COMPARATIVE

METHODOLOGICAL CRITIQUE

Vickson Brito Daniel

Student ID 18031232

Assessment 2
MODULE MN7183
MANAGEMENT LEARNING AND RESEARCH
TABLE PF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 3
1. IDENTIFICATION OF ARTICLE ‘A’ ................................................................................... 4
1.2 Aims and Objectives, Research Questions and Rationales .............................................. 5
2. IDENTIFICATION AND DISCUSSION OF PHILOSOPHIES OF ARTICLE ‘A’ ............. 6
2.1 Philosophy and Approach ................................................................................................ 6
2.2 Rationale for the Research Design ................................................................................... 7
3. DISCUSSION OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN / STRATEGY ............................................. 8
3.1 Strategy............................................................................................................................. 8
3.2 Methodological Choice .................................................................................................... 8
3.3 Time Horizon ................................................................................................................... 9
4. DISCUSSION OF THE DESIGN AND USE OF DATA COLLECTION TOOLS ............... 9
4.1 Design of the tool? ........................................................................................................... 9
4.2 The Tool ......................................................................................................................... 10
5. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION ............................................................................................ 11
6. IDENTIFICATION OF ARTICLE ‘B’ ................................................................................. 12
6.2 Aims and Objectives, Research Questions and Rationales ............................................ 12
7. IDENTIFICATION AND DISCUSSION OF PHILOSOPHIES OF ARTICLE ‘B’ ............ 13
7.1 Philosophy and approach ............................................................................................... 13
7.2 Rationale for the Research Design ................................................................................. 14
8. DISCUSSION OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN / STRATEGY ........................................... 15
8.1 Strategy & Methodological Choice ................................................................................ 15
8.2 Time Horizon ................................................................................................................. 16
9. DISCUSSION OF THE DESIGN AND USE OF DATA COLLECTION TOOLS ............. 16
9.1 Design of the Tool .......................................................................................................... 16
9.2 How suitable this tool/s? ................................................................................................ 17
10. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION......................................................................................... 18
LIST OF REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 19
INTRODUCTION

The following paper is a critique of the research articles, “Effect of Social Media Marketing on
Small Scale Business Performance in Ota-Metropolis, Nigeria” (Omotayo Adegbuy & Akinyele
TAIWO Samuel, 2015) and “Responses to Managerialism: How Management Pressures Affect
Managerial Relations and Loyalties in Education”. (Mirko Noordegraaf and Bas de Wit 2012).
The purpose of this critique is to evaluate the content of the article.
CRITIQUE OF ARTICLE “A”

1. IDENTIFICATION OF ARTICLE ‘A’

1.1 What is the article about?

The article A, written by Omotayo Adegbuy & Akinyele TAIWO Samuel, (2015),
speculates the Effect of Social Media Marketing on Small Scale Business Performance in
Ota Metropolis, Nigeria. According to the article described in abstract, it says ‘the purpose
of this study is to examine the effect of social media marketing on small scale business
performance. Furthermore In today’s social media driven environment, it is essential that
small businesses understand Facebook, Twitter, and the strategies behind using social
media for growing their businesses’ (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, abstract).

The article A, which is positivism quantitative based research, has also focused on how the
social media can help the small scale companies to compete with the continuous changes
in the economy and heavy competition given by the giants.

According to Nekatibeb (2012), the growing of media and the emergence of social media
has pushed the businesses to use social media as one of their marketing tools. Lately the
increasing usage of internet in general, but especially the increasing number of internet
users through smart devices such as phones and tablets has increased greatly the content in
the internet, which has resulted in the increasing of consumption.

However, the researchers also emphasizes that, this has raised many controls, monitoring
and forecasting measures as well as the need for businesses to re-orient their business
model and operational strategies into a more adaptive model instead of a reactive model. If
one fails, they will be kicked out of the market.

Moreover, Beaver (2002) acknowledged how the small scale companies help the economy
grow even during the tough time of the economy. “Small firms and entrepreneurial ventures
are important and have gained growing recognition due to their contribution to economic
 vitality, employment generation, innovation and business development” (Abeyhuyi et al.
2015, p4). This article also explains how the business owners are trying to adapt to the
changes to get the competitive advantages using social media marketing and how they step
in to social media without any strategies where most of them fail without getting the
optimum use. This article concludes the importance of Small scale business owners the
need of training themselves or employees to use the social media to get the competitive
advantage and eventually the increase of sales.

