Loraine Blaxter and Christina Hughes are both based at the University of Warwick. Loraine is a Research Associate in the Institute of Health, School of Health and Social Studies and Christina is a Professor within the Department of Sociology. Christina is editor of a further book from Open University Press, Disseminating Qualitative Research (2003).Malcolm Tight is a Professor in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University. He is author of two other recently published books by Open University Press, The Development of Higher Education in the UK since 1945 (2009) and Researching Higher Education (2003).
Richard Thorpe is Professor of Management Development and Pro Dean for Research at Leeds University Business School. His research interests have included: performance, entrepreneurship, knowledge and leadership as well as research methods in management research.nbsp; His early career as a management trainee on a Clarks programme informed the way his ethos has developed. Following a period in industry his first academic appointment was as a researcher at Strathclyde University in the Pay and Reward Research Centre. There, as a consequence of the research conducted he developed close links with practitioners, intermediaries and policy makers, something he has strived to maintain as his career… progressed. Common themes in his work are: a strong commitment to conducting research in collaboration with practitioners; a focus on action and change; an interest in and commitment to the development of doctoral students and the development of capacity within the sector. Richard has been past president and chair of the British Academy of Management and member of the ESRC Training and Development Board. He is currently chair of the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.I am a Professor of Women and Gender and, currently, Chair of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Warwick. Previously I have taught and undertaken research at the University of Warwick in the Centre for Education, Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR), the Department of Applied Social Studies and the Department of Continuing Education. I have also worked for the Open University. My research interests have always been strongly feminist. This has led to work on stepfamily life, lifelong learning and higher education and more recently with artisan entrepreneurs. I try to bring a strong conceptual frame to my work and I have a number of publications that have been concerned with social capital, equality, envy and pleasure. My work with artisan entrepreneurs is leading to several streams of analysis. Through the notion of Salivary Identities this includes an exploration of the intra-actions between neuroscientific understandings of pleasure and the culture of jewellery designer making. Issues of distinction, disidentification and economic value are also of concern in further work I am developing. My research interests have also always been focussed on methodological concerns. My most recent work here has been on feminist quantitative methodologies (see Feminism Counts: Quantitative Methods and Researching Gender (2011) Oxford, Routledge (Edited with Rachel Cohen). I have also published on dissemination of qualitative research. I have been particularly interested in what, and who, gets heard and why. Again, I bring a feminist and political lens to this work as I seek to promote an 'informed practice' in the field of dissemination. Such informed practice takes account of the emotional realm of dissemination, the ethics of representation; and the challenge of 'post' (postmodernism, postcolonialism, poststructuralism) epistemological thought. I also continue to work with my colleagues Loraine Blaxter and Malcolm Tight. We have just completed the fourth edition of the highly successful text How to Research (2010) Buckingham, Open University Press.