This introductory text places in context the scientific discipline and methodology of business research. Books on business research often pay scant attention to the basic scientific underpinnings of empirical research in business, causing students to do research without a basic understanding of why they are applying a particular research technique. The approach taken in the book assumes no prior knowledge of the business research process, nor knowledge of statistical analyses, nor experience in writing up a proposal and embarking on a research investigation. Although some insight is given on the nature of scientific knowledge, the aim of the book is to delineate the practice of business research. It takes students through the building blocks of business research with the ultimate objective of engendering a basic understanding of: the essential ingredients of the research process, what is required for writing up a research proposal, the requirements for conducting an empirical research study. Each chapter contains exercises in the form of case studies to consolidate the knowledge obtained in the chapter and deepen the student’s understanding of the text.

Chapter 1: Methods of business research: an introduction
• Business research defined
• Systematic research versus common sense
• The nature of business and management research
• Types of business research strategies
• Qualitative and quantitative approaches
• Scientific and non-scientific approaches
• Ethical issues in business research
Chapter 2: The research process: how business research is conducted
• Research ideas
• The mechanics of doing a literature review
• Research designs • Data collection methods
• Levels of measurement • Measurement scales
• Sampling
• Sample size
Chapter 3: Techniques for data analysis in business research
• Basic elements of data analysis
• The number of groups in the study
• Data preparation
• Data presentation
• Measures of central tendency: mean, median and mode
• The measurement of variability: variance and standard deviation
• Measures of location
• Graphical representation of data
• measures of relationship (correlation and regression)
• Inferential statistics
• Statistical testing procedures
• Tests of significance
• Some common non-parametric methods
• Further multivariate statistical approaches
• Concluding remarks on statistical tests and their uses
• The use of qualitative data in research
Chapter 4: Communicating business research methods
• The research proposal
• Communicating research results
• The research report
• Focus on research report writing
• Formal referencing in reports and dissertations
• Some style rules for report and dissertation writing
• Assessment criteria for dissertations

• Undergraduate students who have to acquire an understanding of the nature of scientific research in business studies and the business research process itself
• Postgraduate students, such as first year MBA students, who are required to conduct research and produce a written dissertation as part of the curriculum