Reference no: EM132921526

HI6008 Business Research Project - Holmes Institute

Assessment 1 - Research Project Development (including Topic, Problem Statement, Research Question), with Team Charter Appendix (Presentation may be requested)

Assessment Title - Topic Development

Purpose:
This unit aims to give you an opportunity to combine many facets of your acquired MBA skills into the production of a high-quality research project. Your tutor will LEAD and FACILITATE you through the process, week by week. The learning will be progressive, so for best results you will need to be listening to the weekly lectures as well as in contact with your tutor during the interactive tutorials.

Assignment 1 - the Topic Development - is to ensure you have given sufficient thought to the topic you are choosing to base your research project on. The following 3 example topics are to illustrate that your topic must be differentiated from others by means of the following: the actual business activity/problem that it relates to; and/or the economic sector or industry or company that you are focusing on; and/or the country or region that you base it on and/or whether it is about the current time or the short-term future:
1. Outsourcing supply of ............ (materials / processes) from .......... (country/region) for the .......... (industry/company name) in ........... (country/region)

2. Benefits of ............... (club/society/network) membership in promoting business collaboration between members of the ............. (industry) in .............. (country/region)

3. The current (or future) uses of ........... (e.g. Big Data / Robotic Process Automation / Artificial Intelligence) in ................. (types of transactions) in the ................... (industry) in .................... (country/region)

Those are just examples. Please develop your own unique topic that can hold your interest for the full 12 weeks. Do NOT request approval for your topic or expect your tutor to allocate you a topic.

Refer to the detailed assignment instruction for your Topic Development (assignment 1), in which you are required to develop your topic to ensure that it has relevance as a business-related problem and has a specific Research Question that you intend to try and resolve.

The following topics are specifically disallowed this trimester:
- Online Learning
- Covid/Corona Virus/SARS/Swine Flu/Ebola Pandemic
- Endangered wild-life

You will ideally work within a group consisting of 2 or 3 class-mates (the maximum size of an assignment group in this unit is 3 persons). Your respective contributions in this first assignment (as well as assignments 2 and 3) will be governed by your assignment group's Team Charter, which is an appendix you will submit at the same time as your Topic Development. The Team Charter appendix must indicate what roles will be undertaken by each member of the team. If you are working SOLO, the team charter appendix is NOT required.

Assignment Structure

Your Topic Development Report should be in accordance with the following structure:
1. Official Cover Sheet
2. Say why this topic interests your team
3. Discuss your team's initial search for relevant literature and show that it has provided you with a good contextual understanding of the topic and its associated business-related problem(s)
4. Define the Research Problem that your team intends to address (as you see it, so far)
5. Propose at least ONE research question that your team will be seeking to answer through your research project (additional questions may be defined as you progress with this unit)
6. Append a Team Charter (unless working Solo) and include the student numbers and names of your team members.

1. Explain the team's agreed goals and timeline for completion (Due dates, meetings, milestones, deliverables from individuals)

2. Who will be responsible for each activity?

3. What particular team-roles will each member contribute to the team?

4. What are your team's expectations regarding meeting attendance (being on time, leaving early, missing meetings, etc.)?

5. What process will team members follow if they have an emergency and cannot attend a team meeting or complete their individual work promised to the team (deliverable)?

6. What are your team's expectations regarding the quality of team members' preparation for team meetings?

7. What are your team's expectations regarding team members' ideas, interactions with the team, cooperation, attitudes, and team-member contributions in general?

8. How will your team ensure that members contribute as expected to the team and that the team performs as expected?

9. How will you collectively manage members whose performance is below expectations?

Assessment 2 - Report on Literature Review

This assessment item seeks to ensure that all students enrolled in the Capstone Unit - Business Research Project - are competent at sourcing relevant and current literature using academic search portals, such as Pro-Quest, and other places where high quality secondary data resides.
Furthermore, this assessment requires students to not only read and summarise what other authors have already established, but also to become skilful at weaving together complementary or contrasting arguments relevant to their approved topic, research problem, and research question(s).

Purpose:
This unit aims to give you an opportunity to combine many facets of your acquired MBA skills into the production of a high-quality research project.

Assignment - the Literature Review - is designed to ensure that each team member masters the skills of searching, locating, reading, summarising, and using relevant academic literature and secondary data to create a compelling discussion and/or argument, thereby creating the context for their further research in pursuit of the answer to their research question(s).

Your tutor will LEAD and FACILITATE you through the process, week by week. The learning will be progressive, so for best results you will need to be listening to the weekly recorded lectures as well as participating in the interactive tutorials and discussion board.

Assignment Structure should be the following:

1. An opening statement of the Research Problem and research Question(s) - these should now be more detailed than what you had in your Topic Approval.

