How To Find Research Ideas

How to... discover ideas for your research

Finding a dissertation topic

Here we are talking almost a dissertation projection done in satisfaction of the requirements of a masters' caste, such equally an MBA. The idea backside this sort of dissertation is to gain bones enquiry skills: unlike a PhD, at that place is no requirement for the research to be original or extend cognition.

It is usual at a post-feel level to link the project closely with future career aims, and hence the projection topic needs to exist one of practitioner relevance, assuming the ultimate career destination is in this field. It is besides common, given that many students will have had a few years in the workplace, or if function-time however be working, to draw the topic from some situation in the work-place, for case provide a solution to some problem, develop a new system, or review a entrada or some innovative fashion of working. Some schools encourage students to do consultancy-based projects, providing lists of opportunities.

There are various other ways of sourcing topics:

Using techniques such as relevance trees and morphological analysis – encounter next section.
Looking at previous projects, which volition probably mention areas for further inquiry.
Begin with other students.
Look at abstracts in online databases, and list ideas yous find interesting.

Be aware of the following:

Your project must accommodate to the required academic standards, which will usually mean including a inquiry methodology. Consult your tutor and your course handbook.
Y'all take the requisite technical background, e.grand. in statistics or mathematics, or volition be acquiring these skills as office of the course.
The project should non be as well difficult for your level: beware of topics which do not have much data on them in your otherwise well-stocked library, or where the language is overly technical.
There must be sufficient data – this is especially relevant if you are doing a visitor-based projection, make sure that your sample is large plenty.
Volition your supervisor have sufficient expertise to help you, and will there exist other technical expertise, e.g. computing facilities to help you with the information.
Volition the library hold sufficient secondary information, or if not will you lot have access to a good library that does?

You lot volition probably need to practice a inquiry proposal which will need you lot to outline the topic very clearly, and will too need to land your objectives and your enquiry methodology, every bit well as the intended outcome.

What is the difference betwixt a dissertation and a PhD topic?
A dissertation topic:	A PhD topic:
Does not need to make an original contribution to knowledge	Needs to brand an original contribution to knowledge and to add to it
May be drawn from a list bachelor from a supervisor, or from a list of consultancy-type projects submitted past organizations	Is usually chosen by the student
Requires that the supervisor checks the inquiry methodology; does not need to be a field of study proficient	Requires that supervisor shares common interests
Will need to be submitted to the supervisor	Will demand to be submitted to an experienced commission

Using the provenance tabular array

Given that management is an interdisciplinary topic, you need to sympathize fairly early how your topic fits into the whole body of knowledge. A.D. Jankowicz, author of Business Research Projects advocates using a technique known equally the Provenance table and works equally follows:

The provenance table
A dissertation topic:	A PhD topic:
Area	A discipline, eastward.g. marketing, or business part, eastward.k. accountancy and finance
Field	A component of the area, e.k. sub-discipline, or one attribute of the function, e.g. international marketing, toll accounting
Aspect	A more than specialized aspect of the field, due east.g. export strategy, penetrating a new market, how to increase efficiency and productivity
Topic	Identifies an outcome or trouble within the aspect, e.g. how to export a item type of expert into China, a new technique for measuring business productivity

For more on this, see Jankowicz, A.D. (2000), Business concern Research Methods, Thomson Learning, pp. 45-51.

Finding a PhD topic

Disability to identify a suitable topic is a very mutual problem with PhD students, while a topic that isn't quite right – due to lack of clarity, insufficient novelty etc. – is a common crusade of PhD blues further down the line.

While many people stumble on a PhD topic by gamble, it is amend to adopt a systematic approach, such as that advocated by Sharp, Peters and Howard (2002). You tin read more most information technology in The Management of a Student Research Project, by John A. Sharp, John Peters and Keith Howard, Gower, 3rd Edition 2002, pages 26-47.

The analogy below is an adaptation of Figure 2.one, The procedure of topic option.

Image: The process of topic selection

Identifying the surface area of study

This is self evidently the first step, and should not exist too difficult; in all likelihood, it volition exist determined by some interest generated past previous written report or by employment. This in itself will suggest a supervisor, although for some the want to work with a item individual or research centre comes before the particular interest.

