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Dissertation
A dissertation is a complete report of your research project. It documents the reasons why and how you do your research and new knowledge that you had discovered. It describes the processes of how you conduct the study, collect data, analyse them and narrate the findings. It is an academic exercise which confers an academic degree as a testation that you had contributed in extending the frontier of knowledge through your diligent work and intellectual capabilities.
In general, a dissertation normally has five chapters.
1. Introduction
The introduction is Chapter One of a dissertation. It describes the background of the study, the main issue that became the focus of your study, justifications of why your research is necessary and how the thesis is organized.
2. Literature Review
This chapter tells readers of the subject matter of your research, issues that have been studied by past researchers, how they conducted those studies, what they had discovered and to what extend those findings contributed in enhancing the reservoir of existing knowledge. The end product of doing the literature review is to identify knowledge gaps of which your study will focus and exploit. In sum, you
have to carry out this review to understand how far and how much, the issue you want to do research on has been explored in the past and to identify the research gap that you want to fill. By doing so, you will be re-inventing the wheels, so to speak.
In carrying out the literature review, you need to be aware, understand and familiar with the following;
a. Types of Literature
Getting into literature can be akin to you going hunting in a forest or catching giant crabs in the Norwegian Sea. The areas are huge and the amounts are massive. So, you have to know how to focus in getting the literature you want.
Firstly, you must know that there few types of literature in prints, internet and mass media and academic journals. For your DBA, you must focus your intention on referring to published literature in academic journals.
There are four types of papers you will find in academic journals. The first is discussion papers which deliberated on certain concepts and opinions which are rather new and contemporary. There will arguments from both side of the divide but mostly those arguments were based on certain past theories and are mostly not based on any empirical evidences from proper research.
The second and the most popular type of papers are reports of finding from past empirical research. In all of these papers, the author will discuss the background of their studies highlighting the gaps they were trying to fill, the methods they employed and the conclusions from the findings of their studies.
The third types of papers you can find in academic journals are literature review. In those papers, the authors carried out a proper review of past papers and then presented their views on them. You should study these type of papers carefully in carrying out your own literature review.
b. Subject matter.
Before embarking on a research, you must be aware and knowledgeable in specific areas you want to explore. So, the first thing you need to do is to determine the source of your research topic so that you are able to locate the area of your study. . For example, if you want to study how and why some company like Guinness or Shell or Walmarts stay strong and survived but others like Enron, Lehman Brothers and Chrysler are no longer in existence, you are looking into sustainability to stay competitive. As such, you must know that the general area of study is Strategic Management. But there are so many issues
in Strategic Management that past researchers focused on in their studies of which Competitive Advantage is one.
c. How issues have been addressed, what have been found and potential areas for further exploration - research gaps
In reading the research papers, you should carefully observe how the study was conducted to meet the research objectives. How the concepts are operationalized, frameworks developed, research questions were framed, variables chosen, how data was collected and analysed must be given top priorities. In particular, special attention must be given to understand how the researchers justify their studies in terms of issues addressed and methodology adopted.
d. Methodologies adopted and theories employed
Finally, it is always important for you to examine the research methodology of the paper. Particular attention must be given to understand the research and theoretical frameworks described. By research framework, what is meant is that you have to know how the research was conducted or implemented start-to-end. It is normally used as a guide for researchers so that they are more focused in the scope of their studies. The research framework normally discussed the method (quantitative vs qualitative), the approach (case study, surveys, action research etc.), data collection structure and approach used in theory building (grounded theory, statistical analysis etc.).
On the other hand, theoretical framework is something that you must understand about the underlying structure that supports the collective research efforts. A theoretical framework consists of concepts, together with their definitions, and existing theory/theories that are used for your particular study. The theoretical framework must demonstrate an understanding of theories and concepts that are relevant to the topic of your research paper and that will relate it to the broader fields of knowledge in the class you are taking. In sum, theoretical framework is the description of how you operationalize and explained the concept in carrying out your research. Most times, researchers expressed it in terms of logical relationships between variables, explained in the context of theories employed.
The theoretical framework is not something that is found readily available in the literature. You must review course readings and pertinent research literature for theories and analytic models that are relevant to the research problem you are investigating. The selection of a theory should depend on its appropriateness, ease of application, and explanatory power.
Whilst there are no hard and fast rules in writing your literature review, you must refer to as many relevant journal articles as possible in writing this chapter. For that, it is recommended that this chapter is structured as follows.
Introduction - 2/3 paragraph to introduce the purpose of the chapter.
The Concept - clear explanation of what the concept is from your understanding of reading past literature. Some concepts were defined differently due to differences in basic assumptions. Your job is to explain why those differences occurred, what are the commonalities and differences and the implications of such diverging interpretations. At the end of it, you should be able to tell the reader of your own understanding of the concept and how you will use it in your study. (You may need to refer to the most original source of references in deliberating on the concept to show how it has grown and developed over the period to current).
