BUSM4448 Business Research Design
Graduate School of Business and Law
Assessment 3: Business Research Plan (Individual)
Assessment type Business Report (Individual)
Word limit 3500 words (+/- 10%); excluding the Cover Page, Table of Contents (if applicable), Reference List; The word count includes everything in the main body of the text (headings, tables, citations, quotes, lists, etc)
Due Date Sunday, end of Week 13, 23:59 (Melbourne time)
Weighting 40%
Purpose: The purpose of this assessment is for you to submit a research plan that is clear, concise, consistent, and convincing. By doing this assessment, you will be able to not only apply what you have learnt in the BRD course but also develop the necessary written communication skills to communicate your plan.
Description: your research plan should be clear, concise, consistent and convincing. This would demonstrate your level of skills relevant to gaining agreement from others, by convincing an organisation’s Board (or other industry-relevant decision-makers such as a funding body) to approve the cost of employees being given time away from their normal duties to conduct the research that you are proposing.
Assessment criteria
This assessment will measure your ability to:
• Overall content and structure of the research plan (17.5%)
• Demonstrate critical analysis of literature, contrasting numerous sources that reflect the appropriate range of literature on the topic (20%)
• Clearly explain research methodology and research design in the report (30%)
• Deliberate discussion on the estimated costs (10%)
• Present high-quality and insightful short reflection (12.5%)
• Modelled clear, logical academic writing and referencing skills (10%)
Course learning outcomes
This assessment is relevant to the following course learning outcomes:
CLO 1 Critically evaluate the broad range of research designs applicable to the exploration of complex and ambiguous business problems
CLO 3 Critically evaluate and synthesise options for innovative business research design.
CLO 4 Effectively communicate advanced and integrated research designs to professional target audiences.
Assessment Details
As a simulated Work Integrated Learning experience, we have deliberately used the term ‘research plan’ rather than ‘research proposal’ to emphasize that we are looking for content and structure suitable for presenting to a team of business executives or members of a company’s Board rather than the type of content and structure suitable for presenting to academic supervisors if you were preparing to enrol in a PhD Program.
There are two main tasks for this assessment:
1. Referring to the second assessment task, choose a different question other than what your group has chosen and write a research plan. You are required to provide critical review of the relevant literature concerning the key components of the question and you are expected to articulate a suitable research methodology to address the research problem.
2. Additionally, you will need to write a small/short reflection (to be included as an Appendix) showing your reflection of Assessment Task 2.
A report writing style is to be used to complete the assignment.
Suggested Format
Your report will consist of:
Structure/Headings Details/checklist
Cover page
(not part of the Word count) c Include your classroom tutor and class-room number in the cover page
Table of Contents
(not part of the Word count)
1. Introduction
(part of the Word count)
!!! This is an intro to the report, not the company. Provide:
c Brief introduction of the report
c Aim of the report
c The overview of the structure of this report
2. Research Objective
(part of the Word count)
c Include brief details of the company (do not use the same company that you discussed in the Assessment 2)
c State the Research Questions and provide clear research objectives
c Justify why you have chosen the research question by briefly identifying the problem and highlighting the importance of researching the problem
3. Literature Review
(part of the Word count)
c Critically review and benchmark literature and
c Visual model (summary of key insights and their relationship from the literature)
4. Research Methodology
(part of the Word count)
c Provide brief discussion of the research design
o Explain and justify your choice
c Proposed data collection methods
o Explain and justify your choice
c Proposed sampling strategy
o Explain and justify your choice
c Proposed data analysis methods
o Explain and justify your choice
5. Estimated Cost and timeline
(part of the Word count)
c Provide a brief research implementation timeline
c Identify research costs
6. Conclusion
(part of the Word count)
c Emphasise the business significance of this research plan and its likely implications for the organisation and the industry
References
(not part of the Word count) c Following RMIT Harvard referencing style
Appendix 1
Short Reflection
(part of the Word count)
c Provide a short reflection on the below statement:
“Based on your assessment 2 project, reflect on the question you have chosen and briefly explain what you have learnt, if any, and reflect on your learning journey based on the ESG issues identified?”
Appendix 2
(not part of the Word count) c Interview questions or survey questions or observation protocols
References
!!! A minimum of ten (10) references is required in this assessment, consisting of:
o 5 peer-reviewed articles
o 5 Articles from other reliable sources (newspaper articles, magazine articles, professional development videos, corporate documents etc.).
