This edition is dedicated to the memory of Professor Alan Bryman (1947-2017). Hundreds of thousands of students across six continents have been fortunate enough to learn from Alan’s publications. Few contemporary UK academics have had such a profound effect on learning. At Oxford University Press we are incredibly proud of Alan’s significant achievements over the many years we worked with him. We thank him for everything he has done for research methods as a discipline, and for his tireless dedication to the pursuit of shining the light of understanding into the dark corners of students’ minds. It was a real pleasure to work with him.
BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS
Fifth Edition
Emma Bell
Alan Bryman
Bill Harley
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Second Edition 2007
Third Edition 2011
Fourth Edition 2015
Impression: 1
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ISBN 978–0–19–254590–9
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DETAILED CONTENTS
of the self-completion questionnaire over the structured interview
of the self-completion questionnaire in comparison to the structured interview
response rates to
Secondary analysis of qualitative data
Chapter 25 Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis: using NVivo 538
539
CAQDAS like quantitative data analysis software? 539
Quantitative research and constructionism
Epistemological and ontological considerations 561 Problems with the quantitative/qualitative contrast 562
Chapter 27 Mixed methods research: combining quantitative and qualitative research 568
569 The arguments against mixed methods research 569
Two versions of the debate about quantitative and qualitative research
The
Interpreting
Studying
Solving
LEARNING FEATURES
3.12
3.16
3.17
3.18
5.4
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.8
6.9
6.10
7.1
7.3
7.4
7.5
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6 Key concept What is Cronbach’s alpha?
8.7
8.8 Research in focus Assessing the internal reliability and the concurrent and predictive validity of a measure of organizational climate
8.9 Research in focus Testing validity through replication: the case of burnout
9.2
9.3
9.4
10.1
10.2
10.3
in focus A cluster sample survey of Australian workplaces and employees
10.7
10.8
10.9
10.10
in focus Using pictorial exercises in a study of business
12.1
12.3
13.1
13.3
13.4
13.6
13.7
13.8 Research in focus Issues of inter-coder reliability in a study of text messaging 289
13.9 Research in focus A content analysis of Swedish job advertisements 1960–2010 291
14.1 Key concept What is secondary analysis? 295
14.2 Research in focus Exploring corporate reputation in three Scandinavian countries 296
14.3 Research in focus Combining primary and secondary data in a single study of the implications of marriage structure for men’s attitudes to women in the workplace 297
14.4 Research in focus Cross-national comparison of work orientations: an example of a secondary dataset 299
14.5 Research in focus Workplace gender diversity and union density: an example of secondary analysis using the WERS data 299
14.6 Research in focus Age and work-related health: methodological issues involved in secondary analysis using the Labour Force Survey 300