1.2 Aims and Objectives, Research Questions and Rationales

In article A, that implies, that researchers have tried to find out the effect in relationship
building with other businesses and audience through Social Media will have a positive
impact on Sales during the difficult times of the economy. This article exams the need of
Social Media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, to small business in
order to survive and help grow the country’s economy while adding value to businesses as
well as to the customers (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, p4).

It follows therefore, the objective of the study is indeed a very significant in today’s context
where the relationship marketing is gaining the memento. Tuten (2008) suggests if a
business is to benefit from social media marketing, the first step in the process should be
to set objectives for the campaign, as setting objective is a critical step in any
communication and marketing planning process. According to him, any marketing
campaign without an objective cannot be measured and evaluated, and unless we are able
to measure the performance it can be considered a waste of an effort.

In article A, objectives can therefore be to determine how effective employee training about
social media of small to medium enterprises has increase brand awareness, to examine how
employee participation in SME’s operation has increase sales, to identify how continuous
improvement of SME’s strategies has improve customer service, and to examine how
managerial commitment of SME’s has increase the implementation of social media
campaigns.
 Therefore, in the researcher quest to understand the challenges facing small businesses,
they have posed the following questions: 1. How does a small business employee training
about social media lead to increase brand awareness? 2. Does the use of employee
participation in social media activities to engage consumers in small business operations
increase sales. 3. Does continuous improvement of small business with consumers improve
customer service? 4. How does managerial commitment of small business aid to implement
social media campaigns? (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, p4).

2. IDENTIFICATION AND DISCUSSION OF PHILOSOPHIES OF ARTICLE ‘A’

2.1 Philosophy and Approach

This article A, philosophy is positivism and approach has been deductive. As Johnson and
Clark (2006) note, as business and management researchers we need to be aware of the
philosophical commitments we make through our choice of research strategy since this has
significant impact not only on what we do but we understand what it is we are investigating.
Therefore, the article is positivism because they are trying to find the answer by the
philosophical stance of the natural science by questionnaires and observations. (Abeyhuyi
et al. 2015, p8). To generate a research strategy to collect these data you are likely to use
existing theory to develop hypotheses. According to the Literature review, cited in pages,
5,6,7,8 reinforces that theory is already developed, therefore these hypotheses will be tested
and confirmed, in whole or part, or refuted, leading to the further development of theory
which then may be tested by further research.

To affirm the above, the researcher has cited that the researchers choose a quantitative
research method to explore the subject because it is most suitable for exploratory research
aiming to further understanding. (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, p8).
2.2 Rationale for the Research Design

Research design is turning your research question into a research project (Robson 2002).
This article A is a descriptive research, because the researcher himself has cited in the
abstract (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, abstract). According to Robson (2002), the object of
descriptive research is ‘to portray an accurate profile of persons, events or situations’
(Robson 2002:59). This may be an extension of, or a forerunner to, a piece of exploratory
research or, more often, a piece of explanatory research. According to the article its situation
analysis, as the researcher is trying to find out the relationship of social media marketing
on small scale business performance.

Therefore researchers have pose the following questions to find the above discussed.
1. How does a small business employee training about social media lead to increase
brand awareness?
2. Does the use of employee participation in social media activities to engage consumers
in small business operations increase sales.
3. Does continuous improvement of small business with consumers improve customer
service?
4. How does managerial commitment of small business aid to implement social media
campaigns?

The primary data was collected through questionnaire and observation which are then used
to formulate adaptability and survival strategies. The study made use of statistical tools
such as descriptive statistics and simple frequency analysis in testing the statements on the
questionnaire. Furthermore, all the hypotheses were tested using model summary, analysis
of variance (ANOVA) and co-efficient table in testing the research hypotheses. (Abeyhuyi
et al. 2015, p8).

