Additional resources
The following books offer guidance on various topics connected with doing research in management or other areas of the social science. Our annotated list draws on our experience as readers and as trainers working with creative colleagues who are authors of a range of textbooks. Our list is not intended to be comprehensive: numerous other books address similar topics. We have selected these texts because we think that they all offer useful starting points for accelerating your learning how to think like an expert management researcher.
Craswell, G (2005) Writing for Academic Success: A Postgraduate Guide London: Sage
A very accessible postgraduate guide to the related tasks of writing, presenting, and also publishing in academic journals. The book explores many aspects of academic writing and presentation - how to manage the writing environment effectively, preparation for a writing task, developing an appropriate style with accurate referencing, an in-depth look at different types of written product from exam papers to theses, different types of presentation and how to approach them, and developing academic publications.
Gatrell, C (2006) Managing Part-Time Study: A Guide for Undergraduates and Postgraduates Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press
A very practical source of strategies to help students whose mode of study may present particular challenges: part-timers who are faced with studying alongside other work or family commitments. It is designed to complement research methods texts. Coverage includes ideas for managing learning and sustaining motivation over a protracted period of time, plus advice on writing and dealing with exams.
Huff, A (1999) Writing for Scholarly Publication London: Sage
Designed for doctoral research students and early career academics, this book uses the idea of an academic ‘conversation’ to help with developing a strong sense of audience when writing for publication in academic journals. Guidance includes developing the focus of a contribution to the academic literature, how to structure scholarly writing, and dealing with the submission and review process. It offers a very practical resource for anyone interested in moving beyond writing for assessment as a student towards successful writing for assessment and publication as an academic.
Huff, A (2009) Designing Research for Publication London: Sage
This insightful guide for those who are beginning an academic career covers the thinking, planning and design work that can make all the difference to securing success in writing for publication. It offers a prequel to Huff’s earlier textbook on scholarly writing. The book begins with plentiful guidance on how to select an ‘academic home’ as an early career academic: which scholarly ‘conversation(s)’ to join, and how to make a range of novel contributions to them through developing theory and designing research and which is intended, from the outset, to generate publishable outputs.
Quinton, S and Smallbone, T (2006) Postgraduate Research in Business: A Critical Guide London: Sage
This is a ‘how-to-do-it’ guide for postgraduate students in the area of business and management. It begins with an accessible introduction to the nature of research and major debates in this area. In the light of this overview, the book then gives detailed guidance doing a dissertation: how to develop a proposal for a small scale research project, to undertake the research, and write it up effectively to maximise the chances of getting top marks. Designed to complement textbooks which cover particular research methods, the book provides guidance on how to address each component of the research and writing process from the initial idea for a project to structuring the written account of the investigation.
Saunders, M, Lewis, P and Thornhill, A (2009) Research Methods for Business Students (5th edition) Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd
This is a comprehensive guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the area of business and management. It covers both quantitative and qualitative research methods and their incorporation within the wider process of conducting research for a dissertation. The chapters take the reader through every part of this process, from the initial clarification of a research topic to presentation of the completed project report. There are many exercises for checking understanding, and supporting online resources on the publisher’s website – both for students and for tutors.
Wallace, M and Wray, A (2011) Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates (2nd edition) London: Sage
A structured approach to learning how to read texts in a constructively critical way, both in summary and in depth, linked to creating a written account for assessment built on the results of that critical reading. The book is designed mainly for postgraduate and doctoral research students. It covers writing tasks from reviewing a single text to incorporating multiple literature reviews in a dissertation or thesis. Many of the ideas are introduced in the AIM e-learning materials key topics. The book developed these ideas in greater depth, so it offers a useful extension resource. There are accompanying online resources, with further exercises and exemplar completed analyses of different types of text.
Van de Ven, A (2007) Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research Oxford: Oxford University Press
This text describes how to research complex social problems through a range of approaches which involve practitioners to a varying degree in one or more steps in the process, maximising the chance of the results being of practical value. Designed for doctoral research students and early career academics, the book provides a strong justification for an ‘engaged’ orientation to social science research. It addresses each step of the approach, from clarifying the research problem, through designing different types of investigation employing quantitative and qualitative methods, to disseminating the results.
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