Reference no: EM132980220 , Length: word count:2000

Dissertation - Entrepreneurship and strategy: sports management

Subject Area
Your dissertation must be focussed on Management and be relevant to your named study programme. It should relate to at least one of the areas that you have covered on the MSc IBM course; you should not be writing a dissertation on a subject you haven't studied. You can, however, draw on your first degree or past work experience, but if so, please include details of your experience.

Title for the Proposed Research
What is going to be researched? This might take the form of a research question or questions to be investigated, or a hypothesis to be tested.

Try to focus the title as much as possible and be succinct. Be specific, for instance: focus on an industry or a geographical area; name a company as an example or illustration or name a particular theoretical framework; or use a statement that you wish to challenge or a problem you want to address.

Note that the title can (and normally does) change over the course of your research, however a clear focus at the start makes the research process easier and the resulting dissertation is usually of a higher standard, normally because it is well structured. Indeed, you will be marked on the quality and appropriateness of your research question, aims, objectives and outcomes. Your supervisor will use your completed form as a basis during your first meeting.

Proposal Outline
Justification: explain why the research is important.
This should take the form of a short critique of the main themes and controversies in the relevant literature as they relate to the research problem to be investigated. Identify gaps in the literature or problems e.g. with past methods of investigation that need to be addressed. You should also include your own reasons for wanting to study the area and why the results might be useful to you and others.

Outline the research methods you plan to use.
Briefly explain how you plan to carry out the research. How will you design any primary research? Will this overcome previous methodological weaknesses or follow examples of others in the field? What problems do you foresee and how do you plan to overcome them? You will be given further advice on methodology in the Dissertation Preparation Sessions, which will be available through Blackboard but you should begin to consider methodology here and can read about methodology in any research methods textbook (available in the library or any good bookshop, some suggested titles are on blackboard and ‘Management and Business Research 6th Edition 2018 by Easterby-Smith et al. is a highly recommended introduction)

Conclude by giving a (draft) timetable of your research.
Include significant events (such as completion of on-line interviews or chapters) and set deadlines for yourself. Note that you are required to hand in draft material to your supervisor not later than one month before the hand in date. Indicate any time you are likely to be out of contact.

References & Resources
Provide a short provisional bibliography here, of the key contemporary sources in the field.

Also list where you plan to source secondary material from. Remember that as well as the University library there may be a specialist library in your area of study. Alternative sources, such as government websites, voluntary groups etc. may also be useful. Identifying these now will significantly improve your research and save you time over the summer.

Provide a list of contacts for any primary research. If these haven't yet been developed, then list the contacts you hope to develop and how you plan to do this.