BAM ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2010

16:00 – 17:30

Lecture Theatre 1, Hicks Building, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield

This year AIM will be offering a collaborative event with Fellows from their Services and Management Practices cohorts. Methodological Challenges for Researching Management, as an event exploring an issue that effects all areas of management research, will benefit from the varied perspectives of Fellows from the two cohorts and encourage contribution to the debate from attendees bringing their own experiences.

Despite increasingly diverse and innovative approaches to management research, there is no doubt that the process of research is a series of political, negotiable choices, from the initial identification of the research project to publication. Our theoretical positioning impacts on how we research and the choices we make regarding methods and interpretation. This raises some fundamental questions for management and organizational researchers:

How do we conceptualise our particular area of research?
What are the methodological challenges this brings?
What are the consequences of the conceptual and methodological choices that we make?
Why and how does our research count as knowledge?
How does our belief system inform the choices we make about research?

The symposium, which will be chaired by Lead AIM Services Fellow Dr Kathryn Haynes and Lead AIM Management Practices Fellow Prof Nic Beech, will open with a series of short position papers from the AIM Services and AIM Management Practices Fellows in which both cohorts will discuss the particular conceptual and methodological challenges that they face in their fields.

The symposium is intended to enhance the debate about these challenges in management research, and attendees are encouraged to contribute to the discussion building on the position papers. Therefore following the presentations the floor will be opened for questions and comment from attendees.

Presentations:

Methodological Challenges for Researching Management by Management Practices Cohort Presenters: David Denyer, Katy Mason, Jennifer Whyte and Nic Beech and The Services Cohort Presenters: Kathryn Haynes, Giuliana Battisti, and Irena Grugulis