Finding the supervisor

This is a very important relationship, and information technology is important that you make a conscientious option. Indeed, for some the want to work with particular people comes before the selection of bailiwick.

This is a very important relationship, and it is of import that you make a careful selection. Indeed, for some people the desire to work with particular people comes before the option of subject.

Abby Day, author of How to Become Research Published in Journals, is currently doing a PhD in the folklore of religion. Having spent many years equally a consultant in the field of management and business organisation, she became frustrated because she wanted to gain a greater exposure to the theoretical underpinnings of management, in sociology. At the aforementioned time, a alter in her wellness fabricated her look for a career change into enquiry, which she could do more than at her own pace. This meant doing a PhD which would give her the necessary training in research skills. She decided that she wanted to study organizations, and she became interested in the "Spirituality and the workplace" movement. She likewise wanted to await at contemporary belief systems, which she saw every bit playing a large office in how organizations piece of work, and came on her topic after discussion with her supervisor and reading around the subject field. Indeed, the pick of bailiwick was partly dictated past her want to work with people in the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster Academy, Great britain, which was situated within the Social Science, and not the Arts Faculty.

Here are some things to bear in listen:

Is he/she eminent in the chosen area?
Accept they recently published articles, managed funded research projects, spoken at conferences?
What is their record in terms of student completion?
Practise they also have the skills in terms of research methodology?
How accessible are they likely to exist – will they be able to run into with you on a regular basis and be there if you see difficulties?
What are their views on the management of educatee research – will they provide plenty of help in initial stages, and then stand up back every bit the inquiry progresses?
Will you be able to form a relationship of trust with them – volition they expect out for you lot personally and professionally, speak well of you, defend your work, aid yous graduate in a reasonable time frame, and always requite y'all credit for your work?
Will you lot be able to establish a rapport with them not only in the above respect, but also in terms of supervision manner?
Volition they provide a pattern of supervision which will suit your needs – will yous be looking for someone who can give constant advice and feedback, or someone who will be prepared at times to stand dorsum and allow you think and reflect?
Will they provide y'all with other opportunities for research apprenticeship, for case helping them write manufactures to which your proper name will too exist added?
Are they well connected in the field, and so that they tin aid you gain employment at the end of your thesis?

Information technology is important to consider not just your supervisor's interest in your area, but also whether if he/she leaves, the university has sufficient personnel to back up y'all. For that reason, information technology can sometimes exist a practiced idea to cull somewhere which has a research centre in your given topic.

Initial selection of topic

You are at present at a indicate when y'all have to narrow your focus to a specific topic, or topics (it'southward probably all-time to have several topics to start off with, from which you tin select). At this indicate, you change your part: whereas previously you have been an explorer, looking for gaps in cognition on which to base your inquiry, you become a detective, looking for solutions to problems. (Read Pat Cryer, The Research Student'due south Guide to Success, pp.59-61 on, the different roles of the researcher: explorer, detective, visionary, and barrister – and see a diagrammatic version below).

Make sure of the following:

Your supervisor is interested in your topic – they will spend a lot of fourth dimension on it as well. You can as well inquire them to come up up with some ideas.
Your topic interests you – this is essential equally you will be spending a long time on it, and then you need to keep upwards your motivation! You need to ain and shape your thought – you are making a big emotional investment.
You are doing something of interest to the research community.
Y'all are addressing a existent problem every bit opposed just to plugging a gap in knowledge – you should exist maxim, not "I desire to practise research on branding" but "I desire an reply to a specific question", such as "Why practice companies seek co-branding?"
You have picked something truly original – this is the defining criteria of PhD research. Yous must be able to convince both yourself and others of the novelty of your topic.
Y'all can complete in the necessary time frame.

