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Interpretivism and Phenomenology
Edmund Husserl, 1859-1938
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Interpretivism (e.g. Phenomenology) emphasises -
That the world is too complex to be reduced to a series oflaw-like generalisations.
the uniqueness of people, and circumstances
and the constant nature of change.
details matter - in an attempt to dig into deeper
layers of reality.
subjective reality matters.
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Interpretivism could be used to study -
Organisational culture layer by layer the visual symbols
the mission statement, and the hidden world of taken
for granted assumptions which influence thinking, feelingperceptions in the workplace.
Warning!
Finding the reality working behind the reality may be
too challenging for some!
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Logics that profoundly affect the research of
professional scientists
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Choosing a Research Approach
A deduct ive app roach?
You develop a theory and design a strategy to testhypotheses.
A close ally to the philosophy ofpositivism.
A scientific approach.
An induct ive approach?
You collect data and develop a theory as a result
of your data analysis
A close ally to the philosophy ofphenomenology.
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Summary
The justification of scientific activity is increasingly important in themodern world in which the boundaries between science and non-
science have become eroded and in which there is an insatiable
demand for new scientific knowledge
Logics of action are encoded in the routines of training, monitoring,
disciplining, and rewarding of professionals
Drawn attention to the philosophical questions about what we know
for certain and absolute truth.
Through the scientific revolution philosophers tried to develop
methodologies that could establish the absolute truth.
The lesson that this provides to today's researcher is that the results
from scientific work are never absolute.
there are many different approaches to obtaining knowledge;
that the knowledge gained depends upon the approaches
adopted
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Further Reading
Davis, M. 1971. Thats interesting! Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1:
309-344.
Grant, A. M., & Pollock, T. G. 2011. From the Editors: Publishing in
AMJPart 3: Setting the hook.Academy of Management Journal, 54: 873-879.
Lewis, M. & Grimes, A. 1999. Metatriangulation: Building theory from
multiple paradigms.Academy of Management Review, 24: 672-690.
Miller, D. 2005. Paradigm prison, or in praise of atheoretic research.
Strategic Organization, 5: 177-184. Pfeffer, J. 1993. Barriers to the advancement of organizational science:
Paradigm development as a dependent variable.Academy of Management
Review, 18: 599-620.
Cannella, A. & Paetzold, R. 1994. Pfeffers barriers to the advancement of
organizational science: A rejoinder.Academy of Management Review, 19:
331-341.
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Further reading
Bryman, A. (2012) Social Research Methods. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press Chapter 1.
Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007) Business Research Methods. 2nded. Oxford: Oxford University Press Chapter 1.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2012) Research Methods for Business Students. 6th ed. England: Pearson
Chapter 1.
Bryman, A. (2012) Social Research Methods. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press Chapter 2.
Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Jackson, P. (2012) Management Research. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, C.A: SagePublications Ltd Chapter 2.
Huff, A.S. and Huff, J.O. (2001) Refocusing the Business School Agenda. British Journal of Management, Vol. 12, pp. 49-54.
Starkey, K. and Madan, P. (2001) Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future of Management
Research. British Journal of Management, Vol. 12, pp. 326.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P and Thornhill, A. (2009) Research Methods for Business Students. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ:FT Prentice Hall Chapter 1 and 4
Tranfield, D. and Starkey, K (1998) The Nature, Social Organisation and Promotion of Management Research. British
Journal of Management, Vol. 9, pp. 341-353.
Weick, K. (2001) Gapping the Relevance Bridge: Fashions meet fundamentals in Management Research, British Journal of
Management12 pp 71-76.