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Research Methods for Organizational Studies, by D. P. Schwab (1999). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
One of the greatest challenges in teaching research methodology to doctoral students in business administration is finding a textbook that combines breadth and depth of coverage. Such a textbook ought to be written in a clear, straightforward way but devote enough space to the complexities of organizational research. Until I started to survey the terrain of possible textbooks at the beginning of 2000, 1 had assumed that a doctoral research methods course would always have to consist of article readings. I had believed it would be virtually impossible to meet many students' demand for textbook support.
Then I found Schwab's new methods book. One of the many strengths of this book lies in its framework (presented and reinforced at many different points in the book, e.g., pp. xxi, 17) through which common topics in a course like research methods can be tied together. I have been dismayed in the past with the lack of integration of methods topics that prevails in most other methods textbooks. Before, I had thought a unified view came at the expense of comprehensiveness of coverage. My experience after my first run of our doctoral course offered to students from different business disciplines (strategy, marketing, organizational behavior, economics) is that the performance in those exam questions that explicitly drew on students' application of Schwab's integrative model was above average. I think students' retention of the different components of the model and insights into how these elements fit together in a convincing research report were facilitated by my use of Schwab's materials (i.e., the book, PowerPoint transparencies, exercises, projects, etc.).
The first two chapters begin with a model of empirical research, which remains the integral focus throughout the book. The book covers in depth the elements of this model. First, the...