Bringing It All Together and Leaving It All up to You!

The authors of this book have considered research in novel terms, focusing not only on methods but also on the relationship between the researcher and the researched. The traditional model is one where “good” research is objectively conducted, when there is distance between researcher and subject, where the researcher designs and determines the research process, and where the researched provides (only) what is asked of them. This model has been questioned throughout this volume. Emerging from the chapters of the book is an alternative view of research as an active, participative process which is cocreated by the researchers and the subjects of research, all of whom are active participants in the process. By involving managers as reflexive collaborators we aim for creating in-depth knowledge that goes beyond the obvious by providing possibilities to achieve representations of business managers’ understandings of social phenomenon which is also credible to them. Thus, inferences based on the available data has to be valid. This doesn’t mean that data do not have to be valid, but that the inferences made are just as important as the data and that managers are essential in establishing the necessary validity in this process. Further insight emerges from the substantive frameworks the chapters provide for business researchers. These frameworks reside in the various methods and models that are described and are intended to guide the practice of research. Equally important is that embedded within these descriptions of method and often overlooked there is articulation and consideration of researchers’ paradigmatic and epistemological stances. These stances determine what methods are appropriately used and how they are utilized and guide the nature of the research that will be done and how it will be interpreted and used. Here, the focal research context is the processes and practices in business markets. In this concluding chapter, we discuss three connected issues that we see as particularly relevant for this context: closeness to and interaction with business practitioners, the role(s) of business schools and their researchers in this research cocreation process, and how these research stakeholders can develop research designs and generate knowledge.