MS60057E - Business Research Design Project (BRP) Assignment

Assignment Task

Introduction

Business Research project helps you to design and develop an empirical investigation on a specific, current business issue, within an organisation and make cost effective recommendations sensitive to the chosen organisation

Module summary content and aims

This module is aimed to consolidate the learning from across the course in an applied format to enable students to demonstrate in-depth understanding of theories, frameworks, models and concepts relevant to a specific business issue. The module is designed to be an applied equivalent of a more traditional dissertation module. Instead of writing an academic dissertations based on original research, students will be conducting applied research on a specific company, market, or business opportunity and write up their results in the format of a consulting project, industry analysis or business plan. Thus, the module will help students develop an advanced mastery of analysis and synthesis of data in a practical context. Through guided research they will demonstrate the ability critically to evaluate evidence pertaining to a specific business issue in a practical context and present conclusions and recommendations.

This module also provides opportunities for students to synthesise and apply their knowledge and experiences from their whole course. It helps students to successfully negotiate the transition to the next stage of their career, whether to the workplace or further study. Students will be expected to introduce the context and the issue; to write a methodology; to include an appropriate and current concise review of the literature; to show appropriate data collection, presentation and analysis, based on sound research; draw relevant conclusions; make realistic and cost-effective recommendations; and to give clear references and where appropriate a bibliography. The recommended word count will be 4000 (excluding references and appendices). All students will be provided with four workshops (3hrs * 4); as part of guidance in completing the Research project.

Literature review

The usual practice in most research projects is to commence with a literature review: this is known as a ‘deductive’ approach in which the researcher uses theories, concepts, etc. to structure their primary research. It is also possible to adopt an ‘inductive’ approach which reverses this process i.e. primary data are gathered first and then the literature is used to contextualise and integrate the results of the primary research. The latter approach is less frequently used in management research and carries considerable challenges for the researcher: you are strongly advised to discuss the latter option with your allocated topic lead.

Methodology

Methodology is defined by Jankowicz (2005: 387) as “the analysis of and rationale for the particular [research] method(s) used in a project”. The writing of the methodology chapter requires you to read relevant texts on business and social science research methods, weigh and discuss what is contained in these sources about alternative research methods and apply these to the decisions made about your selected methods, their strengths and weaknesses and why certain methods were selected and others rejected, thus providing a rationale for the methods used. More details about this section will be provided by the tutor during the workshops.

Research

Findings Typically, a good findings chapter is likely to:

• Be closely structured around the research questions/objectives
• Report findings clearly, possibly (where appropriate) using tables, charts, or other pictorial devices
• Provide a written interpretation and analysis of the findings (i.e. not allow tables, charts, etc. to speak for themselves)
• Report all findings faithfully (and not consign important data to Appendices)
• Provide integrating reference to the literature

Conclusions

It is important to note that conclusions precede recommendations, not the other way round. The conclusions should specifically address each of your research questions/objectives, providing a summary analysis of what has been found out from the research, with integrated reflections on how the findings either compliment or differ from those reported in the literature. Conclusions also provide a logical bridge between the body of the report and any recommendations. It is important to note that conclusions (and recommendations) should not contain any material or ideas, either from the literature 7 or primary research, which have not already been presented in the body of the report. If you find it necessary to raise something of significance in your conclusions not already discussed in the body, then the body of the report needs adjusting to take account of this: no ideas should appear ‘out of the blue’ at this stage of your report. Your conclusions need not be long, but they should do justice to all the important points raised in the body of the report.

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