Research Methods in Management (Undergraduate)

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 5
• Convenor and tutor: Dr Marion Frenz
• Prerequisites: Management Studies I, Management Studies II and Quantitative Methods
• Assessment: a 500-word essay (25%) and a 2000-word essay (75%)

In this module we provide you with the necessary skills to:

• appraise the quality of published work in the area of business and management
• design your own management research proposal and project.

We will explain the role of a critical literature review and how to generate research questions and objectives, and introduce you to two main approaches to theory development:

• theory testing
• theory expanding.

We discuss how these approaches impact on the selection of empirical strategies. This includes decisions about the type of information and data that is collected to answer a research question and to inform theory development. We will also look at different data collection techniques, such as interviews and questionnaires, and discuss how different types of data can be analysed. Finally, we discuss the importance of ethical consideration when using information from human participants.

Indicative syllabus

• The nature of business and management research
• Writing a critical literature review
• Understanding different approaches to research
• Research ethics and collecting secondary data
• Collecting qualitative data
• Collecting quantitative data
• Analysing qualitative data
• Writing a research project

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• formulate and test the feasibility of research questions
• write a critical review of the literature
• collect primary and secondary information
• apply a range of qualitative and quantitative analyses techniques
• appreciate ethical considerations in research.