Four hypotheses were raised and tested in this study. The findings are presented in the
tables below. Hypothesis 1: Employee training about social media has no impact on
increase brand awareness/ Hypothesis 2: There is no significant effect between employee
participation in social media activities and increase sales. Hypothesis 3: There is no
 significant impact between continuous improvement and improve customer service.
Hypothesis 4: Managerial commitment does not have a positive impact on implement
social media campaigns.

3. DISCUSSION OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN / STRATEGY

3.1 Strategy

The most suitable strategy is for Article A is survey as it uses social research through
quantitative method and has gathered data through questionnaire and observations. As the
researchers have selected a quite large sample of 113 managers and owners of Small
Medium Enterprises, survey is the suitable strategy to answer the research questions.
Therefore researchers have selected the most suitable strategy and design for this research.
Cross-sectional studies often employ the survey strategy (Easterby-Smith et al. 2008;
Robson 2002). However, the researchers have not cited the total number of SME’s in the
research region as to see how the sampling has been taken based on percentage wise.

3.2 Methodological Choice

In article A, the data was collected through questionnaire and observation according to the
researchers. This means the methodological choice they have used is multi method. The
term multi-method refers to those combinations where more than one data collection
technique is used with associated analysis techniques, but this is restricted within either a
quantitative or qualitative world view (Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003). Analysing these data
using statistical (quantitative) procedures is called Multi Method quantitative method.

Therefore the researchers have given one hundred and fifty copies of questionnaire to
administer to owner-managers and employees of selected SME’s in Ota Metropolis of
which one hundred and thirty five of the questionnaires were returned completely filled
and fifteen were not returned. Four hypotheses were formulated from the structure of the
research questions, ANOVA, Correlation and other statistical tools were used in testing
these hypotheses according to the abstract. (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, abstract).
 3.3 Time Horizon

It is probable that this article research is cross-sectional because the study of a particular
phenomenon (or phenomena) at a particular time and that most research projects undertaken
for academic courses are necessarily time constrained. Cross-sectional studies are non-
experimental, descriptive research that is carried out at a single point in time and data are
collected once, by surveys and questionnaires (Shanahan, 2010; Salkind, 2010).

This supports the idea that this was a cross sectional time horizon. However, this article
does not implicate or shows that time horizon used in the article.

4. DISCUSSION OF THE DESIGN AND USE OF DATA COLLECTION TOOLS

4.1 Design of the tool?

In article A, deductive approach was followed and quantitative data collected through
questionnaires and observations. It is cited in the abstract that "one hundred and thirty five
copies of questionnaires were returned after answering all the questions and fifteen were
not returned. (Abegbuyi et al, 2015, p3). Moreover, survey is the research strategy that has
been used for Article A. Best method for primary data collection for a survey is
questionnaire. Further, a survey research can be conducted mainly in three methods such as
questionnaire, face to face and telephone interview. (Showkat and Parveen 2017)

As per the Saunders et al (2009), data collection techniques for survey strategy are
questionnaire, structured interviews and structured observations. However, in the Article A
researchers have used questionnaires and observation only for the data collections.
Researchers should have attempted to collect the questionnaires that were not returned to
make sure that the survey is 100% successful or for more productive research, authors could
have used structured interviews methods as well. But also interviews cost more money than
questionnaires. Moser and Kalton (10: p.256) tell us "Without doubt, the mail questionnaire
is generally cheaper than other methods". Therefore researchers of Articles ‘A’ have not
used interview methods as it is relatively expensive methods of gathering data than
 questionnaire and observation. But if they had used the interview methods as the data
collection methods, then the result of this research could have been more details and fair.

It is mentioned that "descriptive approach is presented followed by an in-depth structured

questionnaire with the small business owners (Abeyhuyi et al. 2015, P3). Descriptive study
is used in quantitative research method which collects quantifiable data for statistical
analysis. As the researchers have executed this research using quantitative methods,
descriptive approach is the most suitable for answering the research questions.

