Singapore Institute of Management Introduction to Research Skills, 2017

Assignment

The Research Skills assignment is an opportunity to start thinking about your ideas for the final year dissertation. The objective of the assessment is for you to develop a research proposal that can be used as a guide to help you structure and manage your final year research activities.

Please note that this assignment does NOT require you to define a final topic for your final year dissertation. It serves as an exercise, and you can change your final year dissertation topic afterwards.

The word limit for the assignment is 2500 words (10% leeway) not including charts, diagrams and list of references or appendices.

This is an individual assignment and it will count towards 100% of the module assessment.

The due date for the assignment is 04/09/2017 by 12 noon (UK time).

Details of the Assignment - Research Proposal

You are expected to develop a research proposal. A research proposal provides the background, the issues (research problems and questions), the theoretical base, the methodology and the timeline of the research.

In this assignment you are required to focus on the general concept of ‘customer satisfaction' in the Singapore context. (Please note that in your final year dissertation you may choose a different topic and context; this topic and context have been chosen purely for the purpose of this assessment).

For this assessment your discussion must include:

An introduction that sets the scene and informs the reader of the specific topic within customer satisfaction to be addressed in your discussion.

Some background information of the context, for example information about a specific field (e.g. hotel, restaurant, transport, theme park etc.) in Singapore, including statistics. Use databases like the Marketline/Mintel to access such reports on the industry.

A brief literature review should be presented; this should highlight the main theories and concepts associated with this topic. The literature should be clearly linked to the critical issues under discussion.

Highlight the main debates and gaps around the issue of customer satisfaction, clearly indicating how your study would address these gaps.

Your discussion must clearly identify a specific issue that your study will be addressing concerning customer satisfaction and justify why this issue is pertinent and worth researching further. Credit will be given for originality of the research idea and clearly defined scope and research boundaries

You are required to read peer reviewed academic journals and other similar resources to identify the theoretical debates and gaps around customer satisfaction. Some useful journal articles have been listed in the module outline; do ensure that you read these as well as other relevant ones.

Once you have clearly identified the gaps in the literature you must clearly state the research objectives and the research questions that will be addressed by your study (3-5 of them). These must be clearly derived from the gaps noted in the literature.

You must also provide suggested potential theoretical contributions that could emerge from your study, based on the gaps that you are addressing.

Ensure that the significance and rationale for the research is clearly explained and there is evidence of originality in developing a potential research topic.

Also indicate the significance of your study to other stakeholders; for example why is your study important for managers or policy makers?

You also need to suggest the research method (s) that would be used for the study, and clearly justify why you choose them, and then conclude the assignment.

You are required to devise a timeline showing the research activities with a reasonable period of time. This timeline can be in various forms, e.g. a table or a Gantt chart.

The Harvard referencing style must be used throughout the paper, and a list of all the references used provided at the end of the paper. Poor referencing will be penalized.

You may include an appendices section to provide any supporting information you find pertinent, such as data/charts/statistics. However appendices must not exceed 3 pages at the most.

Need you to follow the this format:

Title

An introduction detailing the specific topic to be addressed

Contextual background

Literature debates and gaps related to specific theoretical framework

Outline of research questions, aims and objective

Potential contribution of the research to literature and management practice

Potential methods and conclusion

Timeline of the research