What is originality? Estelle One thousand. Phillips and Derek South. Pugh, in their book How to become a PhD (3rd Edition 2000, Open University Press) list the following ways of beingness original:

Setting downwards a major piece of new information in writing for the starting time time.
Continuing a previously original piece of work.
Carrying out original piece of work designed by the supervisor.
Providing a unmarried original technique, ascertainment, or upshot in an otherwise unoriginal but competent piece of research.
Having many original ideas, methods and interpretations all performed by others under the direction of the postgraduate.
Showing originality in testing somebody else's idea.
Carrying out empirical work that hasn't been done before.
Making a synthesis that hasn't been fabricated before.
Using already known fabric merely with a new estimation.
Trying out something in your state that has previously only been washed in other countries.
Taking a particularly technique and applying it to a new expanse.
Bringing new evidence to behave on an old issue.
Being cross-disciplinary and using different methodologies.
Looking at areas that people in the discipline haven't looked at before.
Adding to knowledge in a manner that hasn't been done before.

The literature review is a very of import in the initial pick of the topic. This will be more a matter of doing extensive reading rather than a formal literature review, which will happen at an early on stage of the inquiry. Considering a PhD is an improver to the trunk of knowledge, you need to take a good idea of what the trunk of knowledge is in that surface area. Your supervisor volition exist able to direct you to the most useful starting points as you do your survey of the literature, but here are some suggestions:

Reports of research in peer-reviewed journals, looking in particular at their suggestions for further inquiry.

The article Equity in corporate co-branding by Judy Motion, Shirley Leitch, and Roderick J. Brodie (European Journal of Marketing, Volume 37 Number 7/eight) ends as follows:

"The function of marketing communications in corporate co-brands and the disinterestedness courses that sally offer a potential calendar for enquiry and further theory development about the nature of co-branded disinterestedness. Such research will further understanding [sic] of how co-branding offers corporate brands the opportunity to move across sponsorship relationships to partnerships that redefine the brand identity, discursively reposition the brand and build co-make equity."

Theses and dissertations, conference proceedings and general reports, which may have similar indicators of future research.
Reviews of the bailiwick (sometimes, literature reviews are published in bookish journals).
Books and book reviews (the latter provide useful indicators of the one-time'due south contribution to cognition, and can often be accessed via commendation indexes).
Conference announcements, reports and proceedings – await at tracks and themes.
Reports in the media – are there particular problems that keep coming up, especially ones that will exist of import to managers?

Professor Devi Jankowicz says that research students ofttimes come to him with a general idea for a PhD, for example, alter management in Cathay. They may well be reacting to something that interested them in their masters or undergraduate course, or to something in a textbook. The task is to then be a lot more specific. He urges them to go abroad and write ii to 3 sides of paper on what they desire to research and why, what has been done then far and what would they practise to move that area of knowledge on. He is not expecting a polished answer, and information technology is clearly impossible to do a proper literature review in the space, but information technology serves every bit a trigger to become people reading scholarly articles as opposed to textbooks and to thinking what their contribution to knowledge will be. Much of the get-go year volition be spent doing a literature review and refining the enquiry proposal.

In addition, ideas may come up from the post-obit:

Issues arising during previous study.
Conversations with practitioners, colleagues, potential users of the research.
A personal involvement.
A work interest – especially if y'all are doing the PhD office-fourth dimension, it is very important to pick a topic that complements your work.

Sudesh Sangray submitted (November 2004) his PhD on market efficiency. He starting time became interested in this topic when he studied it at undergraduate level. He decided to look at the impact of company announcements on stock market share prices, just had difficulty deciding on a sample. His supervisor suggested that he focus on a new stock market place that had merely been born in London – the Alternative Investment Market

The post-obit techniques can too be used to generate topics:

Illustration

This can work in a number of ways: Precipitous et al. (op. cit. p.35) give the example of looking at small business within the framework of intermediate technology; you could also take an interest in a particular topic, and read about a inquiry methodology or a conceptual framework in another field and decide to employ the latter to your own topic.

Relevance trees

Here, you start from a broad topic and draw 'branches' from it until you lot have narrowed down to a detail area of interest. The diagram opposite gives a very elementary example.

Morphological analysis

Here, you lot demand to ascertain the key factors/dimensions of a topic (which could also be your field of involvement), then list the factor'southward key attributes (with examples) and finally, combine them in dissimilar means. (Run into Precipitous et al. pages 36-38.)

Doing a reality bank check

Once you think you have a expert topic it's important to consider the post-obit earlier going ahead (see the diagram above):

Is it feasible?