According to Levy and Lemershow (1999) first step of a survey design is to develop a
sampling plans. Salan and Dilman (1994) state that sampling plan explains the approach
using to select the sample, how to determine the sample size, and the media through the
survey will be executed

4.2 The Tool

The approach of the Research questions of this article is deductive method using a
questionnaires for exploratory research aiming to further understanding. Our primary data
was collected through questionnaire and observation which are then used to formulate
adaptability and survival strategies. The survey was made use of statistical tools such as
descriptive statistics and simple frequency analysis in testing the statements on the
questionnaire. Furthermore, all the hypotheses have been tested using model summary,
analysis of variance (ANOVA) and co-efficient table in testing the research hypotheses.
5. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

The conclusion is precise and matches the original statement of the article. Except for the 3rd
hyposthesis, all the other hypothesis were rejected. The results revealed that the business
employs a numerous strategies to build and maintain relationships with others and sustain
consumers. It contributed to theory ole and take advantage of it to the best of their ability.
Researcher also have emphasized in his conclusion that Small businesses require knowing how
to use social media sites to engage consumers and build relationships that will project the
growth of their business.

Moreover, the Researchers have left in the future to conduct a similar study with numerous
small businesses in order to be able to generalize the findings and compare the techniques used
among owner managers. Further study can also be conducted on small business which has
viewed its social media effort as not to be effective. Although, a study of the owner manager’s
strategy and the business’s social media posts, will assist to identify the rationale behind the
business ineffectiveness in its social media pursuits.
CRITIQUE OF ARTICLE “B”

6. IDENTIFICATION OF ARTICLE ‘B’

6.1 What is the article about?

This Article B is about how school managers control professionals like teachers and pupils
using managerialism. The researchers says that ‘Management pressures in fields like
education force managers to control professionals. This generates friction. Professionals
will not easily comply with control objectives; they feel responsible for clients and quality.
Researchers have studied how professionals are affected and how they resist managerial
interference. How managers themselves are affected by managerialism, whether they adopt
control logics and are ‘driven away’ from work floors, is hardly studied. This paper studies
how school managers relate to managerialism and whether they are primarily loyal to
managerial agendas, or to professional workers and clients’. (Noordegraaf and De wit,
2012, p957)

6.2 Aims and Objectives, Research Questions and Rationales

In the Article B, the researchers’ objective is to find out how managerialism affecting school
managers’ relations and analyse work in between professionals and being loyal to the
company. Moreover this is well stated in the introduction in the article as ‘Managers not
only work in-between higher level executives and lower level staff; they also work in-
between organizations and environments, performance pressures, and professional
autonomies, as well as external demands and internal constraints, such as increasing
numbers of clients and declining resources (e.g., Thomas and Linstead 2002; Dopson and
Fitzgerald 2006; Ainsworth et al. 2009).

This article further states, that ‘there may be a tendency to understate the difficulty faced
by public managers in transforming professional work practices in a context of rising
demands on services and declining resources’ (Kitchener et al. 2002, p. 229). It is still
largely unclear how managers respond. In this article, the research objective is to find how
managerialism affects school managers’ relations and analyse whether they feel hybrid and
 act as hybrids. By emphasizing the concept of loyalty (e.g., Oglensky 2008). This article
not only shows how new relations are ‘forced upon’ school managers, but also which
special relations, which affective and normative allegiances are important. Empirically,
they have focused on (Dutch) school managers in secondary education. (Noordegraaf and
De wit, 2012, p958).

Researchers have found that it is important to analyse how they relate to managerialized
educational systems, i.e. how they relate to managerial pressures, and how they relate
pressures to professionalism. Therefore researchers empirically analyzed how managers
enact and adapt relations, how they value these relations, and how these relations are played
out in specific situations. The question researchers had posed are; How do public managers
relate to managerialism, how do they value (changing) work relations, and what are the
consequences for managerial actions? We use the concept of loyalty, as it stresses social
relations, the meaning of relations, and (potential) loyalty conflicts in specific social
situations. Loyalty indicates that individuals might have multiple ‘objects’ of attachment
and stresses the affective and normative dimensions of such attachments. It clarifies which
objects have special meaning and what this means for behaviour (Kleinig 2008; Oglensky
2008); do they choose sides, or not? Do managers feel ‘torn apart’, or not?

7. IDENTIFICATION AND DISCUSSION OF PHILOSOPHIES OF ARTICLE ‘B’

7.1 Philosophy and approach

Research design of the article B is inductive with an exploratory study and research strategy
is grounded theory.

