business problem statement

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BUSN20016: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS SOME ADVICE FOR CHOOSING OF A PROJECT TOPIC (DRAFT)

• This course has been purposefully designed to incorporate a high degree of flexibility relating

to various topics; therefore the choice of topic for your project is entirely your own choice.

• Topic for the project outline (Assessment 1) and project proposal (Assessment 3) MUST be

same.

• Remember, it is your project and if you select something that holds a deep interest for you, you

will find it easy to commit and you will be highly motivated to complete the work that your

project outline requires (Assessment 1), and subsequently that your project proposal requires

(Assessment 3).

• Make sure that your topic is relevant to your current area of study or what you want to be in

future. There is often temptation to pick a topic that is too broad, and might require a longer

time to do it properly.

• Up to five topic areas are given below under five broader areas of interest (i.e., discipline). We

strongly suggest you to choose a topic from one of the broader areas. However these are not the

exhaustive list and you can choose beyond this list.

o Marketing:

 Marketing communications – such as why do some controversial marketing

communications work whilst other fail?

 Social marketing: such as why are social networks more persuasive than

traditional word-of-mouth?

 Telemarketing – such as selling goods or services to customer via telephone or

surveying customer satisfaction via computer assisted telephone interview

 Branding –Impact of branding in sales or organisational development

 Factors affecting product marketing: How can countries use national culture to

help them promote major exports?

o Management:

 Enterprise management – such as how can an organisation (any industry)

engage with and facilitate the creation and growth of new ventures, including

opportunity identification and evaluation, venture capital, and/or corporate

venturing; and what are the processes for managing and improving the success

of the enterprise?

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 Strategic management – such as investigating high performing and innovative

firms in turbulent environments

 Corporate governance such as how can an organisation (any industry) cope

with environmental, social, and ethical influences upon their practices and

processes of doing business; including environmental sustainability, corporate

social responsibility, stakeholder management and influence, and business

ethics?

o Human Resource Management  Leadership– such as leadership impacts on organisational performance

 Employee engagement, wages and workforce performance

 Decision making under pressure

 Avoidance approaches to conflict

 Maintaining performance during organisational change

o Accounting

 Managerial accounting- how can managers use accounting information to

make better decisions?

 Technological development in accounting – such as technological development

relating to information processing and its impact on accounting

 Accounting system design- The effect of accounting information and auditing

on the design of organizations

 Forensic accounting- such as using forensic accounting as a tool for fraud

detection

o Economics and Finance

 Property market dynamics – such as impact of global financial crisis in

Australian property market

 Risk and uncertainty in coal and oil markets

 Financial characteristics of large and small firms

 Economics of production systems

 Managing cash flow