14.7 Research in focus The use of archival proxies in the field of strategic management 304
14.8 Key concept What is meta-analysis? 305
14.9 Research in focus A meta-analysis of research on corporate social responsibility and performance in East Asia 305
14.10 Key concept What is the ecological fallacy?
14.11 Key concept What are unobtrusive measures?
15.1 Key concept What is a test of statistical significance?
15.2 Key concept What is the level of statistical significance?
17.1 Thinking deeply Research questions in qualitative research
17.2 Research in focus The emergence of a concept in qualitative research: ‘emotional labour’
17.3 Key concept What is respondent validation?
17.4 Key concept What is triangulation?
17.5 Research in focus Seeing practice-based learning from the perspective of train dispatchers 367
17.6 Research in focus Studying process and change in the Carlsberg group 368
17.7 Research in focus An example of dialogical visual research
17.8 Research in focus An example of practice visual research 372
17.9 Thinking deeply A quantitative review of qualitative research in management and business 375
17.10 Research in focus Using visual methods in participatory action research study of a Ghanaian cocoa value chain 380
17.11 Thinking deeply Feminist research in business
17.12 Research in focus A feminist analysis of embodied identity at work
17.13 Research in focus Indigenous ways of understanding leadership
18.1 Key concept What is purposive sampling?
18.2 Key concept Some purposive sampling approaches
18.3 Key concept What is theoretical sampling?
18.4 Key concept What is theoretical saturation?
18.5 Research in focus An example of theoretical sampling
18.6 Research in focus A snowball sample
18.7 Thinking deeply Saturation and sample size
19.1 Key concept Differences and similarities between ethnography and participant observation
19.2 Research in focus An example of an organizational ethnography lasting nine years
19.3 Research in focus Finding a working role in the organization
19.4 Research in focus A complete participant?
19.5 Research in focus An example of the difficulties of covert observation: the case of field notes in the lavatory 411
19.6 Key concept What is ‘going native’? 414
19.7 Research in focus Using field note extracts in data analysis and writing 417
19.8 Research in focus An ethnography of work from a woman’s perspective 419
19.9 Research in focus ‘Not one of the guys’: ethnography in a male-dominated setting
19.10 Research in focus A multi-site ethnography of diversity management
19.11 Research in focus Netnography
19.12 Research in focus Using blogs in a study of word-of-mouth marketing
19.13 Research in focus Ethical issues in a virtual ethnography of change in the NHS
19.15
concept What is auto-ethnography?
Research in focus Identity and ethnographic writing
20.1 Research in focus An example of unstructured interviewing
20.2 Research in focus Flexibility in semi-structured interviewing 437
20.3 Research in focus Using photographs as prompts in a study of consumer behaviour 439
20.4 Research in focus Part of the transcript of a semi-structured interview
20.5 Research in focus Getting it recorded and transcribed: an illustration of two problems 446
20.6 Research in focus Constructionism in a life history study of occupational careers
21.1 Key concept What is the focus group method? 463
21.2 Research in focus Using focus groups to study trade union representation of disabled employees 467
21.3 Research in focus Moderator involvement in a focus group discussion 469
21.4 Research in focus Using focus groups in a study of female entrepreneurs 472
21.5 Research in focus An asynchronous focus group study 473
21.6 Research in focus An example of the focus group as an emancipatory method 477
21.7 Research in focus Group conformity and the focus group method 479
22.1 Key concept What is discourse analysis? 484
22.2 Research in focus The application of mind and body discourses to older workers 484
22.3 Research in focus Interpretative repertoires in the identification of role models by MBA students 485
22.4 Key concept What are organizational narratives? 490
22.5 Research in focus An example of narratives in a hospital 491
22.6 Research in focus The rhetorical construction of charismatic leadership 492
22.7 Key concept What is conversation analysis? 493
22.8 Research in focus A study of hospital teamwork using ethnomethodology and conversation analysis 495
23.1 Research in focus A study of online diaries written by white-collar workers 501
23.2 Research in focus Using autobiographical sources to study high-profile women leaders 503
23.3 Research in focus Two studies using public documents to analyse a policing disaster 504
23.4 Research in focus An analysis of public documents in leadership research 506
23.5 Thinking deeply Three ways of using photographs as documents 508
23.6 Research in focus Analysing photographs in a study of brand identity in a UK bank 508
23.7 Research in focus A semiotic analysis of a funeral business 513
23.8 Thinking deeply Three arguments for historical analysis in studying organizations 513
23.9 Research in focus A genealogical historical analysis of management thought 514
24.1 Key concept What is a theme? 519
24.2 Key concept What is grounded theory? 521
24.3 Key concept Coding in grounded theory 523
24.4 Research in focus Categories in grounded theory 523
24.5 Research in focus A grounded theory approach in a study of a corporate spin-off 526
24.6 Key concept What is first- and second-order analysis? 528
24.7 Research in focus A memo 528
24.8 Key concept What is meta-ethnography? 535
24.9 Research in focus A meta-ethnography of research on the experiences of people with common mental disorders when they return to work 536
25.1 Key concept What is a node? 543
26.1 Research in focus A critical realist study of innovation in Australia 560
26.2 Research in focus The construction of meaning from numerical data 564
27.1 Key concept What is mixed method research? 569
27.2 Research in focus Using qualitative data to inform quantitative measurement 577
27.3 Research in focus Using quantitative research to facilitate qualitative research 577
27.4 Research in focus Using quantitative data about time use to fill in the gaps in a qualitative study 578
27.5 Research in focus A mixed methods case study 580
27.6 Research in focus Expanding on quantitative findings with qualitative research in a study of leadership 582
27.7 Research in focus Combining netnography and an online survey in a study of a virtual community of consumers 583
27.8 Research in focus Using mixed methods research to solve a puzzle: the case of displayed emotions in convenience stores 584
ABBREVIATIONS
AoIR Association of Internet Researchers
AOM Academy of Management
ASHE Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
BHPS British Household Panel Study
BRES Business Register and Employment Survey
BSA British Social Attitudes; British Sociological Association
CAPI computer-assisted personal interviewing
CAQDAS computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software
CATI computer-assisted telephone interviewing
CEO chief executive officer
CMD common mental disorder
CSR corporate social responsibility
CV curriculum vitae
CWP Changing Workforce Programme
ECA ethnographic content analysis
ESRC Economic and Social Research Council
EWCS European Working Conditions Survey
FTSE Financial Times Stock Exchange (London)
GDPR General Data Protection Regulations (European Union)
GMID General Market Information Database
GSS General Social Survey (USA)
HISS hospital information support system
HP Hewlett Packard
HR human resources
HRM human resource management
ICI Imperial Chemical Industries
ISP internet service provider
ISSP International Social Survey Programme
IT information technology
JDS
Job Diagnostic Survey
LFS Labour Force Survey
LGI Looking Glass Inc.
