Walker Management Library
Walker Management *Library
Contact:
Walker Management Library
Owen Graduate School of Management
401 21st. Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
Website
Owen Graduate School of Management
401 21st. Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
Research Strategies Overview
A research based consulting project involves different types of research strategies depending the phase of the project.
- Phase 0: Where is the conversation today? Search the research literature, business thought leadership and trade publications to learn about current issues that managers care about, researchers are interested in, priorities facing organizations today.
- Phase 1: Preparing for initial consultation with client. Learn about your client’s organization, their key people, their industry.
- Phase 2: Exploring a hunch, building a hypothesis. You should leave the initial consultation with your client with a set of questions to guide your research. They will generally involve exploring what best practices in a certain area and/or industry (proven practices with lots of research evidence) or innovative ideas (not yet proven but signal potential).
- Phase 3: Following up specific leads and loose threads. As you meet with your client to discuss your research findings and recommendations, there will be more targeted facts and figures you might need check into, research additional sub-topics in more depth, or follow up on specific sources.
- Phase 4: Bibliography. List the sources of information used to support your insights and recommendations.
Where to look? Start with some of the professional business literature databases below.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowCovers most business areas: management, marketing, economics, finance, accounting, & international business. Includes company reports, SWOT analyses, working papers, country reports, industry reports, case studies, etc.
- Conference Board This link opens in a new windowResearch on business management and trends. Scroll down to Insights From Across Our Centers then select the topic most appropriate for your organization's situation such as Marketing and Communications, or Human Capital to access reports in that area.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new windowA multi-disciplinary database with full text availability for nearly 2,000 journals in all academic fields. It includes same-day, full-text coverage of the Wall Street Journal.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowSubject coverage includes basic and applied psychology which covers marketing, advertising, organizational analysis, and human relations, as well as other psychology areas.
- Statista This link opens in a new windowQuantitative data, statistics, infographics, and related information compiled from market research institutes, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases.
Vetting Your Sources
Searching the internet is quick and easy, and can be a great source for relevant, quality information. But remember, it’s not only about ‘what’ you find, but ‘how’ you use it.
Here are some guiding questions when researching a topic and putting your findings to good use:
- Currency - How current is the information? Is the currency relevant for supporting my argument?
- Reliability - In what ways is the source reputable? Are there factual errors?
- Authority - Who created the information? Why? What is the scope of their expertise and experience that their authority is based on?
- Purpose/Point of View - Are multiple perspectives considered? What are the author’s biases?
Please see this additional information about the CRAP test as well as the Vanderbilt University presentation What The Crap?