Thomas (2006) states that purposed of inductive approach aims to condense the raw text
into a brief summary format, establish clear links between the research objectives and the
summary findings and to develop a model about the underlying structure of experiences,
processes or perceptions derived from the text data.
 Therefore in article B, authors have summarised the collected textual data into topics of
managerial pressures, school manager's loyalties, affective and normative relations,
tensions and loyalty conflicts and coping behaviours. Initially, researchers wanted to study
on school managers by emphasizing the concept of loyalty, on affective and normative
dimensions of attachments. In latter part research data was gathered in three areas such as
loyalty an affective normative attitude towards meaningful relationship, loyalty conflicts
and loyal behaviours as the objective of this study. Finally authors have concluded by
building an outline that school managers are important meditators of managerialism.

According to Saunders et al. (2009) in inductive approach theory would build up with the
qualitative data, a realization that researchers is part of the research, gaining an
understanding of the meaning of humans attach to events while studying on small sample.
In article B, researchers focused on to find out the relation between managerialism and
loyalty of the school manager and have interviews small sampling of 23 Dutch secondary
school managers

7.2 Rationale for the Research Design

This article stresses on how managers play hybrid roles. Furthermore, they might protect
professional values, for example by performing ‘custodial’ roles (Ackroyd et al. 1989). This
emphasis on hybridity relates to well-known insights on the ambiguities of managerial
work, especially of middle managers who work in-between organizational levels (e.g.,
Floyd and Wooldridge 1994; Currie and Procter 2005). Managerialism, however,
radicalizes the ‘in-betweenness’ of all service managers. Managers not only work in-
between higher level executives and lower level staff; they also work in-between
organizations and environments, performance pressures, and professional autonomies, as
well as external demands and internal constraints, such as increasing numbers of clients and
declining resources (e.g., Thomas and Linstead 2002; Dopson and Fitzgerald 2006;
Ainsworth et al. 2009). ‘There may be a tendency to understate the difficulty faced by public
managers in transforming professional work practices in a context of rising demands on
services and declining resources’ (Kitchener et al. 2002, p. 229). It is still largely unclear
how managers respond. In this Article, the research design study is on how managerialism
 affects school managers’ relations and analyze whether they feel hybrid and act as hybrids.
By emphasizing the concept of loyalty (e.g., Oglensky 2008). Also they have analysed
reform tendencies in education and we explain why public managers can be seen as hybrid
reform agents.

8. DISCUSSION OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN / STRATEGY

8.1 Strategy & Methodological Choice

According to the article’s literature, the study of the concept of loyalty reveals three research
themes: loyalty as an affective and/or normative attitude towards meaningful relationships;
loyalty conflicts; and (dis)loyal behaviour. This shows and it is evident that these themes
have hardly been subjected to empirical research so far, especially in the face of reforms.
As a result, an explorative research design was used to study managerial perceptions of
reform and managerial loyalties ‘from within’, studied by means of qualitative
methodology. According to Robson (2002) an exploratory study is a valuable means of
finding out ‘what is happening; to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess
phenomena in a new light’. It is particularly useful if you wish to clarify your understanding
of a problem, such as if you are unsure of the precise nature of the problem. (Robson
2002:59)

There are three principal ways of conducting exploratory research: a search of the literature;
interviewing ‘experts’ in the subject; conducting focus group interviews. Therefore the
researchers have used all three principals in order to validate this research. The below
explanations certifies the three principals used from the article.

During the empirical phase, 23 school managers in Dutch secondary education were
interviewed. It was individual semi-structured interviews with nine school managers; 14
school managers have been interviewed in five group interviews. The sampling on
differences between school managers on different management levels, interviewees were
selected through purposive sampling. Meanwhile the researchers have selected school
managers on the basis of their formal position in school organizations. As it proved to be
 difficult to reach potential respondents through a general call by the Secondary Education
Council (VO-Raad).

