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Method in the Madness: Research stories you won't read in textbooks

Edited by Keith Townsend, Griffith University and John Burgess, University of Newcastle, Australia

 - presents twelve chapters of research experiences where the researcher learnt more about performing research whilst ‘in the field’ than they did from prescriptive texts
 - represents a fresh and accessible look at research and research methods

Method in the Madness is presented as a companion to researchers investigating the complex world of work. Rather than a ‘How to’ text on performing research, this book presents a record of experiences. Research so often evolves in the field or the planning stages and a successful researcher need to be aware of serendipitous opportunities as they arise and how to solve problems as they occur. The book comprises an introduction written by the editors followed by thirteen chapters written by different contributors. The introduction draws together the disparate experiences that follow and discusses the ways in which the contributors, all of whom are respected researchers, dealt with and learned from the research experience. In the following chapters, the contributors describe and reflect on the research process, the challenges they met during their research and the lessons learned. The style varies, but includes narratives, anecdotes and descriptions of individuals’ experiences as research was designed and carried out and the results generated.

Readership: Research students in business and social science programs. The book is also suitable for courses on research methods, especially qualitative research methods.

£52.50 / US$90.00 / €65.00

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About the editors

Keith Townsend, Research Fellow, Centre for Work, Employment and Wellbeing, and the Department of Employment Relations, Griffith University, Australia. John Burgess, Professor and Director, Graduate Business School, University of Newcastle, Australia. Research interests in labour market policy, contingent employment and gender and work.

Titles which may also be of interest:
Qualitative Research and the Modern Library
Global Research Without Leaving Your Desk
Library and Information Science Research in the 21st Century
Information History - An Introduction
Scenarios and Information Design
Utilizing Technology in the Academic Research Process

Contents

PART 1 LIVING THE RESEARCH
PART 2 ACCESS FOR RESEARCH
PART 3 INTERVIEWS AS A METHOD
PART 4 PREPARING AND RESPONDING THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT

Serendipity and flexibility in social science research: meeting the unexpected
Keith Townsend and John Burgess
 - Introduction
 - Emerging themes
 - Book organisation

PART 1 LIVING THE RESEARCH

There are ways and then there are ways: conducting research in social settings in Japan
Kaye Broadbent
 - Introduction
 - So how did it all start?
 - In the beginning…
 - Minamoto san’s so-betsukai (farewell party)
 - Shatta- renkyu- – to Kusatsu we will go!
 - To summarise the experience
 - Acknowledgements

‘On the mop-floor’: researching employment relations in the hidden world of commercial cleaning
Shaun Ryan
 - Introduction
 - Ethnographic approaches to work
 - Negotiating and securing access
 - Conducting research on the mop-floor
 - Life on the mop-floor: ethnographic approaches to understanding work
 - Conclusions
 - Acknowledgements

Drinking with Dessie: research, mines and life in the Pilbara
Bradon Ellem
 - Prologue
 - Thinking about the Pilbara: industrial relations, history, geography
 - Accidental ethnography?
 - Doing the research
 - Sites of research
 - Summing things up
 - Epilogue
 - Acknowledgements

PART 2 ACCESS FOR RESEARCH

Combating information suspicion: Guinness, sports and glassblowing
Paul Ryan and Tony Dundon
 - Introduction
 - The research project and its methodology
 - The case-study context: Waterford Wedgwood Crystal
 - The interview narrative
 - Conclusion: lessons from our experience

What lies beneath: the pleasures, pain and possibilities of focus groups
Barbara Pocock, Jane Clarke, Philippa Williams and Ken Bridge
 - Introduction
 - The people with whom we have conducted focus groups
 - Why we like focus groups
 - The ethics of focus groups
 - Some ground rules for running focus groups: some lessons
 - The limitations of focus groups

PART 3 INTERVIEWS AS A METHOD

Looking through the haze of discontent: smokers as a data source
Robin Price and Keith Townsend
 - Introduction
 - The ethnographic case study
 - Smoking in the workplace – hiding your butts
 - The three case studies
 - Finding a place for the social outcast
 - Conclusion

Interviewing men: reading more than the transcripts
Barbara Pini
 - Introduction
 - The context
 - Methodological overview
 - Background to the interviews
 - Listening to interview negotiations
 - Listening to silences in interviews
 - Listening to informal interactions
 - Conclusion

Establishing rapport: using quantitative and qualitative methods in tandem
Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson, Alison Fuller, Konstantinos Kakavelakis and Lorna Unwin
 - Introduction
 - Warming up a cold case
 - Setting up the next phase
 - Getting closer to the action
 - Becoming embedded in the action
 - Conclusion
 - Acknowledgements

Wrong way, go back! Negotiating access in industry-based research
Paula McDonald, Keith Townsend and Jennifer Waterhouse
 - Introduction
 - The context
 - Access as a methodological concern
 - Internal/external pressures
 - Differential support
 - Perceptions of risk
 - Concerns about research fatigue
 - Blockages and new opportunities
 - How access affected research outcomes
 - Recommendations for facilitating access

A sporting chance: workplace ethnographies, ethics protocols and playing by the rules
Jennifer Sappey
 - Introduction
 - Participant observation in the Queensland fitness industry
 - An occupational study of academic work
 - Vested interests and the politics of power
 - Unforeseen opportunities and serendipity versus science
 - The time-honoured method of participant observation
 - Research ethics and the double-bind of the search for ‘truth’

PART 4 PREPARING AND RESPONDING THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT

Sitting on a wall in Northumberland crying: semi-structured interviews
Vikki Abusidualghoul, John Goodwin, Nalita James, Al Rainnie, Katharine Venter and Melissa White
 - Introduction
 - Getting started
 - More fear
 - Online and comparative research
 - Conclusion

Researching train-based working
Donald Hislop
 - Introduction
 - Context
 - Aims and empirical details of the study
 - Issues/challenges related to distributing surveys on trains
 - Discussion

A story about being engaged in research: buzzing bees, small business and Australian unfair dismissal laws
Rowena Barrett
 - Introduction
 - Small business is the backbone of the economy…
 - From observer to participant…
 - Journalistic deadlines are quite different to academic ones!
 - Pitching the story…
 - But there was still more evidence to be put forward…
 - Ongoing action…
 - A conclusion…

Lessons learnt from this madness
Jennifer Sappey, Keith Townsend and John Burgess