Semester 2: The Research Plan Assignment Briefing
This assignment is designed to provide an opportunity for you to practice your research skills and
academic writing in preparation for undertaking your International Management Research Project in
Phase 2. Hence for the ASRM assignment, you are asked to write a Research Plan (max 2,500 words)
which proposes a management research study which is based on your critique of relevant literature,
and is also underpinned by your consideration of research methods materials, issues and ideas
which we have studied in this module. It requires you to read and critique an area of management
literature, based on which you will then propose a research issue/research questions, and potential
methods and data analysis techniques for studying this. In this way, writing the Research Plan is an
ideal opportunity for you to start thinking, reading and developing ideas for your potential
International Management Research Project. This assignment may also be used to help guide
supervisor allocations which will take place after the Easter break. However, it will still be possible
to change the focus/topic/ research question/methods or redesign the whole project if you change
your mind before Phase 2 studies begin, as this assignment is a valuable learning opportunity for
developing research skills.
The Research Plan – Structure and Purpose
The research plan – also referred to as a research proposal – is intended as a guiding plan for the
international project that you will then go on to write. In very brief terms, it is a document that will
outline what you intend to research (research question), critically evaluate current knowledge and
published sources on your topic area (literature review), explain how you intend to research your
topic (that is, by what research methods), and critically evaluate any problems or limitations that
you can discern in terms of the ethics, reliability and validity of your research process and results.
The topic：Business strategy (Macro Analysis, CSR, Knowledge
Acquisition, Organisational Behaviour, Competitive Advantage,
Stakeholder Mapping, Mergers, Acquisitions, Strategic Alliance,
Governance, Value Chain Evaluation)
Your Research Plan must include the following sections:
Issue/problem and aim of research (10% of marks)
This section should examine your research interest in the general area you wish to study, and explain
why you feel it is important/interesting to explore – for example, by placing issues in context,
perhaps highlighting what you may see as a gap in our knowledge or an under-researched aspect of
the topic area, and explaining their broader significance.
Critical Literature Evaluation (15% of marks)
1
This section should discuss and critically evaluate (rather than simply summarise) the published
sources of information you have used so far to gain an understanding of the problem you intend to
focus on. It is where you should show your knowledge and understanding of key concepts, theories,
models and/or frameworks which are relevant to and underpin your research focus.
Research questions (5% of marks)
This section should outline the main questions which you are proposing to answer in your research
study. They should be framed in such a manner that they are sufficiently specific to be answerable
using the data you intend to collect.
Research Methods and Approach (50% of marks)
You should make clear precisely what you plan to do and why you have decided to design your
research in the way you have. In addition to explaining your methods in terms of their suitability for
the questions under review, you should give consideration to the potential limitations of your study,
explaining what its shortcomings might be. You should also summarise here any other practical
issues you think may be relevant to your case – for example, limited resources, difficulties of access
to undertake primary research, limited length of time.
If you intend to undertake empirical research, you must include an outline of your questionnaire,
and/or your schedule of interview questions, and/or your observation schedule, to indicate details of
how you intend to collect data. For original analysis of secondary data, this section should explicate
and justify what secondary data will be used, how it will be collected and analysed.
In essence, this section should provide a clear, logically consistent explanation of what you propose
to do and how you intend to do it. In this way, it will demonstrate your methodological knowledge
and understanding by providing the foundation and justification for your proposed approach.
Ethical issues (10% of marks)
This section should discuss any ethical concerns that might be raised in connection with your
research proposal – for example, ethical concerns might be raised by a conflict of interest, or
potential harm to participants – and how you intend to address them.
Plan and timetable of activities (5% of marks)
This section should present a timetable of these intended research activities for the research period,
from May to September 2020.
References (5% of marks)
A list of references you have used in your assignment must be appended in the style required for a
Master’s dissertation at Cardiff University.
What sort of questions should be answered in a Research Plan?
2
The following questions provide a useful guide for the key components of research propositions and
studies i.e. plans and projects. They are included here to help you consider the type of material
which you might include in your Research Plan. You may wish to bear these in mind for Phase 2 as
they are also relevant to conducting a research project. They are intended to prompt you to
consider some important questions which research studies need to address. These are not
necessarily exhaustive, and also you may not need to address all the questions.
What are the research issues you intend to address?
Is it an appropriate issue in terms of its breadth, depth and general scope?
What sources of literature have given you an initial understanding of the problem?
How has the critical literature evaluation informed your research design?
How have you selected your research methods?
o Will this research be done by conducting original primary research fieldwork or through
an original primary analysis of a sample of secondary data?
o For either an empirical approach or an original analysis of secondary data:
What data collection methods do you plan to use?
Are there any limitations in your chosen data collection method? If so, how could
minimise those limitations?
What type of empirical data do you need? For example, if you need to collect data on
people, do you need factual data, their opinions, or an understanding of their
behaviours? Is your research interested in different categories of people? How can
you get access to these people?
What are the important concepts or variables and how would you measure them?
(eg. If you are researching the impact of a new marketing initiative, how will you
measure ‘impact’?)
What is your population? What sampling strategy would you use and why?
How will you try to ensure that your findings are valid and reliable? For example, does your
research design and range of sources – be they primary or secondary – enable you to
triangulate data and cross reference your results?
What ethical issues might you face in this research, and how will you deal them?
This Research Plan is a key step in the research process and will be particularly significant to your
successful progress through the Research Project phase. Take time in focusing on the plan and
challenge yourselves to understand what the research process involves. It is a demanding, but
highly rewarding step in the learning that you will take away with you from your Master’s
programme.
