Its MARKETING RESEARCH SUBJECT.

Deakin University Department of Marketing MMK265 Marketing Research T1 2016 Assignment Research Proposal DUE DATE AND TIME Week 9 Thursday 12 May 2016 @ 5:00 pm AEST PERCENTAGE OF FINAL GRADE 40% HURLDE DETAILS N.A. Learning Outcome Details Unit Learning Outcome Graduate Learning Outcome The assessment is designed to rigorously test the application of theoretical concepts to a designated marketing research problem. (ULO1) Students are required to make an analysis of the marketing problem, identify and recommend the most suitable methodology for carrying out the research and for analysing the data that will be collected (ULO 2, ULO3). This assessment relates to: GLO1 – discipline knowledge and capabilities: appropriate to the level of study related to a discipline or Profession. GLO 4 – critical thinking: evaluating information using critical and analytical thinking and judgment, and GLO 6 – Self-management: working and learning independently, and taking responsibility for personal actions. In that, students need to critically evaluate the case at hand and identify the most appropriate methodology (and relative operationalisation) designed to gather information to solve the management decision problem. Notes Requirements Due Date: Your marketing research proposal with your recommendations will need to be submitted by Thursday 12 May 2016 @ 5:00 pm AEST. Submission is via the assignment drop box which can Page 1 of 9 be found on the subject CloudDeakin site (the submission area becomes visible once you have completed the Online Plagiarism Declaration. Make sure that all elements of the assignment are completed prior to submission. DO NOT submit hard copies of the proposal because they will not be marked. Please remember to include all your details in the proposal: First Name, Surname, Student ID, Campus and Unit on the official title page of the assignment. No credit will be given if the name is not shown on the submission. No cover sheet is required nor any cover letters. The word limit is 4,000 words MAXIMUM. A 20% penalty (from the available marks) will apply for going above the word limit. Students SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT to conduct any primary research e.g., surveys, focus groups, indepth interviews, observations, etc. Students are only required to design a study involving primary data collection. Students can only attempt the assignment individually – no group work is allowed. Please be mindful as if the assignment is not individually attempted you may fall into the trap of collusion which is an academic misconduct. We are looking for a logical, well written, well-presented proposal using the format suggested. It is expected that you refer to a minimum of 10 scholarly references which include academic journal articles, research books and research proposals. In addition, you can also use online information, newspaper or magazine articles to support your arguments. The sources need to be properly referenced, cited and included in the reference list. Wikipedia, answers.com, tutor2 and other ‘personal opinion’ or social networking websites are NOT permitted. Proposals that cite these websites will not be assessed (which implies the work will get zero (0) marks). PLEASE NOTE: You are forbidden from re-submitting all or part of an assignment you have previously submitted for assessment at Deakin or elsewhere. This is considered a form of deception and any part of your proposal which contains such material will be given zero (0) marks and in cases where the deception is significant, the Unit Chair will have no other option other than reporting the misconduct to the Student Misconduct Committee. It is your responsibility to source relevant secondary data (journal articles, proposals etc) which can be accessed via the Deakin Library database collection (e.g., EBSCOHost databases /Business Source Complete, ABI Inform, Expanded academic ASAP, Emerald Management Xtra, Westlaw). General Information • The project must be in proposal format not essay i.e., the use of headings and subheadings; • All headings and subheadings must be numbered; • The proposal must be at least 1.5 paragraph spaced and margins of 2.54 cm all sides (use A4 page format); Page 2 of 9 • Font: use Times New Romans in 12 pt. size. • Please use Microsoft Word (either a .doc or .docx document. No PDF, JPG or other formats) for the proposal submission. Turnitin Requirement: In addition to submitting your assignment to the assignment drop box on CloudDeakin, all students must upload their completed assignment to the Turnitin link entitled “Marketing Research Major Project” which can be found under assessment. This link will be available 15 days prior to the date of submission. An originality proposal of 80% is required i.e., the similarity of 20% or less – Refer to CloudDeakin regarding the use of Turnitin. The Unit Chair has access to the similarity proposals; therefore, it is not necessary to include the Turnitin result in the appendix of your proposal. To ensure you meet the originality requirement, it is strongly recommended that you periodically use the “check your work” link in the assessment folder. This link will be available to students throughout the semester. Please do not leave this task to the last minute. It is important that you use your time effectively. A Turnitin result greater than the required (20% or less similarity) cannot be rectified after the submission date and is not grounds for an extension. Plagiarism and other misconducts: