Introduction

This handbook deals with fieldwork by business or management students. Suchfieldwork can be carried out in the context of a specific course, but canalso be done as a graduation project at the end of a course programme tofurther develop the student's competences and to produce a‘masterpiece' – that is, a project report that proves that thestudent did indeed master the desired competences.

The approach chosen for a graduation project depends on the research paradigmof the school, the supervisors for the student fieldwork and the student'sown preferences. As is discussed in more detail in Section 5.2, there aretwo main research paradigms to be used in student fieldwork in business ormanagement, namely the explanatory paradigm and thedesign science paradigm. The explanatory paradigm isthe research paradigm of mainstream research in most social sciences; thedesign science paradigm is the research paradigm of professional schools,such as medical schools, engineering schools and, increasingly, businessschools.

A student project according to the explanatory paradigm aims to producedescriptive and explanatory knowledge. Such a project may follow theempirical cycle. A student project according to thedesign science paradigm aims to produce solutions to field problems, and mayfollow the problem solving cycle.