Meanwhile the remaining school managers by means of the so-called ‘snowball method’
(Miles and Huberman 1994). Eventually, 19 school managers had participated. Researchers
had held interviews with section and team heads, location directors, school heads, as well
as school board members and chairmen of executive boardsAll of the interviewed school
managers had a lot of experience in education; more than half of the respondents (61 per
cent) have been – or in some cases still are – teaching. In order to guarantee the
representativeness of research results, i.e. generalizing to management processes (instead
of populations; cf. Yin 1989), we tried to stress variety. We also accounted for certain
differences, most specifically distribution over school types; see table 2 for a rough
overview. (Noordegraaf and De wit, 2012, p963).

8.2 Time Horizon

The strengths of a structured interview are that it is efficient with regards to time, it limits
researcher subjectivity and bias, and the researcher controls the topics and format of the
interview, making it easier to code, compare and analyse data (Holloway and Wheeler
2010). The interviews took between 1 ½ and 2 hours for each respondent. But the article
does not state about the total time horizon that has been taken for this project.

9. DISCUSSION OF THE DESIGN AND USE OF DATA COLLECTION TOOLS

9.1 Design of the Tool

In article B, qualitative data was collected through mono method, which is only through
semi structures, structured and group in-depth interviews. The designing of the interviews
is explained in the following discussions.

Format of interview can be divided to structured, semi structures and unstructured. However
in depth interviews are qualitative methods of data collections, mostly long duration face to
face interviews conducted to achieve set of objectives.
 According to Boyce and Neale (2006) state that the process for conducting in-depth
interviews follows the same general process as is followed for other research: plan, develop
instruments, collect data, analyse data, and disseminate findings. Further the process further
is an identification of participants and what information is needed from whom, develop
interview protocol and guide, set up interviews with stakeholders and analyse all interview
data.

Accordingly, the researchers have designed the structured interviews in two broad research
subjects such as managerialism and loyalty. It further subdivided in to specific interview
topics in order to compare statement of school managers. Questions were asked on the
school managers relations so managerial pressures, their relationship with teachers and
others stakeholders, specific situation in which affective and normative relationship were
involved and situations which they face loyalty conflicts. (Noordegraaf and De wit, 2012,
p960, 969,). Researchers have explained the theoretical themes, such as loyalty as an
affective/ normative attitude towards meaningful relationship, loyalty conflict and disloyal
behaviours, authors have operationalized the loyalty into three dimensions such as loyal
attitude, loyal conduct and loyal conflict. Loyalty attitude was separated in to two parts such
as affective and normative which discussed on specifications as emotional attachment,
commitment, devotions, instinctive bond, felt obligation and sense of duty furthering
interests. Loyal conducts was specified into areas of furthering interests, perseverance and
self-sacrifice. Further, loyalty conflict was specified in the areas of experiences of
relationship breach, betrayal and treason.

9.2 How suitable this tool/s?

Interviews were conducted for 14 school managers and among these 23 school managers,
again 19 were interviews via structured interviews. Authors have selected the interviewees
through purposive and snowball sampling methods, out of population of 46 school
managers 23 were interviewed. School managers which they interviewed had lots of
experience in the education and teaching.
 Authors have held interviews with Dutch secondary education school managers, team
heads, location directors, schools heads, school board member and chairman of executive
boards. Authors have reconstructed the patterns in interview statement which tally with
these clusters. All the interview s have been recorded digitally and integrally transcribed.
Statements about the position of school managers and loyalty conflicts were analysed as
separate variable. Loyal attitude and conduct have used to compare difference and
similarities between interview statements.

In an exploratory study, in-depth interviews can be very helpful to ‘find out what is
happening [and] to seek new insights’ (Robson 2002:59), As a result, it is believed that, in
depth interviews are the best methods of data collection for a qualitative research.

10. CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

According to the article B, the conclusion is that service managers develop different
responses to managerialism. Loyalties affect the effects of pressures and thus effects on
pressures. Because school managers feel and find different things, these responses differ,
even when managers have comparable managerial positions. School leaders in comparable
schools and at comparable levels respond differently to comparable pressures; some might
see pressures as a burden, others as opportunity; some might act defensively, others more
offensively.