2. Discussion of major theories, models or streams of influence around this topic. This provides your lecturer with evidence that you have gone deeper than your initial search now to find literature that leads you toward answering your research question

3. Draw the reader's attention to any contrasting views expressed in prior research in this area and give your view of how differing opinions can be brought together to help answer the research question and ultimately resolve the research problem. [the more comprehensive your literature review, the better. Whatever you do NOT find out in this literature review will leave you with more work to do when you move to the next part of the project, i.e. methodology]

4. Report how it has brought you closer to an answer to your research question(s).

5. Ensure all in text citations are correctly referenced.

6. Add a comprehensive List of References, in Harvard referencing style.[Students please be warned that errors in referencing attract suspicion of plagiarism/academic misconduct and may require detailed investigation, prompting a request for further information from you regarding your sources. It is always essential that academic integrity is upheld and any breach thereof may lead to a mark of ZERO and a report of academic misconduct. Don't take a chance!]

7. Append a statement indicating ‘who wrote which sections of this report'

Report on Research Design and Methodology

Assessment 3 - Business Research Design and Methodology

Purpose:

This unit aims to give you an opportunity to combine many facets of your acquired MBA skills into the production of a high-quality research report.

Assignment 3 - the Research Design and Methodology - is to ensure each student is able to contribute to the construction of a written report demonstrating their understanding of the business research paradigm, appropriate methodology, data collection, analysis and interpretation.

You will work in a group of up to 3 persons. Your respective contributions will be governed by your Team Charter, which you produced at the same time as your Topic Approval submission. Additionally, you are required to append to this report a statement indicating ‘who wrote which sections'.

This assessment builds upon your Literature Review (assessment 2) in that you are now aware of what additional data is needed to lead you to the answer to your research question(s) (as defined in Topic Approval (assessment 1). Rather than search for additional secondary data, this methodology report requires you to specify what primary data you would hope to collect, by applying qualitative or quantitative methods. [Note that you are NOT required to actually go out and collect primary data].

In this assessment you will document what your team has decided as the most appropriate methodology. If you choose a quantitative approach, you will go ahead and state your hypothesis, how you intend to verify it, what data you need, how it can be collected and analysed. If you choose a qualitative approach, you will go ahead and decide which method is appropriate, how you would design the questionnaire (including a few example questions), and state how you would collate and interpret your data. [Note that you are NOT required to actually obtain primary data].

Assignment Structure should be as the following:

1. Introduction (an edited and adjusted version of your topic approval) including a justification for your research question(s).
2. A detailed research methodology addressing the qualitative-quantitative debate, hypothesis (if appropriate), additional secondary data, proposed primary data sample size and sampling approach, questionnaire design factors (include some sample questions), data collection method, envisaged analysis and interpretation.
3. A summary of your findings OR what you would expect to find
4. A conclusion (relating back to your original research problem and question(s))
5. List of references in Harvard style (only for sources mentioned in this submission)
6. The appended statement of ‘Who Wrote What'

Assessment 4 - Reflective Journal Assignment

Purpose:

This unit aims to give you an opportunity to combine many facets of your acquired MBA skills into the production of a high-quality research project.

Assignment - the Individual Reflective Journal - is to ensure each student is able to contribute to document a critical reflection of their personal learning process, as experienced during this unit. It will be best to build your journal progressively, by making notes each week, starting at week 1 and going through to week 12. Your notes will serve as a reminder of which sections you personally contributed to, what you learnt, and how you experienced the learning process.

A significant aspect of the learning journal will be your reflections on how well you co-operated with your team in the various phases of the Business Research Project, i.e. Topic Approval, Literature Review, and Methodology BUT your emphasis should be on what you experienced, what challenged you personally, how you dealt with that and what you gained as a result. It is NOT enough to objectively summarise what was done. This assignment must reflect and describe your own personal deep learning AND be convincing to the reader that you were integrally engaged throughout the learning process.

Assignment Structure should be as the following:

1. Based on my personal contribution to the topic selection, problem definition, research question, writing of topic approval submission, and team charter, how I experienced this, what challenges I faced, and what I learnt from that.

2. Based on my personal contribution to the literature review report, i.e. search process, summarising of relevant articles, designing the outline/argument/structure of the literature review, writing up the literature review, how I experienced this, what challenges I faced, and what I learnt from that.

3. Based on my personal contribution to the research methodology report, i.e. my role in discussions about methods, sampling, questionnaire design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, how I experienced this, what challenges I faced, and what I learnt from that.

4. Based on my reflections of the total research process, the insights I gained and any issues, struggles, challenges, synergies I experienced, both individually and in the teamwork, how I experienced this, what challenges I faced, and what I learnt from that.

Attachment:- Business Research Project.zip