A complete introduction to doing business research, Business Research Methods is the ideal guide for students embarking on a research project. Together with real students and supervisors, the authors draw on their own extensive experience to give readers tips for success and provide advice to help them avoid common mistakes.

Developed specifically with business and management students in mind, this bestselling textbook explores the nature and purpose of business research and the issues it entails, while also providing students with practical advice on carrying out their research. In addition to a broad range of relevant case studies, the book features a substantial discussion of ethics, a chapter on internet research methods, and a strong emphasis on practical content such as planning a project and writing it up.

With a new chapter on the nature of business research that explains why an understanding of research methods is so important to the broader study of business and management, and a new chapter on sampling in qualitative research, Business Research Methods remains the book of choice to help you build a full understanding of the subject.

Part One: The research process
1: The nature and process of business research
2: Business research strategies
3: Research designs
4: Planning a research project and formulating research questions
5: Getting started: reviewing the literature
6: Ethics and politics in business research
Part Two: Quantitative research
7: The nature of quantitative research
8: Sampling in quantitative research
9: Structured interviewing
10: Self-completion questionnaires
11: Asking questions
12: Structured observation
13: Content analysis
14: Secondary analysis and official statistics
15: Quantitative data analysis
16: Using IBM SPSS statistics
Part Three: Qualitative research
17: The nature of qualitative research
18: Sampling in qualitative research
19: Ethnography and participant observation
20: Interviewing in qualitative research
21: Focus groups
22: Language in qualitative research
23: Documents as sources of data
24: Qualitative data analysis
25: Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis: using NVivo
Part Four: Mixed methods research and other considerations
26: Breaking down the quantitative/qualitative divide
27: Mixed methods research: combining quantitative and qualitative research
28: E-research: Internet research methods
29: Writing up business research