The Research and Writing Template

Abstract

While every business school discipline (accounting, business law, communication, economics, entrepreneurship, finance, management, marketing, organizational behavior, and strategy each possess scholarly trends and momentary fashion, scholarly research and writing has developed over the years in a manner that lends itself to some useful generalizations. Particularly for young scholars who are new to the challenges of research methods, a clear picture of at least one acceptable approach to the articulation of a research problem seems useful. We have drafted this introductory reading with a view toward providing just that, some initial thoughts to prod the thinking about the research and writing process. We seek to provide a quick read of thirty minutes or less to set the stage for all the hard work, dismissed ideas, and blind alleys that inevitably confront the PhD student about to embark on a journey that will hopefully lead, just a few years later, to a relatively quick (maybe a year or two less than the norm) completion of a thoughtful, cogent, and important dissertation having “real world” scholarly impact.