Alan Bryman

University professor and researcher

• Born: November 3, 1947

Education: University of Kent

Significance: Alan Bryman was an emeritus professor of organizational and social research at the University of Leicester in England. Prior to that, he was a professor of social sciences at Loughborough University for several decades. Bryman conducted mixed methods social science research and focused primarily on modern consumer culture and the qualities of effective leadership at the university level.

Background

In the mid-1970s, Alan Bryman began as a professor in the Department of Social Sciences at England’s Loughborough University where he taught numerous classes on such topics as the sociology of work, organizational leadership, and research methodology. Throughout his tenure at Loughborough, Bryman published numerous journal articles on these and other subjects and was awarded several grants from Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in order to continue his work. Bryman also published several books during the 1980s and 1990s on the topics of mixed methods research, data analysis in social research, and organizational leadership from a social psychology point of view.

During the 2003–4 academic year, Bryman was named a fellow of ESRC’s Research Methods Programme. The fellowship provided the necessary funds to continue his study and longtime interest in the interconnectedness between quantitative and qualitative research within the social sciences. Prior to the award, Bryman had written a popular and well-received book on the subject, Social Research Methods (2001), which was not his first publication on the topic but to that point was the most widely acclaimed. In this introductory social sciences textbook, Bryman explains and illustrates the benefits and techniques of implementing different social science research methods and utilizing both quantitative and qualitative analysis.

In 2005, Bryman left his position at Loughborough University for a teaching position at the University of Leicester. He was named the head of the university’s School of Management in January 2008, a position he held for one year.

Life’s Work

There is a long-standing debate among researchers as to whether the quantitative or qualitative method for collecting and analyzing data is more the valuable and legitimate approach to use. Social research methods, especially the combining or mixing of methods, is a subject that fascinated Bryman. After the publication of Quantity and Quality in Social Research in 1988, which has been consistently updated and revised and in print since its initial publication, he was considered one of the founders of the mixed methods research approach.

In addition to methods research, Bryman was interested in a broad array of aspects surrounding modern consumer culture and the ways in which consumerism impacts organizational issues in the social sciences. He wrote extensively about the effect of consumer culture on society and its ability to seemingly transform a society into what he saw as a convergence toward an abundance of Disneyesque theme-park facsimiles. He coined the term "Disneyization" in his book The Disneyization of Society (2004), in which he argued that corporations such as the Walt Disney Company and fast-food chain McDonald’s have created an atmosphere of immediacy and expectation of experience among consumers and modern society as a whole. He pointed to the increase in themed settings increasingly found in restaurants and of multifaceted consumption environments that cater to the consumer’s expectation to be able to shop, eat, and be entertained under one roof or within a contained environment. Employees of these venues, Bryman explained, are often expected by their employers and by consumers to be performers who display approved, anticipated, and expected emotions. The book was written for students of business, sociology, media studies, and cultural studies and has been translated into several languages.

Bryman also wrote several books and journal articles on the subject of leadership and the qualities of effective leadership within business organizations and academia, among them Leadership and Organizations (1986) and Charisma and Leadership in Organizations (1992).

Alan Bryman died on July 20, 2017, at the age of sixty-nine, of cancer.

Impact

Alan Bryman simplified, explained, and brought together for students and professionals the myriad methods used by researchers when collecting and analyzing data. His work and publications led to a growing acceptance of using a mixed methods approach. He also applied his knowledge and research techniques to multiple facets within the social sciences thanks in part to numerous grants and funding from such respected institutions as the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. During the 2005–6 academic year, the Leadership Foundation funded Bryman’s full-time work on a review of all university literature on the subject of leadership. Bryman authored numerous books and journal articles on research methodology, consumerism, and organizational leadership.

Principal Works

• Quantity and Quality in Social Research (1988)
• Social Research Methods (2001)
• The Disneyization of Society (2004)

Bibliography

Bryman, Alan. Social Research Methods. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. Print.

Creswell, John W. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2013. Print.

Henwood, Karen, and Iain Lang. "Qualitative Social Science in the UK: A Reflexive Commentary on the ‘State of the Art.’" Forum: Qualitative Social Research 6.3 (2005): 48. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.

"In Memory of Alan Bryman." International Journal of Social Research and Methodology, vol. 21, no. 3, 2018, pp. 267–74.

McCusker, Kevin, and Sau Gunaydin. "Research Using Qualitative, Quantitative, or Mixed Methods and Choice Based on the Research." Perfusion 30.7 (2015): 537–42. Print.

"Professor Alan Bryman." University of Leicester. U of Leicester, n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.

Tashakkori, Abbas, and Charlie Teddlie, eds. Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2010. Print.