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Chapter 5 Web links
Getting started: reviewing the literature
National Statistics Online
This is the website of the Office of National Statistics. Through this site you can explore the extensive range of data collected about life in the UK.
European Statistics
https://europa.eu/european-union/index_en
This is the portal to the official website of the European Union run by the Communication department of the European Commission. If you are looking for information on the services provided by the EU, this is a great starting point.
Concepts and Definitions
Answers.com is a Q&A website and our students recommend it as a great port of call to help you get your head around some of those tricky business and management concepts; however, it is a community generated on social knowledge, so we would advise that you approach it with caution!
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free and accessible online encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software, and is a great knowledge base to help you better understand broad theories and concepts; however, most universities will not acknowledge information that has been cited from Wikipedia, so we suggest using it as a tool to enhance your own understanding, and refrain from relying on it in your research papers!
Exploring Management
Our students have recommended this as a good site for exploring the general concept of management, although again we wouldn’t recommend that you cite from it. It can be a good starting point to get tips on general management skills to help new managers to get started and experienced managers to get better.
Scholarly Research
Google scholar is an aspect of Google that allows you to search solely through the landscape of scholarly literature and academic articles across a multitude of disciplines. Search results are drawn from such sources as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and articles from a range of academic publishers, professional societies, universities, and other academic organizations, and can be a great tool to filter your web-based research.
The Academy of Management (AOM)
This is the homepage of the Academy of Management (AOM) who are a professional association established to help scholars and professionals share their knowledge of management and business organizations.
The British Academy of Management
The British Academy of Management, or BAM as it is also known, run conferences, journals, and various training and development events and have strong ties with numerous business organizations across the UK and internationally.
Case Studies and Current Affairs
Looking for case studies on current business issues? Our students recommended the BBC news website for being reasonably well balanced and fairly analytical as well as a great way of keeping up with the latest issues in the business world and case-study analyses –you can access the link here.
Industry Profiles
The Economist is a hot spot for business-related articles as well as information on company and industry profiles. Full access to this site does require you to have a full print subscription, but many articles can be accessed for free.
High Profile Case Studies
http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/
This is a link to 100 case studies on well-known organization that have been provided by The Times newspaper. It should be noted, though, that some of the theoretical material on this site is not adequate for university-level study and can often be uncritical.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
The CIPD is Europe’s largest HR and development professional body. As an internationally recognized company their site is full of useful articles, information, and tips and for any managers out there, it is definitely worth a visit.
Entrepreneur.com
Our students recommend Entrepreneur as a good site for sourcing relevant business topics; but bear in mind that the information here is sometimes tailored more towards practitioners than researchers.
Some sites to approach with care!
http://www.thinkingmanagers.com
This site contains articles and ideas on Business management by Robert Heller and Edward de Bono. The content here may not be too wholly appropriate for your research papers, but it does contain some interesting theories and a ‘Management Library’ where you can browse your way through a range of business-related materials.
Business Balls again is a site which is less suitable to pursue for academic study – either because the theories are slightly simplistic or the information might not be entirely reliable:
Bibliographic Software:
Endnote
This link will take you to the homepage of Endnote, another key software tool that will help you to create bibliographic records and compile your own personal reference database.
Reference Manager
Reference Manager is the third windows-based bibliographic system which can save you time and effort when creating your bibliography. The records you create can be automatically formatted to suit different requirements, which is great if you need to comply with the referencing requirements of a particularly scholarly journal:
Mendeley
https://www.mendeley.com/homepage3/?switchedFrom
Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research. It has become increasingly popular with students in recent years.
Free downloadable Bibliographic tools!
If your university doesn’t have access to one of the key bibliographic software systems, then EndNote Web is available free to students of institutions subscribing to ISI Web of Knowledge.
Reference management tools
http://www.research4life.org/training/reference-management-tools/
This will help you develop some of skills necessary to use three of the most used management softwares: Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote Web.
A Literature Review Guide
http://libguides.hull.ac.uk/ld.php?content_id=3166117
This site contains a valuable guide to writing a literature review, authored by Peter Wilson of the Centre for Learning Development at the University of Hull. You will notice the document is written in a good, clear, academic style, so it practises what it preaches! Wilson uses the footnote method of referencing, which works very well. Bryman and Bell favour the Harvard system, one of a number of Author-Date systems. Make sure to check with your own institution for its precise requirements.
Various Types of Literature
http://libguides.wesleyan.edu/litreview
Another excellent guide, this time with an American orientation. This site is particularly good on the various kinds of literature that may be accessed. These authors use an Author-Date referencing system.
Advice on Paraphrasing
https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/quotingsources/
This site (and the previous one) is among the most popular links used by other academic institutions around the world. This section is chosen for its valuable advice on paraphrasing our readings, but you will find lots of other useful pointers elsewhere in the site’s pages.
A Valuable Checklist
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review
Back to North America for another short guide, written by Dena Taylor and Margaret Procter. Much as we would like to give credit to website contributors, we cannot always do so, since many websites are written in a corporate style, leaving the specific authors anonymous. This time, we can give the credit for a quite ingenious checklist.
Using Nvivo for a literature review
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss13/3/
This paper presents a rationale for the use of Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS) programs for literature reviews. QDAS tools allow the researcher to explore large amounts of textual documents to see patterns. These programs are often overlooked by novice researchers due to their complexity and the lack of expertise provided to assist them. To combat this dilemma our paper outlines the N7+1 approach to using Nvivo11™ for literature reviews. Through this approach researchers can develop an ‘auditable footprint’, keep everything in one place, and go paperless.