Reference no: EM132542089 , Length: 3000 words

MOD005581 Entrepreneurial Action - Anglia Ruskin University

Prepare a PROJECT PROPOSAL for MBA dissertation

Title - The Effect Market Segmentation on Real Estate Marketing.

The task is divided into two parts, the first part: a PROJECT PROPOSAL (currently required), the second part, Full dissertation (later). The attachments are as follows:

1- Research Ethics Application Form (You must see the summary of the project and research methodology.

2- The minimum number of words is 3000 words.

3- The project proposal must be applied to an international real estate company.

Learning Outcome 1: Knowledge and Understanding: Critically evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities and practices from the perspective of different communities of practice in order to develop a case for why an issue if worthy of investigation;

Learning Outcome 2: Knowledge and Understanding: Identify, select and justify the use of appropriate research techniques, methods and development strategies;

Learning Outcome 3: Intellectual, practical, affective and transferable skills: Critically justify and rigorously apply appropriate methodologies, techniques and practical strategies, being sensitive to the context;

Learning Outcome 4: Intellectual, practical, affective and transferable skills: Critically reflect upon their own experiences of undertaking a major project and how this compares to theories and concepts in the academic and grey literature;

Learning Outcome 5: Intellectual, practical, affective and transferable skills: Present arguments or conclusions clearly in an appropriate form to the intended audience.

You will undertake an action research project focused on understanding and supporting entrepreneurial action in practice.
This is an individual project. If possible, it should be based upon your own organisation as this will grant you better access to research resources and stakeholders.

You will conduct secondary research to support the development of:

A new entrepreneurial proposition for an organisation; Or an idea for an entrepreneurial start-up.
The ‘proposition' could relate to a new product or service; a new way of doing things; a new department; implementation of something that will change the way the organisation operates e.g.

software and systems; the introduction of a new philosophy relating to human resources, production or quality, etc.
You should provide a strong argument for this opportunity in terms of market justification, exploring relevant issues/context behind the idea, the business model/context of successful
innovation, and the size and nature of the opportunity. The evidence for this justification is secondary research and academic literature.
This project needs to provide you with an opportunity to understand and manage how to move from opportunity, to idea, to action. This could relate to your study or employability interests and/or current interests within the entrepreneurial management field.
In undertaking the project, students are expected to:

Identify an idea or opportunity.

Develop a strong case as to why this opportunity or idea is worthy of consideration as a project, particularly in terms of its value to the appropriate community of practice. Appropriate secondary research, academic literature and the use of metrics should be utilised within this section. Engagement with stakeholders can be demonstrated.
Develop a project plan to ensure completion within the identified timescales,
Identify the appropriate resources and internal and external support to develop and deliver the project,
Demonstrate how you will manage the project in terms of moving from idea to action,
Reflect on the project against key themes in the academic and grey (i.e. policy and practice) literature related to being enterprising, the role of the individual in moving an idea from concept to action; and the influence of the entrepreneurial task environment.

1. Title
The function of the title is to encapsulate in a few words the essence of the research project and it should accurately reflection your intentions at this stage. It can be useful to split your title into two parts, with the form 'Main theme: specific form of investigation'.
Examples from Masters' projects simply for illustrative purposes include:
1. An Investigation into the Definitions of Project Success, its Timing and the Traits which Characterise a Successful Project Manager.
2. Implementation of Lean Six Sigma in Indonesia Pharmaceutical Industries: A Multiple Case Study
3. Influence of leadership competencies on the success of a Six Sigma project.

2. Background
It is useful to indicate four main aspects of your research project:
o The theoretical context, the ideas that you are going to use to frame the problem and to formulate your research.
o The practical context, the organisation (or sector) in which your research will be carried out.
o The currency of the research, why it is a pressing problem that needs to be solved now.
o The value of your research. This should indicate the possible outcomes of your research and the possible beneficiaries.

3. Research Questions, Aims & Objectives
This section serves as an introduction to the heart of the project.

You should offer precise statements of the following:

a. Research Question (or set of questions) that the research will be designed to answer e.g. "What are the key leadership competencies which make a Six Sigma project successful?".

This is likely to lead to some further guiding questions; keeping with the previous example, they are:
• What makes Six Sigma projects unique?
• What makes a Six Sigma project successful?
• What are the typical reasons for failure of Six Sigma projects?

b. Research Aims. What is it you are aiming to achieve? What will the research establish and what is the value of the research?

c. Research Objectives. The next step is to generate the objectives of the research. These are the major objectives that have to be accomplished to answer the research question and achieve the stated aim/s. Keeping with the previous example, they are:

1. Explore Six Sigma improvement project characteristics.
2. Examine the components of a successful Six Sigma improvement project.
3. Develop a list of leadership competencies in support of a successful Six Sigma improvement project.
4. Create a framework to establish the links between Six Sigma project characteristics, success and leadership competencies.

