| Category |
Assignment |
Subject |
Business |
| University |
___ |
Module Title |
Applied Business Research Methods |
Individual Applied Report – Research Proposal
You will prepare a report outlining further details of your chosen research that will form the basis of your Dissertation/Applied Business Project. You should use the following structure for your Individual Applied Report – Research Proposal. You should present your applied report/proposal in a single document with an appropriate front page, contents page, headings and a correctly formatted reference list (University of East London Harvard style).
The applied report/proposal should include the following:
Section 1: Research topic, aim and objectives
- Identify your proposed research topic and offer a clear rationale, along with aim and objectives
- In this section you should present your research topic and explain the topic area.
- The section should include appropriate background information and it should explain the rationale for selecting this research topic and
- what is the potential contribution of the proposed research.
- Also, the section should clearly present the aim and objectives of the proposed research.
Section 2: Literature review
- The literature review should analyse and synthesise relevant academic literature, critically engaging with the field of scholarship.
- In the literature review, you should discuss how your research topic will fit within existing published work.
- You should find at least 12-15 sources of literature (mainly academic) connected to your proposed research and analyse them to show how your research will attempt to contribute to existing knowledge.
- You should aim to compare and contrast the sources and make appropriate links with your proposed research.
- Keep in mind that you should paraphrase the sources in your own words (and cite and reference the sources appropriately) and you
- should synthesise the potential contribution of these sources to your research.
- Your literature review should not be presented as a ‘list’ of articles.
Section 3: Methodology, methods and ethical considerations
- Identify and justify a research methodology appropriate to your proposed research
- Identify and justify research methods and data appropriate to your proposed research
- dentify key ethical considerations relevant to your proposed research
- In this section you should discuss your research methodology. You should consider your epistemological approach and how this impacts your research design.
- Also, you should discuss your data collection methods as well as the types of data that you will collect for your research and the sources of this data.
- You should be able to justify your choice of methodology and methods by referring to your research aim and objectives.
- Also, you should comment on the feasibility of your research and your ability to access the required data.
- Finally, this section should outline the ethical considerations related to your research.
- You are advised to include a secondary data collection for your proposal, and not primary. This is because for the final module of this programme (Dissertation) you are not allowed to proceed with primary data collection, but only with secondary.
Section 4: Research schedule/plan
- Induce a provisional project schedule/plan for your proposed research
- In this section you should outline the key milestones for the completion of your research project and propose the length of time that each milestone will require to complete.
- You should try to be as realistic as you can and you should consider things like work schedule and busy periods at work as well as holidays and other breaks.
- It will be useful to present your schedule/plan on a table listing the milestones, the duration of each milestone as well as a brief note for each milestone that will offer a description of the role of the milestone in the process and a justification for the assigned duration, including any concerns, contingency plans, or limitations to completing the milestone.