Please check out below some resources to help you to navigate the RMIT library database:
• Videos
o Academic/Peer-reviewed articles
• Links
o Business College Liaison Librarians: If you’re having trouble acquiring an article/paper, please seek the Helpance of one of the Business Liaison Librarians.
Referencing guidelines
Use RMIT Harvard referencing style for this assessment.
You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.
Refer to the RMIT Easy Cite referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the appropriated style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.
Submission format
The assessment will be submitted in Canvas as a file upload.
Academic integrity and plagiarism
Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge and ideas.
You should take extreme care that you have:
• Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have quoted (i.e. directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your assessment through the appropriate referencing methods
• Provided a reference list of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites
If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own.
RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.
Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including:
• Failure to properly document a source
• Copyright material from the internet or databases
• Collusion between students
For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website.
Assessment declaration
When you submit work electronically, you agree to the assessment declaration
APPENDIX (Samples and Template)
!!! Please note that the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group (MOHG) is ONLY used as an example in this sample. You are not to choose MOHG for your Assessment 2 and 3.
***Cover Page
***Table of Contents
***Introduction
This document presents to Board members of the MOHG a fully detailed plan for conducting research that has been designed to improve leadership within the company in ways that will not only lift employee performance and morale but will also contribute to our capacity to expand our market share and increase our profitability.
***Research Objective
***Literature Review
!!! (The below is ONLY an example – you are to use relevant literature that will help you in your research. The references used below are NOT compulsory/mandatory to be used in your literature review)
Nohria, Joyce and Roberson (2003) argue that high performing organisations do a better job than their competitors with regard to four primary and four secondary practices. The four primary factors are ………….. Effective leadership has a positive impact on the strategy and the culture of a business organisation, and in particular a luxury hotel chain such as ours, because ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
This literature review presents a concise summary of what best leadership practice involves because having that summary will provide MOHG with a ‘best practice baseline’. Once we have clearly identified best leadership practice, we can then conduct targeted research into ways in which the reality of current leadership practices within MOHG are similar to – or different from – the baseline ideal; and if there are major differences, we can also conduct research into why those differences exist. The literature on best practice leadership can be sorted into three types:
1. Leadership styles which get the best from others
2. The most important leadership understandings of organisational functioning
3. How the best leaders use their time to achieve extraordinary results
Goleman (2000) has investigated the effectiveness of six leadership styles ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
View other drafts
Sure, I can help you with your BUSM4448 Business Research Design Assessment 3. Here is a sample research plan that you can use as a starting point:
Introduction
This research plan outlines the proposed research project for the BUSM4448 Business Research Design course. The project will investigate the impact of leadership style on employee engagement and performance. The research will be conducted using a mixed-methods approach, involving a survey of employees and interviews with managers.
Research Questions
The research will address the following questions:
What is the relationship between leadership style and employee engagement?
What is the relationship between leadership style and employee performance?
How do managers perceive the impact of their leadership style on employee engagement and performance?
Literature Review
The literature review will provide an overview of the research on leadership style, employee engagement, and employee performance. The review will focus on the following areas:
The definition of leadership style
The different types of leadership style
The impact of leadership style on employee engagement
The impact of leadership style on employee performance
Research Methodology
The research will be conducted using a mixed-methods approach, involving a survey of employees and interviews with managers. The survey will be used to collect quantitative data on employee engagement and performance. The interviews will be used to collect qualitative data on the managers’ perceptions of the impact of their leadership style on employee engagement and performance.
Data Analysis
The quantitative data from the survey will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The qualitative data from the interviews will be analyzed using thematic analysis.
Expected Results
The expected results of the research are that:
There will be a positive relationship between leadership style and employee engagement.
There will be a positive relationship between leadership style and employee performance.
Managers will perceive that their leadership style has a positive impact on employee engagement and performance.
Conclusion
The findings of this research will provide valuable insights into the impact of leadership style on employee engagement and performance. The findings will be of interest to managers, researchers, and policymakers.
This is just a sample research plan, and you will need to tailor it to your specific research project. However, it should provide you with a good starting point.
Here are some additional tips for writing your research plan:
Be clear and concise.
Use evidence from the literature to support your claims.
Be realistic about your expectations.
Be prepared to revise your plan as you learn more about your topic.
