academic basis of the dissertation

BS4T01 Dissertation Handbook (60 credits)

AssignmentTutorOnline

Module Leader: Gabor Horvath

Faculty of Business and Society / Y Gyfadran Busnes a Chymdeithas

University of South Wales/ Prifysgol De Cymru

Pontypridd

CF37 1DL

Room B27, Treforest Campus

Ffôn/Tel: 014434 54247

Ebost/Email: [email protected]

1. CONTENTS
2. Introduction

1. The academic basis of the dissertation
2. Aims of the module
3. Synopsis of module content
4. Learning outcomes
5. Key Skills delivered by this Module
6. Postgraduate skills
7. Assessment requirements
8. Recommended reading
9. Teaching methods

2. Starting the process

1. What happens first?
2. What is included in the support sessions?
3. What should be included in my dissertation proposal?
   1. Clearly focused research aim
   2. Key theoretical concepts and section of literature review
   3. Methods of data collection and analysis
   4. Timetable of activity
4. How do I submit my proposal form?
5. What happens next?

3. Ethical considerations

1. Gaining organisational approval
2. Ethical Considerations
   1. Respecting autonomy…
   2. Avoiding harm…
   3. Treating fairly…
   4. Acting with integrity…
   5. Using resources beneficially…
   6. The responsibility of individuals…
3. Data Protection
   1. Exemption from the Second and Fifth Principle of the Data Protection Act for Research Purposes
4. Confidentiality

4. Motivation

5. Time management

1. The dissertation process
   1. Scheme / award briefing
   2. Taught support
   3. Submitting completed proposal form
   4. Receiving notification of your allocated supervisor
   5. Contacting your supervisor
   6. Literature review
   7. Methodology
   8. Findings
   9. Discussion
   10. Conclusion
   11. Recommendations
   12. Introduction
   13. Abstract
   14. Final draft
   15. Printing
   16. Submission

6. Assessment and progression

1. Handing in your dissertation
   1. Failure To Hand-In
2. How your work is assessed
3. Failure to Achieve a Pass
4. Graduation
5. The possibilities of publication

7. Managing the relationship with your supervisor

1. Roles and Responsibilities: The Supervisor
2. Roles and Responsibilities: The Student
3. Remote Learning and Communication

8. Demonstrating “masterliness” and “originality”

1. Masterliness
2. Originality

9. What should a dissertation contain?

1. Title Page
2. Abstract
3. Table of Contents
4. Introduction
5. Literature review
6. Methodology
   1. Generating Research Topics
   2. Turning topic ideas into focused research aims
   3. Research philosophy

1. Methods of Data Collection
   1. Questionnaires
   2. Interviews
   3. Observation
   4. Scrutiny of Documents
2. Some General Points
3. Findings: presentation and analysis
   1. Dealing with Data Gathered from Texts or From Open-Ended Questions
   2. Measurements Based on a Study of a Complete Population
   3. Data in the Form of Measurements Based on a Representative Sample
   4. Other Matters Relating to Presentation of Results.
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions and critical reflection
6. Recommendations
7. Appendices
8. List of References
   1. Avoiding plagiarism

10. Presentation

1. Style
2. Typing
3. Length
4. Page Numbering
5. Copies

1. Introduction

1. The academic basis of the dissertation

The dissertation is a significant piece of student-directed learning, based on a detailed investigation into a business-related phenomenon. Its successful completion requires you to undertake a major piece of individual research into a subject or phenomenon that is of interest to you. While the dissertation will not cover all aspects of earlier modules, there is an expectation that it will reveal an understanding of at least some of the theoretical principles from the taught units and an appreciation of how they apply in a live context. The dissertation represents 60 credits – one third of the credits for your entire master’s degree. It is an academic piece of work informed by the QAA and University guidelines, and is intended for an academic audience. Whilst the choice of what you explore and how you explore this is largely up to you, please remember that you must meet certain academic assessment criteria in order to pass this module as with any other assessment on your course so far. You are also advised to speak with your manager and others as appropriate about your proposed topic given.

The remainder of this introduction outlines what you need to demonstrate in order to meet these criteria.

1. Aims of the module

The dissertation requires students to demonstrate the following:

• Originality.
• A clear definition of the issue under investigation and a clear statement of the aims of the study.
• An understanding and use of appropriate research methodology indicating skills in data collection and analysis.
• If appropriate, an analysis of existing practice within the organisation(s) in terms of the theoretical framework established for the study and in terms of comparative practice.
• The extent to which all of the above result in a set of conclusions which are consistent with the research.
• The setting out of clear recommendations for action, adoption or otherwise.

1. Synopsis of module content

In relation to the focus of the (dissertation) study, work submitted by candidates demonstrates their ability to reflect upon and review critically their experience and the work of others. Concepts and issues are analysed and evaluated and the submitted work shows an ability to select and order evidence and arguments. Discussion is placed within a clearly defined conceptual framework. The work is well presented and is fluent, readable and scholarly in style.

In the dissertation, there is a clear explanation of the chosen methodology, satisfactory application of chosen methods and identification of potential weaknesses in the research design.