More practically, this calls for (renewed) professionalization. Managers like school
managers will have to strengthen managerial capacities to act in times of managed
governance. First, they should strengthen the capacity to relate to managerialism, in
complex organizational contexts, with demanding professional domains and clients. This
means they should develop and broaden their normative and affective allegiances, and find
ways to cope with contradictory allegiances in specific situations. Further the Researchers
also encourage others to further research this area by more in-depth insights into the real
nature of managerial work and relations. This has to include a more systematic analysis of
differences, such as between different types of managers, as well as more explanatory
understanding.
LIST OF REFERENCES

Ainsworth, S., D. Grant and R. Iedema. 2009. ‘Keeping Things Moving’: Space and the
Construction of Middle Management
Identity in a Post-NPM Organization’, Discourse and Communication, 3, 5, 5–25.

Beaver G (2002) Strategy and Management in the Smaller Enterprise‖. Journal of Strategic
Change 11: 175–181.

Boyce, C. and Neale, P. (2006). CONDUCTING IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS: A Guide for

Designing and Conducting In-Depth Interviews for Evaluation Input. 2nd ed. Pathfinder
International, p.4.

Dopson, S. and L. Fitzgerald. 2006. ‘The Role of the Middle Manager in the Implementation of
Evidence-Based Health Care’,
Journal of Nursing Management, 14, 43–51.

Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. Jackson, P. and Lowe, A. (2008) Management Research (3rd
edn). Sage: London.

Floyd, S.W. and B. Wooldridge. 1994. ‘Dinosaurs or Dynamos? Recognizing Middle

Management’s Strategic Role’, Academy of
Management Executive, 8, 4, 47–57.

Holloway I, Wheeler S (2010) Qualitative Research in Nursing and Healthcare. Third edition.
Wiley-Blackwell. Oxford.

Kirkpatrick, I., S. Ackroyd and R.M. Walker. 2005. The New Managerialism and Public Service
Professions: Change in Health, Social
Services, and Housing. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan

Kitchener, M., I. Kirkpatrick and R. Whipp (eds). 2002. ‘Supervising ProfessionalWork under
New Public Management: Evidence
from an Invisible Trade’, in J. Reynolds, J. Henderson, J. Seden, J. Charlesworth and A. Bullman
(eds), The Managing Care
Reader. London: Routledge, The Open University, pp. 220–31

Levy, P.S. and Lemeshow, S. (1999) Sampling of Population, Methods and Application. 3rd
Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Miles, M.B. and A.M. Huberman. 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Moser C.A. and Kalton G. Survey Methods in Educational Social Investigation, Hants, Gower
(1989).
Nekatibeb, T. (2012). Evaluating the Impact of Social Media on Traditional Marketing. Helsinki
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences

Oglensky, B.D. 2008. ‘The Ambivalent Dynamics of Loyalty in Mentorship’, Human Relations,
61, 3, 419–48

Robson, C. (2002) Real World Research (2nd edn). Oxford: Blackwell

Salant, P., & Dillman, D. A. (1994). How to conduct your own survey. New York: John Wiley
and Sons.

Salkind, N. (2010). Cross-sectional design. In N. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of research design.

(pp. 314-315). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
doi: http://dx.doi.org.library.capella.edu/10.4135/9781412961288.n96

Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (n.d.). Research methods for business students. 5th ed.
Harlow: Pearson Education, pp.106, 107, 113, 114.

Shanahan, M. (2010). Cross-sectional design. In A. Mills, G. Durepos, & E. Wiebe (Eds.),

Encyclopedia of case study research. (pp. 268-269). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications,
Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org.library.capella.edu/10.4135/9781412957397.n99

Showkat, Nayeem & Parveen, Huma. (2017). Non-Probability and Probability Sampling.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business studies. Harlow:
Prentice Hall

Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C. (1998) Mixed Methodology: Combining Qualitative and

Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Thomas, D. R. (2006). A General Inductive Approach for Analyzing Qualitative Evaluation

Data. American Journal of Evaluation, 27(2), 237–246.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1098214005283748

Thomas, R. and A. Linstead. 2002. ‘Losing the Plot? Middle Managers and Identity’,
Organization, 9, 1, 71–93

Tuten, L.T., 2008. Advertising 2.0: social media marketing in a web 2.0 world. Westport:
Praeger Publishers.