Specifically, you will do the following:

1) Come up with your research question and explain why this is a good/appropriate question for a business research paper (remember we have discussed what makes a good question in this class - this is not just your own view, but must be based on class information)

2) Do some background research. This is the preliminary research that is part of Step 2 of the scientific method. This must at minimum include 10 publication citations (academic and/or grey literature, such as business reports). You may be asking colleagues/etc. as we have discussed in class, but you must demonstrate that you have also done secondary research.

3) Write hypothesis.

4) The last stage is to propose your data collection and analysis methods. Are you going to do primary or secondary research? What sources will you use? Be as specific as possible for your methods. For example, if you are doing an interview: how many people will you interview? how will you choose your sample? how long will the interviews be? what questions will you ask?

If you are doing a literature review, where will you find the literature? how will you determine if a publication is worth recording? how will you record the information? how many publications will you use? Feel free to bring in other information we have discussed in class as well: ethics, personal bias, reporting strategies, etc. Accredited by: IACBE ECBE EDUQUA Member of: CCIG FEDE FSEP AGEP ACICS

After you have written your data collection methods, you should briefly explain how you intend to analyze the information that you collect. That is, after you've done the interviews or after you've done your literature review, how will you actually use the information? Think about how you will go from just finishing an interview or researching books to actually writing your research paper. You need to do some form of analysis. What will this look like?