Understanding Management Research: An Introduction to Epistemology [Paperback]

Phil Johnson (Author), Joanne Duberley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0761969187 | ISBN-13: 978-0761969181 | Edition: 1

This is an invaluable introduction for all students and researchers of management confronting a new research project.

Understanding Management Research provides an overview of the principal epistemological debates in social science and how these lead to and are expressed in different ways of conceiving and undertaking organizational research. For researchers and students who are increasingly expected to adopt a reflexive understanding of their own epistemological position, the authors present a concise, accessible guide to the different perspectives available and their implications for research output.

All students undertaking empirical research for theses and dissertations will find this book helps them com

Editorial Reviews

Review

'These sections represent the clearest rendition yet of these subjects, with difficult concepts introduced in a digestible form for the neophytic (or not so neophytic) researcher. Whilst in a book this size not every argument can be presented, there is ample extra material to be found to encourage further engagement… At the end of each chapter, there is a very useful Further Reading section provided by the authors, which gives useful guidelines. I believe to be an extremely useful text, which addresses what has until now been a significant gap in the market. This book will be my first choice in the future for introducing doctoral students of management-related subject to the philosophical underpinning they require for their studies. There is no other text which covers this area so clearly, so succinctly and in language that is readily accessible to a wide range of researcher back-grounds. I can enviSAGE this being a valuable source book to which researchers return again and again in order to deepen their understanding as research projects progress; it certainly provoked some new questions for me. To conclude, an excellent buy' - International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation

About the Author

Phil Johnson is Professor of Human Resource Management at Sheffield Management School.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd; 1 edition (December 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761969187
• ISBN-13: 978-0761969181
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and Highly Relevant, December 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Understanding Management Research: An Introduction to Epistemology (Paperback)

This text should be required reading for every aspiring management or organizational researcher. The bibliography alone is worth the price of the book. Johnson and Duberley provide a cogent overview of the major epistemological commitments. They deftly explore the strengths,weaknesses,applications and implications of each. Critical self-reflection is the perfect companion to this text. I have a renewed appreciation for the benefits, challenges and enduring importance of understanding my own epistemological commitments as well as the epistemological commitments that continue to influence the field of organizational studies.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best I've seen, February 6, 2007

By 

Paul L. Stepanovich (Hamden, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding Management Research: An Introduction to Epistemology (Paperback)

For the past five years I have been struggling with the philosophical issues of management. Given my beliefs, am I a "postmodernist", "Critical Theorist", "symbolic/interpretivist", "constructionist"? I know I'm not a positivist anymore. To sort this out, I had read directly in philosophy (difficult going), social theory (less difficult but still not easy), and management theory but I was having trouble getting a handle on it. Then I found Hatch & Cunliffe's book on Organizational Theory and I thought it was great, that is, until I discovered Understanding Management Research by Johnson and Duberley.

Johnson and Duberly not only clearly define and describe the various views but more importantly they clearified two issues that had been bothering me. First, what is the role of ontology? To me that seemed to be a bifurcation point but this wasn't clearly laid out in Hatch & Cunliffe's book or the other readings. Johnson and Duberley make it very explicit in a table in the last chapter and I think they've got it right. Second, I was having trouble placing ethnography and other qualitative types of research. They are often placed in the constructivist/hermeneutical realm but I knew some of it was clearly positivistic. Johnson and Duberley clarified that it can be in either area. As with most things, it is not always black and white but shades of gray. And Johnson and Duberley do a great job of making the shades of gray clearer...