Management - Your Project Assessment Answer

Your project cannot exceed 10,000 words (+/- 10%). It must have the following layout – it should be: Typed or word processed using double-spacing with margins of 1.5 inches; Numbered on each page; Spell-checked (use the spelling check in Word for convenience!); Submitted electronically in .pdf format - (make sure you keep a copy for yourself); Submitted on time. The Project should have the following sections: Header Sheet Title page Acknowledgements (optional) Abstract Table of contents List of tables (where relevant) List of figures (where relevant) INDIVIDUAL CHAPTERS: Chapter 1 – Introduction, research questions and hypotheses Chapter 2 - Literature review Chapter 3 - Methodology Chapter 4 - Data presentation, evidence, analysis and discussion Chapter 5 - Summary and conclusions Bibliography Appendices (where relevant). (This chapter structure is only indicative and may be modified according to the specific needs of the research.) Title page Abstract It should not exceed 250 words. It serves to highlight the main ideas, findings and implications of the research. It may be organised according to the following template: Purpose Research design/methodology Findings Limitations Recommendations Value Keywords. See the example attached (it is only indicative and you may choose a different format according to the specific needs of your research.) Individual chapters In general, it is advisable to ensure that each chapter has a short and concise introduction and conclusion. The introduction sets the scene, and the conclusion sums up and announces what comes next. Make sure your structure and presentation are up to standards. Divide each chapter into shorter, numbered subsections. Remember to also number and label any tables, equations, and figures. Cite the sources of your work (both literature and data) as appropriate. To improve your written expression, you may find it useful to consult this website, which aims to help especially non-native speakers of English to improve their writing in academic contexts: http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/ Chapter 1 – Introduction, research questions and hypotheses It should be general in nature and present the background to the Project, the questions you aim to answer, and the plan. It serves few main purposes: Contextualises the research within a larger disciplinary framework and signals how you intend your work to be considered. Identifies the main focus or research problem with which you are concerned about. Defines your research questions. Remember that research questions should be structured and framed in a way that allows a definite, clear and unambiguous answer. They should be sufficiently narrow and precise to be testable. Identifying the explanatory variables and dependent variables of your research. Chapter 2 - Literature review As discussed above, the literature review is a description of what is already known on your topic, what policy or business implications have been derived out of this, what gaps in knowledge remain to be addressed, and what suggestions for future work emerge. Make sure you give adequate consideration to the classics in your topic area, the landmarks, and the most recent developments. Present the literature in critical perspective, either chronologically (tracing the development of the field over time) or comparing similarities and differences between authors and schools of thought. Chapter 3 - Methodology Be careful: this is NOT a broad overview of research methods in business and/or the social sciences. You need to describe and explain YOUR own choice of research methods: tell the reader exactly what you did, and why; whether you were successful or not; what difficulties you encountered. You should think of the methodology section as a set of instructions you are giving to readers so that they can replicate your work exactly as you did it. Think of it as a sort of “recipe” which needs to be very precise on the ingredients, the combination of them and the timing so that someone else can reproduce the result. You can have a look at the methodology sections of scientific articles available from the Library portal “Electronic Journals”, to see how they have presented their methods and draw inspiration from them (without plagiarising, of course!). Be as precise as you can, and rely on your records for any details. What database(s) you selected (for example which one(s) of the above). How you accessed them (for example, if freely online or through ESDS registration, or through the University portal). What are the main characteristics of the database (you can refer here to the metadata provided by the authors of the study, as indicated above). Whether you extracted parts of the database, and which ones (for example, financial information on just one particular company instead of a whole group; or just one particular year instead of a time trend); Which variables you used, what they mean, and how they are measured. Whether you modified any of the variables and/or added new variables built from existing ones (for example, if you built indices or rates of growth based on a succession of quarterly GDP figures). Remember to cite the data and the metadata, as indicated above. Chapter 4 - Data presentation, evidence , analysis and discussion While the form in which you present your findings will depend on your methodological choices, a generally accepted good practice for quantitative data is to present them in tables and figures. Comment them in an effort to guide the reader through the significant and important points – you may wish to point out trends in the table, for example. As you move across categories of the independent variable, what happens to the dependent variables? You may wish to highlight the more theoretically or empirically interesting findings in the table. You must make sure that the table, as a whole, warrants inclusion in your paper and that you make reference to it in your text. Remember to appropriately number and label tables and figures. If you re-use tables and figures from external sources, remember to cite them. Chapter 5 - Summary and conclusions Give a brief explanation of why things appear as they are, state whether or not your initial hypotheses are confirmed or rejected, and provide possible reasons for that. Consider how aspects of the research process, the design of your investigation, the sample you constructed and the interview schedule you used, could be modified in order to generalize results to a broader variety of settings. Outline the implications of your research for public policy or company strategy, if any. Think about limitations of your work and directions for future improvements. Bibliography Your bibliography (list of references) should be: in an alphabetical order – according to author(s) surname books, journal articles and web pages should be integrated in the same list Use the Harvard referencing system.