Please read carefully the policy on plagiarism http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/study-support/referencing/plagiarism. Please also be aware that involuntary plagiarism (e.g. not being aware what plagiarism is) is STILL a misconduct and will be managed accordingly. Make sure to include citations/references in-text whenever you refer to thoughts, ideas, or expressions that are not your own. Making the mistake of not including reference in-text will be considered a grave omission of your work and you will be given zero (0) marks. Assignments that have been previously submitted (totally or in part) for this or other courses will also be penalised and even in this instance you will be given zero (0) marks. As a student in this course, you acknowledge your responsibility for abiding by the Code of Student Conduct (as set out in the Student Charter) and you acknowledge your understanding of academic dishonesty and the resulting penalties, which are applicable to individuals and groups. FINALLY: This proposal project is much, much more complicated than it looks at first glance. Leave yourself sufficient time to complete it. Page 3 of 9 Research Proposal – Case Study Burwood East Community Development Project A property developer is proposing a community development project in an unoccupied site at 78 Middleborough Road, Burwood East. Below is a brief summary of the project. Burwood East Project Information Flyer: https://www.frasersproperty.com.au/~/media/Australand/Residential/VIC/BurwoodEast/Published/Burwood%20East%20Project%20Information%20Flyer.pdf Site location The former brickworks site occupies approximately 20 hectares of land located on the eastern side of Middleborough Road, Burwood. The land wraps around the RSPCA complex (on the north-east corner of Middleborough Road and Burwood Highway) and extends eastwards along Burwood Highway. The developer’s vision for the project The vision for the Burwood East project can be summarised into three guiding and interrelated elements: ‘Local’, ‘Activated’ and ‘Place’. ‘Local’ recognises that the development of Burwood East sits within the context of an established neighbourhood and must respond to and build upon its distinct local character. A high level of consideration has therefore been given to providing appropriate points of transition and integration with this surrounding context, whilst at the same time recognising that the development represents a unique opportunity to add amenity and breathe new life into an established community. ‘Activated’ in large part responds to this opportunity by championing the creation of a social hub and meeting point for the new and established community. Quality civic design gestures and public spaces will encourage social interaction and provide the stage for Burwood life to unfold. ‘Place’ encourages the construction of a truly distinctive address that represents the highest quality of urban development, laying the foundations for a connected community. The future residents of Burwood East will feel a sense of ownership and a sense of place with the neighbourhood they live. These guiding principles are tied together by ‘tried and tested’ urban design principles of walkability, health, mixed use, social interaction, connectivity, character and housing diversity resulting in a best practice, model neighbourhood for this strategic infill site. In summary, the Burwood East project will offer its residents an enviable urban lifestyle: • Rehabilitation and regeneration of local long term undeveloped site; Page 4 of 9 • Diverse mix of housing to cater for a variety household types; • Retail and social hub fostering social interaction and engagement; • Usable high-value open spaces for whole community; • Cycle connections and pedestrian prioritisation encouraging healthy lifestyles; • Sensitive interfaces and transitions with compatible development forms and scales. • New infrastructure and amenities that services the broader community; • 10,500m2 of retail with food and beverage activating a civic plaza; • Between 850 and 950 homes with a mix of apartments, terrace housing and detached and semidetached homes; • Low rise apartments concentrated around the retail hub with heights of 5 storeys plus car-parking Hypothetically, you are the marketing research manager of this Burwood East development project, responsible for the civic plaza area that covers 10,500m2 of retail with food and beverage. At this initial development stage, you do not have any ideas as to what types of retail shops should be put in the civic plaza. In order to attract customers’ traffic, you need to gather relevant information to understand what the potential customers want in the civic plaza. You would like to do a research to shed some light on this project. You need to write a specific marketing research proposal to address the issue at hand. As such, you need to critically evaluate and determine the most appropriate methodology to utilise in this proposal. You need to be very specific with regard to all aspects of the research proposal. Page 5 of 9 The research proposal should include: 1. Official Title page (This is a requirement of proposal writing [not included in the official word count]) • Project title; • Your Full name and student ID number; 2. Executive Summary (not included in the official word count) • An executive summary is a brief account (not more than a single page) of the major points (findings, conclusions and recommendations) related to your proposal; • Your executive summary is best prepared after your proposal is completed; • Please remember that the executive summary is NOT an introduction i.e., what you intend to do. Please focus on what you did. 3. Table of Contents (this is a requirement of proposal writing [not included in the official word count]) 4. Introduction (Guideline: 100-150 words) • Clearly state the key issues to be addressed in the body of the proposal. 