Issues Studied - read as many research articles that adopted the same concept and classify them into issues that researchers used in studying the concept. The issues can be categorised based on the objectives of research, sample and populations being studied, methodologies employed and perspectives adopted (units of analysis).
You can use thematic analysis to draw out patterns of issues being addressed. In discussions, draw out the most peculiar characteristics that are common for each category to differentiate them.
Methods and Theories Employed - focus on the methods used, theories adopted, logical frameworks and variables employed and techniques used in collecting and analysing data.
You can again use thematic analysis to draw out patterns of issues discussed above. In discussions, draw out the most peculiar characteristics that are common for each category to differentiate them.
Summary - Conclude your chapter by giving a brief summary on a) development of the understanding of the concept, b) major issues addressed in past studies, and c) methods employed in those research. Highlight the most relevant ones that are supportive of your study.
3. Research Methodology
The third chapter is to write about how the study was conducted in as much details as possible. Typically, this chapter must discuss the following;
Introduction - 2/3 paragraph to introduce the purpose of the chapter. Use this section to continue seamlessly from Chapter 2.
Operational definitions - identify core concepts used in the research and provide specific definitions to each of them. The idea is to highlight to readers that the concepts mean the same throughout the dissertation.
Conceptual Framework - discuss the logical relationships in terms of diagrammatic presentations or theoretical model to clearly state and explain the logical flow of your study and the basis of your hypothesis statement.
Research Objectives - Clearly state your research aim and specific research objectives.
Hypothesis development - discuss your hypothesis via logical arguments to justify your research objectives. References to past studies or literature that supports your arguments are a must.
Data Collection Framework - you must describe in detail the kinds of data you collected, why you collect them and how those data are captured, processed and analysed. If you use questionnaires or structured interviews, questions must be attached to the Appendixes.
Data Analysis - you must clearly describe the population and samples of responses to your surveys or interviews and how the data is processed and analysed. If you use statistics, the statistical results must be spelt out clearly especially in terms of accepting or rejecting a hypothesis. Levels of statistical tolerance must also be clearly spelt out. Finally, you must also explain how the issues of data reliability and validity are handled and solved. Similar explanation must be given if you use qualitative method.
Summary - Conclude your chapter by giving a brief summary on a) the concept, b) research objectives and major hypothesis addressed, and
c) methods employed in data collection and analysis. Highlight the most relevant ones that are supportive of your study.
4. Findings
This chapter must be written to deliberate in detail your findings. It must supported by solid documentary, verbal (interview) and statistical evidences. Normally, this chapter reports verbatim (in exactly the same words as were used originally) from the analysis made of the data captured. Also remember that, this chapter only report on the analysis made of the data captured. The idea is that, all conclusions derived must be supported by actual data from the source or from the ground.
5. Conclusions and Discussions
This is the final chapter that will determine your research has the materials and you have the intellectual capacity to earn your DBA. It is s very important and defining chapter of the thesis. Hence, every effort must be focused in making sure that this chapter is well written and argued.
If Chapter 4 is for you to provide verbatim reports from the analysis of data collected throughout your research, this chapter extends those findings/ conclusions in comparisons with past findings and intellectual discourses found in extant literature.
The value of this chapter rests on how well you answer this question - So what? Yes, you had listed and discussed in detail the findings in Chapter 4, but how much it is worth compared to what past researchers had found? Is there anything new that your research has revealed that the world has now benefited from your research? In other words, have your findings extend the frontier of knowledge or add anything that is already known? If it is the latter, then you had wasted all the energy because you are not able to contribute anything that is already known.
Bearing that in mind, this chapter should be organized as follows;
Introduction - 2/3 paragraph to introduce the purpose of the chapter. Use this section to continue seamlessly from Chapter 4.
Summary of conclusions - use the summary of Chapter 4 to write a solid conclusions from your research.
Discussions - This section discuss the conclusion one by one in relations to your research objective and the research framework adopted. You should state that the discussions that follow will be compared with findings of past research and implications from such comparisons will be elaborated. It can also be discussed by each research objective.
Research Objective 1
Research Objective 2
Research Objective 3
.
.
For each of the conclusion you make, compare that with past studies. Start by saying that your findings seemed to concur with so and so BUT, did not support certain finding such as so and so. You should then continue to offer explanation as to why, from your own opinion, such things happened. Why do you think result from your study differ or concurred with those of the past? Then, for each section, ends with a conclusive statement what your results means in the context of existing knowledge.
Limitations and Implications for Future Research - discuss the limitations of the study from the viewpoints of operationalization of the concept, adoption of theories, employment of the methodology chosen, data captured and analytical results obtained. - state the impacts from the experiences in carrying out your research to future research endeavours.
Contributions of Research - state how your research has contributed to enhance of existing theories on the concept you researched. In addition list down potential benefits that the practice will benefit from your findings and conclusions.
Attachment:- Dissertation Proposed Format.rar