This is actually almost whether it'south possible to deport the enquiry and get a consequence, or whether at that place volition be insurmountable obstacles. You lot should consider:

Will in that location exist sufficient data and will you be able to gain access to it?
If yous want to set upwards a field experiment, conduct a survey, interview key people, or detect the workforce, volition this be possible, in other words will you gain cooperation for your research design with your subject area?
Will yous be able to complete the topic in the fourth dimension available? Depict upwardly a inquiry program, with a schedule and objectives, and see if yous can come across your borderline.
Do you lot have, or will you be able to acquire or proceeds help with, the necessary technical skills? For case, many methods require use of statistical analysis techniques: will you exist able to acquire these, is your supervisor/other tutors to whom you will have admission able to help you? Will there be aid with any necessary programming and will the requisite software exist bachelor?
Will you be sufficiently well covered financially for costs over and higher up tuition and living expenses, for example, for the cost of carrying out a survey, travelling to visit companies etc?
What are the risks that the project will be impossible to consummate?

Is it valuable?

What will be the value to the community at big? Volition companies exist able to find better and quicker means of doing business organization? Will it make a deviation to the lives of managers? Will you be able to demonstrate a new educational method? More information on wellness care in a particular office of the globe? These days information technology is hard to obtain funding if you cannot demonstrate the social or wealth creation aspect of your research.

Is it symmetrical?

Issues of symmetry concern the dubiousness of results of a particular piece of research, and whether the possible outcomes of the inquiry, and the answers to the questions which it poses, are of equal involvement. If there is no positive outcome, will the enquiry still be valid?

If you were to conduct a study on the incidence of smoking and heart disease, were yous to establish that over a sufficiently large group in that location was no link, then you would excite dandy interest; if on the other (probable) paw y'all were to institute a link, then this inquiry would be of doubtful value.

The UK regime is currently thinking of banning ads for junk food until afterwards 9pm in an attempt to combat babyhood obesity. Studies of other countries where this had been done, whether or not they established a link with purchasing patterns and subsequent obesity, would exist highly relevant to this debate.

Is at that place sufficient scope?

This is related to what beliefs are held in the area, and how strongly they are held. For case, linking smoking and centre illness (as in the example in a higher place) is of value merely picayune surprise.

The roles of a researcher

Nosotros have talked here a lot about the stages in the identification of the topic. It may besides exist useful to consider the researcher as pursuing different roles.

Image: Roles of a researcher

Cryer, The Research Student's Guide to Success, 2nd Edition, 2000, Open up University Printing.

Mail service PhD: developing a research stream

Nosotros are grateful to Professor Robert Morgan of the University of Cardiff for permission to reproduce copyright textile in this department.

To the student, the completion of a PhD can seem like the end in itself – that is the career terminate as opposed to that of the PhD!

At every phase in one'southward career however, information technology is important to have one eye on the next move in the game program, and the PhD is no exception.

It is important to consider not only "passing" the viva and getting the all-important kickoff job, but also increasing one'southward potential as a researcher through the acquisition of skills, and the development of a publishing programme. Both the former and the latter are very important if one is to remain in academia. In any outcome, having produced a standard of inquiry sufficiently high to earn y'all a PhD, it is probable that with a little revision you volition take some form of publication.

Graham and Stablein quote the following listing of anxieties amidst inquiry students (links to other parts of the site are given to useful resources):

How can i envision the publishable outcomes of a research effort in advance? (See Should I publish before completing my PhD?)
How does i "dissever" a thesis or other big project into split up pieces? How much is enough for a given article? (Encounter Should I publish before completing my PhD?)
How does one choose what not to include in a paper? How detailed should a process/method section be? How speculative should a discussion section get? How much ex mail service facto logic is ethical/adequate?
What is the appropriate periodical for the article? (See How to find the correct journal.)
Are there barriers to publishing on topics not already in the literature? Is in that location a bias against radical perspectives and topics?
Can ane publish not-quantifiable empirical work? (See How to conduct empirical research.)
Just how "original" and new must an idea be to be publishable?
Practise publishable manufactures have to be written in a "boring" style, or does it but happen that way?
Does i have to "get along" to get published?
How important is networking, going to conferences, workshops, colloquia and becoming known by the "right" people to getting published?
Is co-authorship a liability? (See How to interact effectively.)
How "blind" is bullheaded review? (Run across How to survive peer review and revise your paper.)

