Assignment Brief: Management Problem Investigation for Dissertation

Instructions and Purpose

This is an individual assignment in the form of a narrated presentation of no more than 10 minutes long, and no more than 8 PowerPoint slides excluding the title slide. Instructions on how to narrate your presentation are available under the ‘submit your work’ tab and under the ‘formal documents’ tab.  For this you will be making use of Zoom.

The purpose of the assignment is to convince the listener that you have identified a management problem or issue which it is important to investigate – and that you have already made a start on that investigation, by;

• really trying to hone in on what it is you want to find out
• considering relevant academic sources and
• exploring possible options for primary research.

The presentation should

The required content of the PowerPoints/video is explained in below – follow this structure carefully. You don’t need to squeeze everything you say on to the PowerPoints – stick to the main points and talk over the top of them.  

Below sets out what your slides – and accompanying video explanation of them – should cover.

1. Working title

This need not be the final title, but should give an indication of your intended research topic

2. The management or business problem that you seek to solve, and its context

What is the management or business problem you wish to investigate?

Briefly explain the research question(s) you are seeking to answer and make clear what the purpose or aim of your research is, i.e.

What do you want to find out by the end of your dissertation, that you do not already know?

(Note: it is appreciated that the area of investigation may be refined, after further work and discussion with your supervisor. Supervisors will be allocated on the basis of your proposal).

Having identified the problem, what are the objectives of the research (= the problem broken down into manageable steps)?

In this section, you should also include an explanation of the business context in which your research will be set e.g. organisation or industry, in other words, the background to your research – what has given rise to your intended research and why is there a need for it? Which types of organisations or business practitioners will benefit from you solving the management or business problem that you have identified? Cite appropriate sources to support your points.

You can start with the context and move on to the aim and objectives of the research, or vice versa, whichever flows best for you.

3. Academic context

Using a mind map or similar technique, comment on which area or areas of theory you think will be particularly helpful for exploring the problem/question, in a literature review e.g. marketing of services, organisational culture, and why (Please see folder ‘MIND MAPS AND VIDEOS’ on the MB759 Blackboard module).

Structure of the Presentation and Required Content

Whilst in section 2 above you have explained the business context, this section is about the academic context and should help to show where your work will sit within the existing literature.

4. Useful peer reviewed articles

For this section you will need to have identified three or four peer reviewed articles (from scholarly journals on ABI Inform/(Proquest) or Emerald) which fall within the area(s) of theory identified above. Your articles should have been published in the last five years.

Discuss one theory or key idea from each article which you think will be helpful for your literature review and explain why that theory or idea is particularly relevant to your investigation. The full reference for each article can appear in the notes section of the slides.

5. Primary research: Methods and Access
6. a) How do you intend to obtain your primary data and why do you consider that this method or methods is/are likely to be the most appropriate?  Who will be in your sample? (In this section we are looking for credible plans, not simply wishful ideas!)
7. b) Comment on why you consider that your proposal is ‘do-able’ e.g. do you have established contacts or friends who can introduce you to potential interview respondents, who is in your network and who might those respondents be? For surveys, you need to be clear how you will maximise the response rate. ‘Convenience samples’ e.g. getting your friends to complete a survey using a web link from your Facebook page – are rarely acceptable.
8. c) This section should also highlight any ethical issues which might require consideration, having consulted the university’s guidelines on research ethics:

Briefly summarise again, what you want to find out in your dissertation, and why (if funding were available), it should be funded (suggest who will benefit, if you can solve the business problem that you have identified).

This assignment has been designed to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your achievement of the following module learning outcomes:

LO 1 Demonstrate an in-depth critical understanding of a chosen aspect of business or management through an extended self-managed dissertation project.

LO 2 Critically evaluate and use a range of quantitative and qualitative methods for providing information and evaluating options in an uncertain business environment.

Task requirements

How to upload your Zoom presentation and slides to Blackboard-A special link has been set up on the Bucks’ ‘media server’ to upload your video and slides. This is different from the standard Turnitin link so please follow the directions in the document Uploading to Media Server through Blackboard (CW) pdf very carefully. This document can be found under the submit your work tab and under the formal documents tab.

The resources under the tab Mind Maps and Videos on Blackboard will be helpful for the development of your dissertation proposal, please make use of these.

How your work will be assessed

Your work will be assessed on the extent to which it demonstrates your achievement of the stated learning outcomes for this assignment (see above) and against other key criteria, as defined in the University’s institutional grading descriptors. If it is appropriate to the format of your assignment and your subject area, a proportion of your marks will also depend upon your use of academic referencing conventions.

This assignment will be marked according to the grading descriptors for Level 7.

The  assessment rubric are available on Blackboard for this assignment should be read in conjunction with this document.

Submission details

This assignment should be submitted electronically. Please use the relevant submission point in the Submit your work area in your Blackboard module shell.

Please ensure that your work has been saved in an appropriate file format which for this assignment is MP4 using Zoom for online students or PowerPoint if undertaking this assignment in class with your tutor.   Your file must also contain at least 20 words of text, consist of fewer than 400 pages and be less than 40MB in size.

You can submit your work as many times as you like before the submission date. If you do submit your work more than once, your earlier submission will be replaced by the most recent version.

Once you have submitted your work, you will receive a digital receipt as proof of submission, which will be sent to your forwarded e-mail address (provided you have set this up). Please keep this receipt for future reference, along with the original electronic copy of your assignment.