5. Background to the proposed research – (Guideline: 300-400 words) • In this section, you need to describe what your task is and give background information relevant to the case at hand. You need to do so to remind the reader the reasons why this proposal is written and what are the specific issue(s) to be solved at hand. 6. The research objectives (Guideline: 100-150 words) in terms of the questions to be answered. • Clearly state the key objectives – these can be presented in a bullet point format. 7. Research design recommended for the new research project (You must provide justification throughout this section): (Guideline: 2,000-3,400 words) i) Type/s of research to be undertaken (with justification) e.g., qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, exploratory, causal, etc. Page 6 of 9 ii) Type of information required from the participants to address the research problem. If you propose qualitative research, produce a topic guide. If you propose a survey or other quantitative data collection instrument, specify the questions asked and the type of data that will be collected (these can be in an appendix and are not included in the word count). If you choose causal research then specify the experimental design. You can specify more than one type of approach (e.g. qualitative followed by quantitative research). This will also be influenced by the nature of research you recommend to undertake; iii) Methods of data collection recommended (data collection methods – must be consistent with the type of research). Why would you use the specific technique? Why would that technique be appropriate? What is the design of the study? iv) Sampling technique e.g., clearly define the target population and its key characteristics, identify the sampling frame and justify the chosen sampling technique (you may need to make assumptions). Only one sampling technique is required for each method and choosing more than one will lead to you failing the assignment. v) Plan of data analysis e.g., specify data analysis techniques that you would use to answer the question, including any specific statistical tests you would use with quantitative data. vi) Costing: There is no need to cost the study. While William Stenberg Retail Stores does not want to spend money unnecessarily, they are willing to spend whatever it takes to do the research thoroughly. That is, they want to be certain that the research can answer the above questions in a clear, relevant and defensible way. 8. Limitations and caveats (Guideline: 100-150 words) • Are there any perceived limitations e.g., organisation constraints, research design limitations, problems with generalisation or ethical issues. 9. Conclusions and recommendations (with a focus on of target consumers). (Guideline: 500- words) • Recommendations should be feasible, practical and actionable; • Recommendations should address the research objectives. • Reference list [not included in the official word count] • Only References cited in the proposal should be included. Appendices [not included in the official word count] • Appendices should include supporting evidence only. Tables, graphs and questionnaires you may develop or use. Page 7 of 9 • If you use appendices please ensure they are numbered and referred to within the proposal. Submission Place Assignment Dropbox only (no paper copy). Please make sure to submit the proposal in the right ‘Submission Box’. Late submission Extensions can only be approved by the Unit Chair (Ho Yin Wong). Extensions can be granted for documented serious illness (not just on the day the assignment is due!) or for compassionate reasons under extenuating circumstances. The unit chair can ask to see how much work has been completed before granting an extension. Work or holiday reasons are NOT grounds for an extension – you are expected to manage these issues as part of your studies. You are strongly encouraged to start early and to continually backup your assignment as you progress. Computer crashes or corrupted files will NOT be accepted as valid reasons for an extension of any length. For further information about Special Consideration, visit http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/assessments/special-consideration Penalties for late submission Assignments or other assessment tasks conducted during the trimester submitted late without an extension being granted will not be marked. These will be held until final grading and may be taken into consideration in a pass/fail situation. Turnitin Students are strongly recommended to check originality through Turnitin, prior to submitting the final assessment. For more information about Turnitin and how to check for originality, refer to the Deakin website information at: http://www.deakin.edu.au/learning/cloud-learning/clouddeakin/guides/assessment/turnitinplagiarism-and-grademark Referencing You must correctly use the Harvard style of referencing in this assessment. Academic Integrity, Plagiarism and Collusion Plagiarism and collusion constitute extremely serious breaches of academic integrity. They are forms of cheating, and severe penalties are associated with