ABSTRACT
In previous chapters we have considered questioning and observation as methods for generating data in management research. Here we examine ‘artefacts’, the products of human actions that have been created without the researcher's intervention, as sources of data. These sources are many and varied and include organizational and personal documents, statistical records and the physical outcomes of human activity. The latter, non-documentary artefacts include intentionally created items such as office layouts, machine technologies and manufactured goods, and unintentionally created physical traces of behaviour such as wear-marks on machine controls or on the floors of supermarkets. Researchers refer to such items in order to make inferences about the attributes and behaviour of those who created them.
