Alan Bryman was appointed Professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of Leicester in August 2005. Prior to this he was Professor of Social Research at Loughborough University for thirty-one years. His main research interests are in leadership, especially in higher education, research methods (particularly mixed methods research), and the ‘Disneyization’ and ‘McDonaldization’ of modern society. In 2003–4 he completed a project on the issue of how quantitative and qualitative research are combined in the social sciences, as part of the Economic. He has published widely in the fi eld of Social Research, including: Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS 14, 15 and 16: A Guide for Social Scientists (Routledge, 2009) with Duncan Cramer; Social Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 2008); The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods (Sage, 2004) with Michael Lewis-Beck and Tim Futing Liao; The Disneyization of Society (Sage, 2004); Handbook of Data Analysis (Sage, 2004) with Melissa Hardy; Understanding Research for Social Policy and Practice (Policy Press, 2004) with Saul Becker; and the SAGE Handbook of Organizational Research Methods with David Buchanan (Sage, 2009), as well as editing the Understanding Social Research series for the Open University Press.

Emma Bell is Senior Lecturer in Organization Studies at University of Exeter Business School. Prior to this she held senior lecturing posts at the University of Bath School of Management and the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London. She graduated with a Ph.D. from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000 before becoming a lecturer at Warwick University Business School. Her main research interests relate to the critical study of managerial discourses and modern organization. A substantial aspect of her work at the moment involves exploration of the relationship between religion, spirituality, and organization and focuses on the role of belief-led business in providing alternatives to globalized capitalism. She has also recently completed a book that analyses how management and organization are represented in film. She is a founding member of inVISIO the International Network of Visual Studies in Organization and is currently working on an ESRC Researcher Development Initiative project that promotes the development of visual analysis among management researchers. Prior to this she conducted research into the social construction of meaning around payment systems and an evaluation of the impact of the ‘Investors in People’ initiative.