them, including cancellation of marks for a specific assignment, for a specific unit or even exclusion from the course. If you are ever in doubt about how to properly use and cite a source of information, consult your lecturer or the Study Support website http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/study-support/referencing Page 8 of 9 • Plagiarism occurs when a student passes off as the student’s own work, or copies without acknowledgement as to its authorship, the work of any other person or resubmits their own work from a previous assessment task. • Collusion occurs when a student obtains the agreement of another person for a fraudulent purpose, with the intent of obtaining an advantage in submitting an assignment or other work. Work submitted may be reproduced and/or communicated by the university for the purpose of assuring academic integrity of submissions (http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/studysupport/referencing/academic-integrity Can I recycle my own work? Deakin students are not permitted to recycle their assessment work, or parts of assessment work, without the approval of the unit chair of their current unit. This includes work submitted for assessment at another academic institution. If students wish to reuse or extend parts of previously submitted work, then they should discuss this with the unit chair prior to the submission date. Depending on the nature of the task, the unit chair may permit or decline the request. Assignment submission You must keep a backup copy of every assignment you submit, until the marked assignment has been returned to you. In the unlikely event that one of your assignments is misplaced, you will need to submit your backup copy. Any work you submit may be checked by electronic or other means for the purposes of detecting collusion and/or plagiarism. When you are required to submit an assignment through your Cloud Unit Site, you will receive an email to your Deakin email address confirming that it has been submitted. You should check that you can see your assignment in the Submissions view of the Assignment dropbox folder after upload, and check for, and keep, the email receipt for the submission Building evidence of your experiences, skills and knowledge (Portfolio) Building a portfolio that evidences your skills, knowledge and experience will provide you with a valuable tool to help you prepare for interviews and to showcase to potential employers. There are a number of tools that you can use to build a portfolio. You are provided with cloud space through OneDrive, or through the Portfolio tool in the Cloud Unit Site, but you can use any storage repository system that you like. Remember that a Portfolio is YOUR tool. You should be able to store your assessment work, reflections, achievements and artefacts in YOUR Portfolio. Once you have completed this assessment piece, add it to your personal Portfolio to use and showcase your learning later, when applying for jobs, or further studies. Curate your work by adding meaningful tags to your artefacts that describe what the artefact represents Page 9 of 9

Assessment Rubric for Research Proposal — MMK265 (Marketing Research) T1 2016 Criterion Unacceptable Developing Accomplished Exemplary Weight Title (1), Executive Summary (2) and Table of Contents (3) (weight: 5 marks) Title or executive summary were omitted or inappropriate given the problem, research questions, and method. (0-1.4) Title or executive summary lacks relevance or fails to offer appropriate details about the variables, context, or methods of the proposed study. (1.5-2.4) Title and executive summary are relevant, offering details about the proposed research study. (2.5-3.4) Title and executive summary are informative, succinct, and offer sufficiently specific details about the variables, context, and proposed methods of the study. (3.5-5) 5% Introduction (4) Background to the research & purpose of the Study (5) (weight: 5 marks) Introduction and background were omitted or inappropriate. (0-1.4) Introduction and background lack relevance or fails to offer appropriate details. (1.5-2.4) Introduction and background are relevant, offering details about the proposed research study. (2.5-3.4) Introduction and background are informative, and offer sufficiently specific details about the proposed study. (3.5-5) 5% Problem, significance and objectives of the research (6 & 7) (weight: 5 marks) Statement of the problem, significance, purpose, questions/hypotheses, or definitions of constructs and variables were omitted or inappropriate. Although a research issue is identified, the statement is too broad or the description fails to establish the importance of the Identifies a relevant research issue. Connections established with the literature. Articulates a specific, significant problem by connecting that problem to the literature. Statements of purpose flows logically from the introduction. The 5% 1 (0-1.4) problem area. Connections to the literature are unclear, debatable, or insignificant. (1.5-2.4) (2.5-3.4) research problem and the statement of significance clearly establishes relevance to the case at hand (3.5-5) Research design recommended for the project (8): Type of research chosen and information required (weight: 20 marks) The research design is inappropriate or has not been identified and or described using standard terminology. (0-5.9) The research design is confusing or incomplete given the research questions. (6-9.9) The research design has been identified and described in sufficiently de