Great Ideas and Blind Alleys? A Review of the Literature on Starting Research

Abstract

This paper aims to address the problem of the way in which the topic identification stage is covered by many of the management and business general research textbooks. Advice offered in these textbooks is summarized, integrated and built upon. As part of this, techniques and inside accounts discussing topic identification are indexed to individual textbooks and a composite list of attributes required of a good research problem provided. An inside account of topic identification further emphasizes the need to make novice researchers aware of the realities of the process. The paper concludes with a discussion in which it is argued that more emphasis needs to be placed on the realities of the topic identification process. In particular it argues that the inevitable presence of blind alleys and seemingly irrelevant discussions provides considerable advantages to all researchers, including the novice.