MBA project

PGBM161 MBA PROJECT (T2)- RESEARCH PROJECT (WK3 &4)

Business School, University of Sunderland

April, 2021

CONTENTS

• Review of Key Information

• Research Skills

• Common Mistakes

• Outline of Chapter I (Advised for final project)

• Literature Review (2 weeks)

- Introduction

- Purpose

- Content

- System

- Information source

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

• Background of the Study

• Statement of the Problems

• Objectives of the Study

• Research Questions

• Research Significance

• Literature Review (Key sources)

• Methodology (Plan)

• Timeline

• Ethical consideration/ Ethics approval

• References

IMPORTANT!!! University’s Research Ethics

Application (Online)

• Without getting the approval to this

application, students are NOT

ALLOWED to collect data; • the results of unapproved data

collection will NOT be accepted

Matched with what

you have used in your proposal!

RESEARCH PROPOSAL & DISSERTATION

• Introduction to the Study

• Statement of the Problems

• Objectives of the Study

• Research Questions

• Scope of the Study

• Operational Definitions

• Research Significance

• Literature Review

• Methodology

• Timeline

• Ethical consideration/ Ethics approval

• References

Chapter 1- Introduction

Chapter 2- Reviewing Literatures

Chapter 3- Methodology

For the whole research to take action in practice

Fulfil the requirement- online application

Fulfil the requirement- Harvard referencing (Context & list at the end)

STRUCTURE OF YOUR DISSERTATION

- Cover Page - Acknowledgements - Abstract - Contents - Abbreviations (If applicable…) - Figure/Tables (If applicable…) - Chapter 1: Introduction - Chapter 2: Literature Review - Chapter 3: Methodology - Chapter 4: Results, Findings & Discussion (Further Analysis) - Chapter 5: Conclusion

• References • Appendix A • Appendix B • Appendix C …

Words will NOT be counted.

MAINTAINING RELATION WITH YOUR SUPERVISOR:

• Supervisor = Mentor (not responsible for completing your work!)

• Respect Your Supervisor

• Listen to Your Supervisor

• Take Their Advice On-Board

• Send Regular Updates

• Arrange Frequent Meetings

• Stick to Your Time-Line

COMMON MISTAKES

• Lack of Planning and Organisation

• Lack of Self-Discipline

• Collecting data without a good knowledge about the topic area

• Choosing a wrong research method

• Discussing research approach and strategies without ‘critical justifications’

• Presenting results and findings irrelevant or contradictory to the research aim and objectives

• Lack of references OR Unmatched references (with your Context)

• Ignoring your supervisor and his/her comments

OUTLINE OF CHAPTER ONE- INTRODUCTION

• – Introduction(Background information) to the Study

• – Statement of the Problems (if applied)

• – Objectives of the Study

• – Research Questions

• - Research Hypothesis (or hypotheses)

• – Rational of the Study

• – Research Significance

• – Organisation of the Study (Context/Table of content)

DOING LITERATURE REVIEW

• A Brief of Literature Review

• The Critical Literature Review

- Purpose

- Content

- System

- Information source

WHAT IS A LITERATURE REVIEW?

• According to Creswell (2005), a review of the literature “is

a written summary of journal articles, books and other

documents that describes the past and current state of

information, organizes the literature into topics and

documents a need for a proposed study.”

Creswell, J.W. (2005) Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research

WHY DO YOU WRITE A LITERATURE REVIEW?

Writing Literature Review since:

• Your selectiveness in sourcing information necessary to put your own research into context.

• That you understand and can critically analyse previous research.

• The link between your research and previous investigations.

• The limitation/gap/contribution to knowledge that your study will attempt to make.

• Provides evidence of what is currently known about the elements of your study that you will use in your discussion chapter to help explain your findings.

WHY DO LITERATURE REVIEW

• Purpose of literature review

Main purpose: to help researcher to develop a good understanding and insights into relevant previous research and the trends that have emerged

Other purposes:

- to refine further your research questions and objectives

- to highlight research possibilities that have been overlooked implicitly in research to date

- to discover explicit recommendations for further research

- to avoid simply repeating work that has been done already

- to sample current available sources

LITERATURE REVIEWS

• Well-written analytical chapter that brings a reader up-to-date on what is known on a given topic, but also provide fresh insights that advance knowledge:

- Resolve(demonstrate)conflicts between studies

- Identify new ways to interpret research results

- Creating a path for future research

REVIEW OF KEY ELEMENTS OF PREVIOUS DEFINITION

• The LR is a summary of research:

•It is not a “list” of found research but a coherent and articulate account of past and current research findings

•Suggestion: read 2 or 3 LRs in journal articles published in order to become familiar with summary styles

• The sources for academic research typically are journal articles, books and other documents that describe past and present status of research in a given field:

• The LR should be exhaustive and as current as possible.

• How many articles? (vs. sources)

(There is no set number. As long as the search is exhaustive and focused on the research topic, the review will be acceptable.)

REVIEW OF KEY ELEMENTS OF PREVIOUS DEFINITION

• How far back should one search?

A reasonable and widely accepted timeframe includes research conducted during the past 10 years. Important studies (i.e., studies that had a significant impact on the field of study) should also be mentioned even if these go beyond the mentioned timeframe.

REVIEW OF KEY ELEMENTS OF PREVIOUS DEFINITION

• The LR should be organized:

• The review should not only be coherent, but should organize the studies reviewed under themes or topics.

• The reviewer is a guide and should be able to provide readers with an in-depth and current status of research in a given area.

• This aspect is essential for readers to understand what the reviewer found during the search.