Source: Graham, Jill West. and Ralph E. Stablein (1985), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Publication: Newcomers' Perspectives on Publishing in the Organizational Sciences", in L. L. Cummings and P. J. Frost (Eds.) Publishing in Organizational Sciences, R. D. Irwin, Homewood, IL., pp.139-140.

How research differs postal service-PhD

When you piece of work on a PhD, y'all will be working on one large project. However, on finishing this project, it is advisable to work on a number of smaller projects. This will be a good fashion of spreading the risk and avoiding putting all your eggs into ane handbasket past working on i project in the hopes of existence published in a top quality journal.

Working on a number of projects volition crave juggling – projects may exist at different stages, one at the literature review stage, 1 at the design stage, i at data collection etc.

Another difference is that whereas a PhD is a solitary pursuit, when you are in the mainstream of academia collaboration is more usual. This provides a proficient way of cross-fertilizing ideas and sharing the burden both of researching and article writing.

In looking for collaborators, it's very important to find people you: a) get on with, b) trust to involve and consult with you at every stage, and c) have a like theoretical perspective to yous, or, if they accept a different theoretical perspective, your combined perspectives volition compliment one another rather than fight.

Should I publish before completing my PhD?

Information technology volition obviously give you a practiced head get-go in publishing if you can publish part of your thesis in a scholarly journal. Your chief constraint will be the length of a typical journal article, which is around 6000 words. Information technology is therefore neither advisable nor usual to distil your whole PhD, just rather to take a pocket-sized section of the data which relates to a particular theme and analyse that. For example, if you used interviews, you could accept a selection of these, or if a questionnaire, some questions which related to a item theme. In writing the literature review for the article, yous would patently need to summarize what you lot had read and focus on those sources relevant to your chosen theme, while the similar considerations will apply to the research methodology department.

Although for purposes of inquiry credibility you volition probably desire to focus on scholarly journals, at that place is no need to confine yourself to these. You might as well consider, equally a way of reaching your equivalent professional person community and showing the practical implications of your work, publishing in a practitioner journal. Run into How to write for a practitioner journal.

Dr Andrew Pressey (working in a UK university under the looming Research Assessment Practice) maintains that now in that location are a great many pressures on research students to publish articles before they accept submitted their PhD. He therefore advocates consideration of publishability while selecting a topic, and too of the fact that if the student goes into academia, he/she may continue to inquiry effectually the topic for some time. Is your topic of importance to other researchers (equally indicated by the literature, and also by its advent in conference tracks)? Will it continue to be of import in a few years fourth dimension, or volition it engagement, is it merely a fad?

Ways of developing a inquiry trajectory

The important thing is to see the large motion picture when yous are because your enquiry: think what field you want to be in, what areas y'all desire to develop, and plan for continuity.

"Identifying and following a particular inquiry trajectory is to be recommended. Expertise has limited scope and continuity in research is near ever rewarded. The biggest challenge is to manage the development of the enquiry, and the associated projects, in an advisable way. The all-time way is to seek advice and mentoring - in the informal rather than the formal sense of seeking out knowledgeable people and key scholars in the field. Networking at conferences and workshops is just every bit valuable; the "meet the editors" sessions at conferences tin exist useful and frequently they explain important only subtle issues to do with their conclusion-making; something you never see in the Notes for Contributors. It is also important that authors make sure they hear most all the calls for papers."

Professors Rob Morgan and Jeryl Whitelock
Editors of International Marketing Review
Quoted from an Emerald meet the editors interview.

Here are some means in which you lot can find suitable research streams:

Read professional journals and spot interesting conceptual developments, equally well as questions which:

Have not all the same been addressed.
Have been partly or unsatisfactorily resolved but could be farther investigated.
Are raised in the "further research" sections at the end of articles.

