David Greatbatch - Using Conversation Analysis for Business and Management Students

For Sallie and Penny

And our children

Emily and Olivia; Max and India

Welcome to the Mastering Business Research Methods series. In recent years, there has been a great increase in the numbers of students reading masters level degrees across the business and management disciplines. A great number of these students have to prepare a dissertation towards the end of their degree programme in a timeframe of three to four months. For many students, this takes place after their taught modules have finished and is expected to be an independent piece of work. While each student is supported in their dissertation or research project by an academic supervisor, the student will need to find out more detailed information about the method that he or she intends to use. Before starting their dissertations or research projects these students have usually been provided with little more than an overview across a wide range of methods as preparation for this often daunting task. If you are one such student, you are not alone. As university professors with a deep interest in research methods, we have provided this series of books to help students like you. Each book provides detailed information about a particular method to support you in your dissertation. We understand both what is involved in masters level dissertations, and what help students need with regard to methods in order to excel when writing a dissertation. This series is the only one that is designed with the specific objective of helping masters level students to undertake and prepare their dissertations.

Each book in our series is designed to provide sufficient knowledge about either a method of data collection or a method of data analysis, and each book is intended to be read by the student when undertaking particular stages of the research process, such as data collection or analysis. Each book is written in a clear way by highly respected authors who have considerable experience of teaching and writing about research methods. To help students find their way around each book, we have utilized a standard format, with each book having been organized into six chapters:

We hope that reading your chosen books helps you in your dissertation.

Bill Lee, Mark NK Saunders and VK Narayanan