LPC least-preferred co-worker
MBA Master of Business Administration
MORI Market & Opinion Research International
MPS Motivating Potential Score
MRS Market Research Society
NASA National Air and Space Administration (USA)
NHS National Health Service
NOS National Organizations Survey (USA)
OCS Organizational Culture Scale
OD organizational development
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Emma Bell is Professor of Organisation Studies at the Open University, UK. She completed her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000 based on an ethnographic study of payment systems and time in the chemical industry. Prior to this, Emma worked as a graduate trainee in the UK National Health Service. Her research is informed by curiosity about the ways in which people in organizations collectively construct meaning in the context of work and organizations. Recently, she has been involved in projects related to visual organizational analysis, understanding craft work, and power and politics in the production of management knowledge.
Emma’s research has been published in British Journal of Management, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and Organization. She has an enduring interest in methods and methodological issues and has published articles, chapters, and books related to this including, A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Management Research (Sage, 2013), co-authored with Richard Thorpe, and Sage Major Works in Qualitative Research in Business and Management (2015), co-edited with Hugh Willmott. Emma served as a co-chair of the Critical Management Studies Division of the Academy of Management; at the time of writing she is joint vice-chair of research and publications for the British Academy of Management and joint editor-in-chief of Management Learning.
Alan Bryman was Professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of Leicester from 2005 to 2017. Prior to this he was Professor of Social Research at Loughborough University for 31 years.
His main research interests were in leadership, especially in higher education, research methods (particularly mixed methods research), and the ‘Disneyization’ and ‘McDonaldization’ of modern society. In 2003–4 he completed a project on the issue of how quantitative and qualitative research are combined in the social sciences, as part of the Research Methods Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
He contributed articles to a range of academic journals, including Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Leadership Quarterly, and American Behavioral Scientist. He was a member of the ESRC’s Research Grants Board and conducted research into effective leadership in higher education, a project funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Alan published widely in the field of social research. Among his writings were Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS 17, 18 and 19: A Guide for Social Scientists (Routledge, 2011), with Duncan Cramer; Social Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 2008); The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods (Sage, 2004), with Michael Lewis-Beck and Tim Futing Liao; The Disneyization of Society (Sage, 2004); Handbook of Data Analysis (Sage, 2004), with Melissa Hardy; Understanding Research for Social Policy and Practice (Policy Press, 2004), with Saul Becker; and the SAGE Handbook of Organizational Research Methods, with David Buchanan (Sage, 2009). He edited the Understanding Social Research series for the Open University Press.
Bill Harley is Professor of Management in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne. Bill was awarded a PhD in political science from the University of Queensland in 1995, for a dissertation on the impact of changes in industrial relations legislation on labour flexibility at the workplace level. Prior to undertaking his PhD, Bill was a graduate trainee with the Australian government and subsequently worked for some years in policy roles in Canberra. He has served as a consultant to numerous national and international organizations, including the OECD and the ILO.
Bill’s academic research has been motivated by an abiding interest in the centrality of work to human life. Informed by labour process theory, his primary focus has been on issues of power and control in the workplace. Much of his published work has focused on the ways in
