BUSM4448 Assessment 3: Business Research Plan

Overview

You need to use the same company that you have discussed in Assessment 2.

The purpose of this assessment is for you to submit a research plan that is clear, concise, consistent and convincing. You will continue with the problem statement/objectives specified in Assessment Task 2 and the company/industry that you have chosen. By doing this assessment, you will be able to not only apply what you learn in BRD course but also develop necessary written communication skills to communicate your plan. 

 

Assessment criteria

This assessment will measure your ability to:

• Present a clear, consistent, cohesive, well-justified and relevant research plan (7%) 
• Present relevant literature review that includes topics that are most relevant to the research question and concludes with a list of factors which are most important to arriving at a deep understanding of the research problem (8%) 
• Evaluate and justify research methodology that is relevant to the research objectives (12%) 
• Present estimated research costs relevant to the research objectives (4%) 
• Present insightful, clear, concise and genuine reflection showing how your view has/has not changed compared to when the first essay on BRD was submitted (5%) 
• 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 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 

There are two main tasks in the course:

• To write a research plan by applying all the theories and concepts that you learn in the course. Your research plan should be clear, concise, consistent with what you wrote in the Assessment Task 2 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-maker 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.

• Additionally, you will need to write a small/short reflection (to be included as an Appendix) showing how your view has/has not changed from since you submitted your Assessment Task 1. 

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.

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: Relevant background of the report Aim of the report  The overview of the structure of this report
Research Objective (part of the Word count)   (150 words) – Suggestion only	Include brief details of the company (you need to use the same company that you discussed in the Assessment 2) Here, you just need to restate the Research Objectives and Research Questions that you have discussed in Assessment 2 You may include some changes/improvements based on the advice that you received from your tutor
Literature Review (part of the Word count)  (1000 words) – Suggestion only	Benchmarking literature Visual model (summary of key insights and their relationship from the literature)
Methodology (part of the Word count)  (1000 words) – Suggestion only	Proposed sampling strategy Justify why and how Proposed data collection methods Justify why and how Proposed data analysis methods Justify why and how
Estimated Cost (part of the Word count)  (300 words) – Suggestion only	In terms of time In terms of finance
Conclusion (part of the Word count)  (200 words) – Suggestion only	Emphasise the business significance of this research plan and its likely findings
References (not part of the Word count)	Following RMIT Harvard referencing style
Appendix 1 Short Reflection (part of the Word count)  (200 words) – Suggestion only	Provide a short reflection on the below: “Now that you have completed the course, has your view of BRD changed since when you submitted your essay on the benefits of BRD (Assessment 1)? Why and how?”
Appendix 2 (not part of the Word count)	Interview questions or survey questions or observation protocols

 

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:

• Leadership styles which get the best from others

• The most important leadership understandings of organisational functioning

• How the best leaders use their time to achieve extraordinary results

Goleman (2000) has investigated the effectiveness of six leadership styles ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

***Methodology

( …covering proposed data collection and analysis methods… (and why they were chosen)

 

To discover the current nature of MOGH leadership and where there are gaps between what should be happening and what is happening, a two-step research approach will be taken; the first step would involve surveying 160 employees and 40 managers across four different Mandarin Hotels operating in four different cultures: American, Thai, Chinese, and English. By collecting responses from different cultures we will be able to discover if leadership behaviours that are seen as effective in one culture are perhaps seen as ineffective in a different culture – or if what works and what does not work is the same regardless of culture. 

Using a survey questionnaire has been chosen for this first step of the research because ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Test items used in the questionnaire will fall into three types: items that will measure the extent of employee satisfaction with the style of leadership used by their manager (for instance “To what extent would you describe your manager’s leadership style as democratic?’) ; items that will measure .……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The second stage of the planned research will involve interviewing twenty employees (five from each hotel) and four managers (one from each hotel). Employees will be asked questions such as “can you tell me about a time when you felt most inspired by your manager – what was happening, what was he or she doing and why did that matter to you?” Managers will be asked questions such as “In your experience, what do you think has been the most effective leadership decision or action you have made and why do you think that was good for the company and for your employees?” Interviews have been chosen as a research method for this part of the project because …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Please note, full details of the questionnaire items and the interview questions can be found in Appendices One and Two. 

 

It is expected that this research would find differences between the current MOHG leadership practices and what has been previously identified as ideal practice. Most importantly, the research would pinpoint exactly which practices are less than ideal, making it possible to then make targeted recommendations for improvement ………………………………..

In addition, the understanding that will be gained from the interview transcripts will enable us to uncover factors within the organisation that are helping and those which are …………

 

***Estimated Costs

 

***Conclusion

 

***Short Reflection

 

***References

 

***Appendices

 

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