Research Method or Inquiry Approach: A Value-creating Method and the Research Sequence

• Published in: Managing Value in Organisations pp. 33 - 50
• Main Author: Carroll, Donal
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Taylor & Francis 2012; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Personnel & human resources management; Research & development management; participant organisations; Omnipresent; Research Sequence; Harvard business review article; Endless Running; Resilient Learning; business research method; traditional research; Business Case; Cruel Word; innovative value-creating method; Short Term Personal Gain; Founder's Syndrome; Simon Caulkin; Embrace Social Media; Renewed Business Model; inquiry approach; Academic Purity; Agile Management; business problems; Long Trail; Philosophy Football; Applied Business Research; Dominant Management Model; Wo; Crowd Wisdom; Dimming; CVP; Continual Service Improvement
• ISBN: 9781409426479; 1409426475; 9781138271258; 113827125X
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315593685-8

Identifying the research method, examines why the old and current forms are incapable of enabling new insights and developments, and how they can be overcome in new and more risky inquiry forms. For participant organisations particularly, it must provide a meaningful challenge, initiate and sustain their interest and do more than abstractly apply new hypotheses to their circumstances. It would be tempting to use, as a recent Harvard Business Review article did, an approach which is a combination of anthropology, journalism and empathy' but reinvented, using sociology, politics, observation and provocative empathy. Traditional research is commonly informed by the various stages of scientific method' which attempts to ensure neutrality and objectivity of research and results all necessary aspects. However, it can become a form of academic purity' with formalised, safety-seeking methods used like a risk-extractor to burn inventive angles of inquiry. This chapter brings together the responses to key questions posed by the work and key learning points which emerged. It explains what occurred and what people learned as a summary, of how organisations' current models were selected; what these were; their adequacy in meeting current and future challenges. The chapter shows how useful they found the models; and the outcomes' of this work against its claims, so far. It presents some implications of small business theory for participant organisations. The established organisations accepted the challenges and identified their next stage of development, how to activate this through changed models, and integrate this into new business planning. The start-up explicitly chose its business model and refined this in practice, while the thinking needed for progressive management and learning models is explicitly implicit', available as a resource once they begin doing business.