REVIEW OF KEY ELEMENTS OF PREVIOUS DEFINITION

DOING LITERATURE REVIEW WILL ALSO…

You will also need to:

• include the key academic theories within you chosen area

• demonstrate that your knowledge of you chosen area is up to date

• show how your research relates to previous published research

• assess the strengths and weakness of previous work, including omissions or bias,

and take these into account in your arguments

• justify your arguments by referencing previous research

• enable those reading your project report to find the original work you cite.

HOW DO I GET LITERATURE REVIEW START?

Start by identifying what you will need to know to inform your research:

• What research has already been done on this topic?

• What are the sub-areas of the topic you need to explore?

• What other research (perhaps not directly on the topic) might be relevant to your investigation?

• How do these sub-topics and other research overlap with your investigation?

HOW TO BE ‘CRITICAL’

• It describes the process of providing a detailed and justified analysis of and commentary on the merits and faults of the key literature within your chosen area.

• Dees (2000)

- refer to work by recognised experts in your chosen area

- consider and discuss work that supports and work that opposes your ideas

- make reasoned judgements regarding the value of others’ work to your

research

- support your arguments with valid evidence in a logical manner

- distinguish clearly between fact and opinion

HOW TO BE ‘CRITICAL’?

• Identify the current findings

• Are there are key models or theories that are used?

• Which methodologies did the authors use to qualify their findings?

• What are the key themes relevant?

• Do all of the studies agree with each other on the findings of the key themes and why or why not?

• Did they have limitations affecting their results such as the theories, models or methodologies used?

• Are there other possible explanations that could be offered and why?

• How old are the studies?

• Do they seem justified in the investigation they carried out and the results they put forward?

DOING YOUR CRITICAL REVIEW

• It should be a description and critical analysis of what other authors have written (Jankowicz, 2000).

• Therefore, you need to focus on your research question(s) and objective(s).

• Two advice:

- how your review relates to your objectives

- consider your review as discussion how far the literature goes in answering your research question(s)

DIGGING INTO THE LITERATURE

=

=

Major works

Studies that rely on

the major works

A

B

C

D

DIGGING INTO THE LITERATURE

A

B

C

D

=

=

Major works

Studies that build on

Ideas in major works

= New major work

REVIEW OF LITERATURE IS AS A FUNNEL

Start at a more general

level before narrowing

down to your specific

research questions and

objectives

Provide a brief

overview of

key ideas

Summarise, compare

and contrast the work of

the key writers

Narrowing

down to

highlight the

work most

relevant to

your research

Highlight

those issues

where your

research will

provide fresh

insights

Provide a

detailed

account of the

findings of this

work

Lead the

reader into

subsequent

sections of

your project

GUIDELINES ON STYLE, MECHANICS, AND LANGUAGE USAGE

• Does your draft follow the logic or idea that is presented in your intro and title?

• Avoid overusing direct quotations, especially long ones

(Harvard referencing will be different when you quote short/long views)

• Making summaries and/or Paraphrasing is/are propriate

• Check style manual for correct use of citations

Examples: (Doe, 2005); Doe (2005); (Doe & Smith, 2005); Doe and Smith (2005); (Black, 2005; Brown, 2006; Yellow, 2007); Jason (2020a); Jason (2020b); Mattila, et al. (2021)

Paraphrasing

• When you paraphrase, you express someone else’s writing in your own words, usually to achieve greater clarity.

• This is an alternative way of referring to an author’s ideas or arguments without using direct quotations from their text.

• You MUST ensure that you DO NOT change the original meaning and you must still cite and reference your source of information.

Summarising

• When you summarise, you provide a brief statement of the main points of an article, web page, chapter or book, known as a summary.

• It differs from paraphrasing as it only lists the main topics or headings with most of the detailed information being left out.

GUIDELINES ON STYLE, MECHANICS, AND LANGUAGE USAGE

• Avoid using synonyms for recurring words • This is not creative writing and stay consistent with terminology

• Spell out all acronyms when first using them • Traditional - American Psychological Association (APA)

• Non-traditional - Collective Efficacy (CE)

• Yes - Do NOT use contractions;

• No – Don’t use contractions

GUIDELINES ON STYLE, MECHANICS, AND LANGUAGE USAGE

• Avoid the following:

* First person and other subjects related to ‘I’

e.g. me/my/mine/we/us/our/ours

(Using 3rd person as subject or call yourself- the researcher)

• Slang – “cool”, “wanna”

• Colloquialisms – “thing” >> “item” or “feature”

• Idioms – “rise to the pinnacle” >> “to become prominent”

• Use great care to avoid Plagiarism

CONCLUSION- LITERATURE REVIEW

• Provides contextual background

• Reveals related issues

• Reviews similar problems elsewhere

• Provides significance to your approach to the study

• Includes major/seminar research articles pertaining to study

• Written in an integrated manner

• Uses peer-reviewed research

• Includes a Reference section

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR THE SESSION ON 27TH APRIL, 2021

• To help and guide students on how to use library sources to develop a good literature review and complete the academic research, on 27th April, 2021 (Tuesday), there will be a special session organised for 2 MBA classes.

• We will invite Rebecca Carroll, our Academic Liaison Librarian(Business and Law) from university library to join us and give a presentation on the topic:' Using library resources for your Professional Project’.

• Please notice the lessons on 27th April 2021 will be organised as follow:

- for both classes, the session with Rebecca will be ONLY on 11am – 1pm (the link for this special session will be shared on Canvas)

- 10 – 10.45am (UK time)and 1.15 – 2pm (UK time) on 27th April, Iris will organise 2 free drop-in sessions for those students who want to discuss about their research ideas (specific time slots will be announced on Canvas)

• Please make sure to attend this online session and be on time.