Mats Alvesson

Jorgen Sandberg

Doing Interesting Research

Constructing Research Questions

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.

This book offers a unique solution to the shortage of more imaginative and engaging research by re-imagining the core elements of the research process. In contrast to existing methods, which mainly focus on standard ingredients in the research process, the metaphorical approach taken here offers a more varied and comprehensive platform for producing novel, influential and relevant research. The set of guiding principles suggested in the book provides researchers with the resources to break away from existing conventions and templates for conducting and writing research. Re-imagining the Research Process: Conventional and Alternative Metaphors is suitable for upper-undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers interested in challenging traditional views of the research process. Mats Alvesson holds a chair in the Business Administration department at Lund University in Sweden and is also a part-time professor at University of Queensland Business School, Australia and at Cass Business School, UK. Jorgen Sandberg is Professor at UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia, and Distinguished Research Environment Professor in Organization Studies at the Warwick Business School, UK.

Jorgen Sandberg

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