The Turnaround Management Society offers two research services for their members and non-members. One is providing our members with valuable research to a specific topic and the other is to conduct research for a member or a non-member.

Providing Research

Our members have access to a variaty of already published research, such as articles, statistics and our own databases. Depending on the member we are also providing a research watch, which is a service that provides the member is up to date research and publications in their area of interest.

Conducting Research

The Turnaround Management Society is an organisation that consists out of many turnaround professionals and academics that are working in turnaround management, change management, project management or other related areas.

We are constantly working on at least three research projects consiting out of a project manager that overseas the research and a research team that conducts qualitative and quantitative research as well as case studies.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a method of inquiry appropriated in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed, rather than large samples.
Qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses (informative guesses). Quantitative methods can be used to verify, which of such hypotheses are true.

In qualitative research we use different approaches in collecting data, such as the grounded theory practice, narratology, storytelling, classical ethnography, or shadowing. Qualitative methods are also loosely present in other methodological approaches, such as action research or actor-network theory. Forms of the data collected can include interviews and group discussions, observation and reflection field notes, various texts, pictures, and other materials.

Quantitative Research

In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their relationships. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.

Quantitative research is used widely in social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, and political science. Research in mathematical sciences such as physics is also ‘quantitative’ by definition, though this use of the term differs in context. In the social sciences, the term relates to empirical methods, originating in both philosophicalpositivism and the history of statistics, which contrast qualitative research methods.

Qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses. Quantitative methods can be used to verify, which of such hypotheses are true.

Examples are:

• Research that consists of the percentage amounts of all the elements that make up Earth’s atmosphere.
• Survey that concludes that the average patient has to wait two hours in the waiting room of a certain doctor before being selected.
• An experiment in which group x was given two tablets of Aspirin a day and Group y was given two tablets of a placebo a day where each participant is randomly assigned to one or other of the groups.

Case Studies

A case study is one of several ways of doing research whether it is social science related or even socially related. It is an in-depth investigation/study of a single individual, group, incident, or community. Other ways include experiments, surveys, or analysis of archival information.

Rather than using samples and following a rigid protocol to examine limited number of variables, case study methods involve an in-depth, longitudinal examination of a single instance or event: a case. They provide a systematic way of looking at events, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the results. As a result the researcher may gain a sharpened understanding of why the instance happened as it did, and what might become important to look at more extensively in future research. Case studies lend themselves to both generating and testing hypotheses.

Another suggestion is that case study should be defined as a research strategy, an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its real-life context. Case study research means single and multiple case studies, can include quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources of evidence and benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions. Case studies should not be confused with qualitative research and they can be based on any mix of quantitative and qualitative evidence. Single-subject research provides the statistical framework for making inferences from quantitative case-study data. This is also supported and well-formulated in by Lamnek (Lamnek, 2005): “The case study is a research approach, situated between concrete data taking techniques and methodologic paradigms.”