Look at the Research Priorities of your relevant academic establish, such as the Marketing Scientific discipline Plant, the American University of Marketing, the American Academy of Management, the British University of Management, etc.
Nourish the chief conferences in your expanse - both leading and specialist. Look out for the bug being debated, comments from presenters and other attendants at seminars.
Talk over with colleagues.
Keep an eye open up for what is going on in relevant practitioner fields – for example, are there item bug existence debated in the business and professional media, which could do with some theoretical basis and empirical research?
Develop a dialogue with other researchers and seek to join a network or e-mail give-and-take group.
Read widely outside your discipline in cognate areas and import research methodology, theoretical perspectives etc.
Be informed about Calls for papers: await out for Calls in journals, subscribe to ELMAR etc.
Don't spend too much time just looking for the "hot topics"!

Here is what some leading journal editors have to say about hot topics:

"Rather than incessantly searching for today's "hot topic", potential contributors to the Periodical of Marketing are well-advised to write and do research in those areas where they believe they can make the virtually contribution."

Shelby Chase
Journal of Marketing, Fall 1985.

"Over the past three years, I take been asked literally dozens of times (usually, but not exclusively by Ph.D students) what the hot topics in consumer research are... To attempt to answer that question, officially and for the final time, I advise that y'all look within yourself. A topic isn't hot for y'all unless yous decide it is. It is rubber to say that the very best researchers in our field follow their own instincts in selecting inquiry topics... Their instincts are grounded in an expertise emanating from a total immersion in the topic area: reading the relevant academic literature, scanning the merchandise press, talking with industry researchers and colleagues at conferences, trading working papers and ideas on a network of scholars with similar interests, and then on. It is a commitment to a program of research that makes it work. You need to go an accented practiced on your subject."

Richard Lutz
Journal of Consumer Inquiry, 1990.

Here are some tips:

Find a reasonably broad focus that includes several interesting problems: it is important to have a strong theory base, only every bit important to focus on particular issues as that volition requite you a novel contribution.
Take a theoretical anchor but have multiple levels of assay – due east.one thousand., if you were looking at organizational learning you could do and so both across unlike organizations and within them (i.due east. looking at dissimilar functions). Push off into new areas – the critics will be more than receptive and a bit less critical than if you lot were to focus on low-risk, safe, and well-known areas.
Brand connections: link your surface area of research to other bug in your area, and to existing frameworks and methods.
Seek funding! (Encounter How to make a grant application.) Not only will this provide you with a upkeep for your inquiry, but it will also legitimize your area and your role inside it.
Beware of getting too fragmented in your research: in your early on years every bit a researcher, 2-three projects at a time are adequate; later on, maybe more.
Be aware of the opportunity costs of pursuing enquiry topics: be prepared to drop a topic that doesn't appear to be leading anywhere.
Be opportunistic: be on the lookout for new ideas, especially towards the stop of a projection.
Take charge of your learning: learn as yous become, try and make certain that you lot create a helping surround for yourself, with plenty of people you can plough to for aid and mentoring.

Be confident in your views! There will always be a various number of research topics that individual researchers notice hot, i.e. ones they see as:

Intellectually challenging
Interesting
Intriguing
Invigorating

Making a contribution to knowledge

The best manner of getting an commodity accepted is to brand an incremental contribution to knowledge, 1 which will cause:

A manager to manage differently.
A researcher to enquiry differently.
A lecturer to teach differently.

An incremental contribution to noesis is one where: solutions or enhancements are proposed to overcome the difficulties.
An incremental contribution to knowledge is not one where: the researcher merely enumerates the deficiencies in previous works.

Some ways of making a contribution to knowledge:

Challenge conventional wisdom and prevailing beliefs. For example, the presumed causal direction of the relationship betwixt variables.
Refute or critique a theory currently in faddy, or propose an alternative explanation or perspective.
Test a theory that has been developed but not tested.
Provide amend measures or ameliorate data.
Replicate a detail design in another context.
Provide additional theoretical or empirical insights.
Present corroborating/non-corroborating evidence.
Look at common practices which do not notwithstanding have a skillful theoretical base, and conduct some empirical inquiry and develop a theory.

Source: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/archived/research/guides/management/research_ideas.htm

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