Problem Statement
Risk management practitioners need better research guidelines so that they can publish their studies in scholarly journals to share innovations with the global community of practice (Goodwin & Strang, 2012). Methodology subject matter experts acknowledge that textbooks provide overwhelming, sometimes conflicting knowledge due to the numerous approaches and differences in terminology across the disciplines (Babbie, 2007; Charmaz, 2006; Creswell, 2009, 2012; Creswell & Tashakkori, 2007; Ellingson, 2009; Freedman, 2006; Gill, Johnson, & Clark, 2010; Greene, 2008; Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Hammersley, 2006; Kline, 2004; Maxwell, 2005; Neuman, 2000; Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2005; Richards, 2009; Yin, 2009).
Research method practitioners must take the responsibility to provide better research documentation for emerging scholars. Therefore, I wrote this descriptive case study to help emerging risk management researchers design and execute studies in a way in which their work is more likely to be published in scholarly journals. The premise was that a fatally flawed study with an invalid or obscure design has very little chance of being published even if it is well written. On the other hand, a well-designed study, which reveals innovative risk management practices but with a few grammatical errors can be easily revised to make a significant contribution to the global literature and community of practice.
Purpose
In this study, I interviewed eleven doctoral students across several disciplines, namely: management, education, healthcare/nursing, and business. I used a simple opened ended question to have them describe how research methods guidelines could be improved. I also briefly questioned a dozen participants at a recent International Disaster Conference to obtain their perspective on the same issue. I then reviewed the literature and I used personal experience to inform my conceptual approach.
I developed a graphical top-down typology to guide the research design, which consisted of four major layers: research ideology, unit and level of analysis strategy, formal research method, and techniques. The graphical research design typology was supplemented with a discussion of how the layers integrate, and how the techniques are used across the methods, strategies and ideologies. The techniques covered sampling, data collection, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, ethics, validity and reliability.
This paper is not as a replacement for a methods textbook, but rather, it is a guide to assist in mapping the complex topology of scholarly research. I provided high quality signposts as references, such as these resources which I truncated the citations here past ten years (APA, 2010; Babbie, 2007; Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003; Creswell, 2012; Gill et al., 2010; Glaser & Holton, 2005; Greenacre & Blasius, 2006; Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Hammersley, 2006; Keppel & Wickens, 2004; Maxwell, 2005; Neuman, 2000; Patton, 2002; Whitley, 2002; Yin, 2009; Zechmeister, Zechmeister, & Shaughnessy, 2001).