Business Research Projects: A solution-oriented approach

Almost all higher educational institutions have built some kind of fieldwork project into the advanced stages of their programmes and the research project should integrate theory, practice, knowledge and skills. Students should be able to apply their acquired knowledge and understanding in a manner that indicates a professional approach to their work or vocation, and have the ability to integrate knowledge and handle complexity, and formulate judgements with incomplete or limited information. It is important that they can communicate their conclusions and the knowledge and rationale underpinning these to specialist and non-specialist audiences clearly and unambiguously. Business Research Projects offers the reader a comprehensive framework for going through the successive process steps of the fieldwork project. There is a logbook which provides for each of the ten steps a checklist enabling students to document the progress of their projects and communicate about the project with their coaches and supervisors. Successful projects require specific process knowledge and skills: • Recognition and description of an organisational problem. • Design and organisation of a research project. • Communication with people on different levels within the organisation. • Interviewing, listening, negotiating, giving presentations, persuading people. • Project management. • Developing solutions in collaboration with people in the organisation. • Implementation of accepted solutions.

Jimme A. Keizer