Constructing Research Questions: Doing Interesting Research - Softcover

Alvesson, Mats; Sandberg, Jorgen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144625593X ISBN 13: 9781446255933

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

All researchers want to produce interesting and influential theories. A key step in all theory development is formulating innovative research questions that will result in interesting and significant research.

Traditional textbooks on research methods tend to ignore, or gloss over, actual ways of constructing research questions. In this text, Alvesson and Sandberg develop a problematization methodology for identifying and challenging the assumptions underlying existing theories and for generating research questions that can lead to more interesting and influential theories, using examples from across the social sciences. Established methods of generating research questions in the social sciences tend to focus on ′gap-spotting′, which means that existing literature remains largely unchallenged. The authors show the dangers of conventional approaches, providing detailed ideas for how one can work through such problems and formulate novel research questions that challenge existing theories and produce more imaginative empirical studies.

Constructing Research Questions is essential reading for any researcher looking to formulate research questions that are interesting and novel.

About this title

About the Authors

Mats Alvesson is Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Bath, and also affiliated with Lund University, Stockholm School of Economics and Bayes Business School, City, University of London.

Jörgen Sandberg is Professor in the University of Queensland (UQ) Business School and Honorary Professor at Warwick Business School.

From the Back Cover

The authors develop a methodology for identifying and challenging assumptions underlying existing theories and generating research questions, using examples from across the social sciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 144625593X
• ISBN 13: 9781446255933
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 152