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How has the proliferation of information communication technology impacted retailers relative to consumers?

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How has the proliferation of information communication technology impacted retailers relative to consumers?

Final Report Structure: Section A&B

Number of references: it is difficult to request a specific number of references from all students. However, it may be difficult to produce a good Final Report with less than 20 academic journal paper references. Using 20 or more does not guarantee a good grade.

Section A: (word limit: 5,000 words)

  1. 1. Overview (up to 500 words)
  • Introduce Section A. Provide a short summary of the initial proposal, and the overall view you developed about the topic. Reiterate why the questions are worth exploring further using research evidence. Present the question and sub questions.
  1. Critical Review of Academic Research Evidence (up to 3,500 words)
  • ·  You will provide a detailed critical literature review – in response to your Question (and sub questions). It will be analytical rather than descriptive.
  • ·  Your sub questions may help you structure your work. You are advised to address each sub question one at a time.
  • ·  You will need to think carefully and critically about what is known and what is not known in relation to your question.
  • ·  Avoid description. Instead, try to analyse, discuss, critique, question and develop arguments within your work. Critically review the literature, rather than just report what it says.
  • ·  The opinions, statements, assertions and arguments you present, will be the result of careful consideration and analysis of the evidence in the journal papers.
  • ·  Reference using Harvard APA.
  1. Conclusions (up to 1,000 words)
  • ·  You will conclude with what you have found / discovered. You will need to ensure that you respond directly to your question. Remember, your sub questions helped you do this – so refer to your main question and the sub-questions in this section.
  • ·  Your conclusions will be well considered and well thought through.
  • ·  You will need to consider the extent to which your review (and analysis) of academic knowledge helps you provide answers to your question.
  • ·  You should include references to the literature where appropriate, to support conclusions.

 

 

 

 

Section B: (word limit: 2,000 words)

  1. Usefulness, potential Implications and Impact (up to 1,000 words)
  • ·  Following the Section A; you will evaluate the usefulness of what you have found/concluded to the „business world‟ (e.g. industry/organisations/businesses/employees/policy makers).
  • ·  You stated in your Initial proposal why you thought this area was worth exploring. Now you can discuss the extent to which what you have actually discovered may be useful. You can link back to the Initial Proposal to some of the points you made (and the conventional wisdom on the topic).
  • ·  You should consider: what are the implications of my work? How might the knowledge I have uncovered/concluded with, have an impact?
  • ·  Include references (using Harvard APA) to support your statements.
  • In the business world, what does it mean to them?
  1. Research Recommendations (up to 400 words)
  • ·  In this section you will recommend what researchers could do (i.e. future research topics/methods/research design) to address any knowledge gaps you identified, and explore issues further.
  • ·  Reference (using Harvard APA) areas of research you think could be developed.
  1. Reflection (up to 600 words)
  • Finally, you will comment on what you have learnt from doing this project; what skills you feel you have developed; how the project has affected your employability.

 

The Business Research Project 2014-15. :

Advice:

The Critical Review will gather momentum as you read more and think more about what you are reading. As you understand more and more, you will probably start to think about the question (and sub questions) in a different light, and may realise there are perspectives/ways of thinking about the topic you did not expect.

You have to stay within your discipline – business/management/strategy/marketing/HRM related journals – would be appropriate for the BRP. Try to review literature within the domain of Business. If you find yourself reading academic papers from biology, archaeology, astrology or physics based journals – you have gone off track!

Your conclusions:

Your conclusions will contain limitations and will not be “the” definitive and final answers to the questions you explore – but they will be well reasoned and the result of thorough analysis of academic research literature. Your opinions, statements, assertions and arguments will be the result of careful consideration and analysis of the evidence in the sources (as much as possible they will not be based on common sense or taken for granted assumptions) and your conclusions will be well considered.

Make your assumptions explicit where possible, and give some thought to the limitations of your conclusions.

It will be very, very unlikely you can conclude that X, Y or Z is, without doubt, the reason, or the answer to something – instead, as a result of your analysis and discussion, you may feel more confident than you did before undertaking this project, in stating that you think (given what you have explored and analysed) one conclusion is more likely than another. You can comment on whether this contrasts with perspectives found in the Initial Proposal – and why that might be.

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