Assessment Task 3
Briefing note Individual Assessment Task 3
This task worth 40%
4,000 words: Submit your assignment to Turnitin any time before midnight on 03/06/19
Your task is to write a research plan that would demonstrate your level of skills relevant to gaining agreement from others, by convincing an organisation’s Board to approve the cost of employees being given time away from their normal duties to conduct the research that you are proposing. A research plan topic will be provided for you later in the semester that will be relevant to the international hotel industry, although students who are already in employment may choose to work on a topic directly relevant to their employing organisation, after consultation with their tutor.
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.
Contents list must include:
• Introduction
• The research problem and why it is important to this business
• Which of the 4 primary practices discussed in What Really Works is this research project most closely relevant to, and why
• Literature review
• Methodology
• Likely data that will be obtained and analysed
• Likely findings and their importance
• Estimated cost in terms of time and finances
• Appendix with interview questions or survey items or observations protocols
Remember, your central goal is to present a research plan that is so clearly important and likely to lead to success that top management in the business will be prepared to spend money implementing the plan (i.e. carrying out the research). Much of being convincing and credible will rely on the details you present in the methodology section: how you will collect and analyse data.
You are welcome to adopt the structure used by examples that have been studied during the latter weeks of the course; however the problem you are focusing on has to be clearly different to any of the problems researched in the examples.