4. Literature Review
This section will be a small version of the literature review that will appear in the final project report.
Whilst you may inform your literature review with material covered during the study of the module, in order to write an effective literature review, you must independently collect at least six high-quality sources (journal articles and books) relevant to your topic area and your specific research questions and aims. The links to your research questions, aims and objectives should be made clear throughout your review.
You should write a narrative literature review, which means that you should:
• Extract and analyse principles, ideas and facts from your sources. These principles, ideas and facts should provide a theoretical and empirical base for your own research project.
• Review your sources in a thematic way. This means that you should organise the principles, ideas and facts that you extract from the sources into a structure that is appropriate for your research. Do not simply make a list of your sources and outline what they say.
• Be aware that your sources may contain contrasting ideas, approach problems in different ways, highlight different facts, etc. You should indicate these contrasts.
You should also indicate what kind of search procedure you used to find your sources, and why you have chosen these particular sources for review. You need not go into too much detail on these points.

5. Research Design & Methodology
This will form the basis of the methodology chapter of your final report but be aware that this is the aspect of the research which is most likely to change as your ideas develop.
It is anticipated that by the time you have submitted your Project Proposal, you will have secured ethical approval from the University to proceed with your research.
Your research design and methodology will be determined by a set of factors, such as:
• The nature of your research questions, aims and objectives.
• The examples of research in your subject area which you find during your literature review.
• The practicalities of the kinds of research which it is possible to carry out in your position as a student.
• Ethical considerations.
This section will set out the choices you have made with respect to the following:
• The type of investigation you will be carrying out, informed by theory addressing research design. You should indicate the nature of your investigation using such research design concepts such as exploratory research, descriptive research, hypothesis testing, etc. You should also outline the broad research philosophy (positivist, interpretivist, etc.) and data orientation (qualitative, quantitative) that you have adopted, and why this is appropriate.
• The nature of your data and how you intend to collect it. Again, this should be justified.
• What kind of sampling principles will govern your data collection, and why.
• Any problems that may arise with access to data, and constraints on data collection.
• The kinds of data analysis that you intend to carry out on the data that you collect, and why you have chosen these analysis methods.
• Any limitations to your research that you are able to identify in advance (others may become apparent during the research process).

• Any ethical issues that arise in relation to your research, such as:
- Access to and effects on human subjects.
- Confidentiality and sensitivity of data.
- Legal and reputational issues.

6. Project Plan
A research project is a project (obviously), and the progress of your project should be controlled by well-tried project management techniques. This means that you should identify such items as:
• The key tasks to be undertaken during your research project.
• The length of time which can be allocated to each task.
• Any variability (or 'float') that can be allowed for the completion of tasks.
• The key milestones that mark the progress of your project to its goal.
You can document these using a project management package (such as Microsoft Project) to produce a Gantt or Critical Path Analysis chart. Alternatively, a simple table in Word or Excel would suffice. Make sure that your project plan corresponds to the time available to you. Your last milestone (upload report to Turnitin) must be on or before the deadline for the research project.
You should give a justification of your chart, so you should say:
• Why you have broken down the tasks, and set the project milestones in the way that you have.
• Why the allocated times are appropriate.
• How you have catered for possible variation or slippage in task completion.

7. Risk Management
A RAID log is a useful tool to help you manage your project risk.
Risk Identification in the project is critical in order to manage and complete the project successfully. The earlier the risk can be identified, the earlier a plan can be made to mitigate the effects of the potential risks. Risk identification also provides an insight into how you might need to manage or leverage stakeholders and can be used as a tool to inform decision making.
Risks (R in RAID) - Your project risks are effectively the issues waiting to happen. The PMBOK Guide defines a project risk as "an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives such as scope, scope, schedule, cost or quality". Ask yourself "What could go wrong?" and the list of items in answer to that are your risks. Each risk will have an associated probability of occurrence along with an impact on your project should it materialise.
Assumptions (A in RAID) - Assumptions are items that you are relying on - good and bad. They are aspects of the environment, or the surroundings to your project that you believe will be in a certain state. Tracking these is important because you need to be prepared for your assumptions to be wrong.
Issues (I in RAID) - Issues are risks which have been realised, and have already turned into issues. These need to be dealt with for your project to run smoothly.
Dependencies (D in RAID) - A dependency exists when an output from one piece of work is needed as mandatory input for another piece of work. The inputs that you are relying upon may not always be in your control. An example being access to resources to undertake your project. Dependencies are quite frequently what cause project failure so they should be identified and managed carefully.
All the items in these four areas must be tracked and managed. Project Managers often prioritise the items so that they can focus efforts and actions on the most important.

Attachment:- Entrepreneurial Action.rar