November 5, 2024

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BUSM4448 - Assessment 2 Business Research Problem Report

Overview

The purpose of this assessment is for you to showcase and apply your knowledge on the crucial first step of any business research, i.e. Business Research Problem identification and definition to a real company/industry.

Assessment criteria

This assessment will measure your ability to:

Insightfully introduce and analyze industry and company that they have chosen to investigate (8%)
Elaborate the concept of Research Problem supported by academic literature; Introduce the general problem that the company is facing linking to the identification and formulation of Research Problem, which is relevant to the chosen company's board or other members of the organization (17%)
Insightfully state the Research Objectives informal research statements and justify the Research Questions (8%)
Present a comprehensive and relevant research plan for the chosen research questions (3%)
Model clear, logical academic writing and referencing skills (4%)

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 2 Identify and synthesize research designs to explore relevant aspects of a complex and ambiguous business problem

CLO 3 Critically evaluate and synthesise options for innovative business research design

Assessment Details

In this assessment, you are required to first choose an industry/company that you are currently in or aspiring to be part of as to apply the main tasks in this assessment. You will need to use the same company for your final assessment in the course (Assessment Task 3).

There are several main tasks in this assessment:

Specify the industry and company that you are going to focus on and justify why
Go through the scientific process of Research Problem identification
To turn the research problem into problem statement/objectives
To showcase the draft of your Business Research Plan (bullet points are acceptable for this specific task)

Remember that you will need to propose a research plan (Assessment Task 3) based on the research objectives that you specify in this assessment. You will also take into account the feedback from your tutors and lecturers in the course.

A report writing style is to be used to complete the assignment.

!!! A minimum of eight (8) references is required in this assessment, consisting:

4 peer-reviewed articles
4 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
- Academic/Peer-reviewed articles
Links
- Business College Liaison Librarians: If you’re having trouble acquiring an article/paper, please seek the assistance of one of the Business Liaison Librarians.

Suggested Format

Your report will consist of:

Structure/Headings

Details/checklist

Cover page

(not part of the Word count)

Table of Contents

(not part of the Word count)

Introduction

(part of the Word count)

(150 words) – Suggestion only

!!! This is an intro to the report, not the company. Provide:

c Relevant background of the report

c Aim of the report

c The overview of the structure of this report

Industry and Company

(part of the Word count)

(700 words) – Suggestion only

c Introduction to the industry

c Introduction to the particular company you are going to focus on in your assignment

c Provide necessary information and detail of the company

o E.g. information relating to the company structure, business model, target market, operations, current and future strategies

c Justify why you have made that choice

Research Problem Identification and Definition

(part of the Word count)

(1000 words) – Suggestion only

c Provide a brief overview/elaboration of the concept of Research Problem

o Supported by academic literature

c Linking the information about the company above, start to introduce the general problem that the company is facing (Research Problem identification stage)

c Then, define the research problem (Research Problem Definition stage)

o Clearly justify why this is a problem

o Supported by academic references and sources

c Consider the below:

o Is the project researchable, given the time, resources and availability of data?

o Will you be able to propose a research design that helps to answer the problem defined above?

o Will the results from the research project be of interest to the team of business executives, members of a company’s Board or funding bodies?

o Will the project contribute to your career journey?

Research Problem Statement/Objectives

(part of the Word count)

(300 words) – Suggestion only

c The objectives of the research should be:

o stated in a formal research statement

o described as precise as possible

o brief but specific

c Provide the research question/s and the hypothesis from the objectives

c Justify why they are interesting and important using relevant literature

Plan for the Research Plan (Assessment 3)

(part of the Word count)

(200 words) – Suggestion only

c Provide a brief plan of what you are going to propose considering the Research objectives

c Consider this section as the plan for your plan (Assessment 3)

o This does not have to be perfect as it is only a start of what you are going to propose fully in Assessment 3.

c The plan should consist of your very rough plan of:

o What literature you will be looking at?

o What data collection methods you will be using?

o What is the unit of analysis of this research project?

o What data collection methods you will be using?

o Have you considered the company’s resources (time, people and money) to conduct this research?

c Provide a brief justification of the points made above

Conclusion

(part of the Word count)

(150 words) – Suggestion only

c Emphasise the business significance of this research project and its likely findings

References

(not part of the Word count)

c Following RMIT Harvard referencing style

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 offense constituting misconduct.

Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviors, 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.