Work of outstanding quality is characterised by evidence of a new synthesis which emerges through the critical analysis of the candidate’s own educational experience and the work of others. As a result, the work submitted shows originality and insight.

1. Learning outcomes

In order to complete the module successfully, students are expected to be able to demonstrate the following:

• Analytical skills, based on a thorough and systematic approach to the handling of primary and secondary data.
• The ability to evaluate, appraise and critique new ideas, models and concepts, and to identify any biases and assumptions inherent in these.
• The skills of unravelling complex ideas and problems, interpreting and synthesising these effectively.
• The development of personal initiative, attitudes of responsibility, and systematic approaches to problem solving and project management.

1. Key Skills delivered by this Module

• Problem solving abilities, including the processes of planning, decision-making and understanding implementation and control mechanisms.
• An appreciation of the critical importance of lifelong learning and continuing professional development.
• Developing the personal attitudes which characterise effective researchers, including self-awareness and criticality.

1. Postgraduate skills

The following outline of postgraduate skills has been summarised from the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)’s Benchmark for Postgraduate Degrees in Business (2001). The benchmark outlines a set of skills that a student at this level will need to evidence through their study. The list is not exhaustive, but covers the main factors a marker will be looking for in a piece of postgraduate research work.

• Critical thinking and creativity
• Organisation of information and knowledge skills including scanning and organising data, abstracting meaning from information
• Analysis, synthesis, and appraisal skills
• An ability to identify assumptions and to evaluate evidence, detect false logic or reasoning, identify implicit values, define terms adequately and generalise appropriately
• Problem solving and decision making skills
• Ethics and value management
• Effective communication skills

In addition the benchmark statement outlines the characteristics of different types of Masters programmes:

A student studying for a specialist degree would be expected to evidence:

• Deep knowledge and understanding of the specialist subject
• Subject knowledge that is embedded within a wider organisational and contextual framework.
• Understanding of the current issues and thinking / techniques applicable to research in the subject area.
• Combinations of both theoretical and applied perspectives including sufficient knowledge to apply specialist skills.

1. Assessment requirements

Students will be assessed by means of a dissertation of 18,000 words +/- 10%. This does not include appendices, reference list or bibliography. Please adhere to this word count. Writing concisely is an important skill.

Note that for some courses, they have a choice of hand in date (depending on the nuances of their particular schedule). If you decide to go for the earlier date then you cannot then change your mind and go for the later date. You will be asked to complete a disclaimer form which evidences that you have agreed to an early hand in date. If your dissertation is then late the normal rules for late work will apply.

1. Recommended reading

This reading list offers a short selection of the many management research texts available, and to give you a suitable cross section. Please remember that you will be required to conduct a comprehensive search of the literature on research. These should be viewed as a starting point.

There may be specific research methods books or articles that particular scheme leaders will ask you to read in addition to these.

Alvesson, M. and Deetz, S. (2000) Doing Critical Management Research, London Sage.

Bell, J. (1999) Doing Your Research Project. 3rd edn. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Blaxter, L., Hughes, C. and Tight, M. (1996) How to Research. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Collis, J. and Hussey, R. (2003) Business Research: A practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0333983254

Cottrell, S. (2011) Business Research: A practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students, Palgrave Macmillan, Second edition, ISBN: 978-0-230-28529-3, ISBN10: 0-230-28529-5

Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Lowe, A. (1991) Management Research : An Introduction, Sage Publications Ltd, ISBN 080398393X

Gill, J. and Johnson, P. (1997), Research Methods for Managers, 2nd ed, Paul Chapman Publishing, ISBN 185396350X

Gummesson, E. (1999) Qualitative Methods in Management Research. London, Sage

Jankowicz, A.D. (2005) Business Research Projects 4^th Ed., Thomson Learning, ISBN 1844800822

Jolliffe, F.R. (1986) Survey Design: An Analysis. Ellis Herwood.

Riley, M., Wood, R.C., Clark, M.A., Wilkie, E. and Szivas, E. (2000) Researching and Writing Dissertations in Business and Management, Thomson Learning, ISBN 1861526083

Saunders, M. (1999), Research Methods for Business Students, 2nd ed, Financial Times Prentice Hall, ISBN 0273639773

1. Teaching methods

The module consists of a self-managed piece of investigation, based on a business theme. Students’ own efforts will be supplemented by dissertation preparation lectures and tutorials, online materials and advice and encouragement from an academic supervisor.

This means that the staff support you will receive is divided into two main aspects: Firstly, you will receive support through class contact support on the dissertation preparation classes as well as being able to access support materials on the Blackboard site. This is in addition to the advice and support already given in the Research Methods and is absolutely critical to the success of your dissertation. Please check the schedule on the Dissertation module site. Secondly, you will receive 9 hours of individual supervision by a member of staff. This supervision will help you progress your work through to completion. Your supervisor will not spend time covering the same issues as were covered in the classroom contact.

Finally a plea from staff associated with dissertations. This handbook contains a huge amount of information and we appreciate it will take time to read it all. However, the vast majority of the frequently asked questions we receive about content, handing in, layout, administrative processes etc. are covered in this book. Please take a few minutes to consult it to make sure your query is not answered here before picking up the phone or hitting the send button on your email.

2. Starting the process

You are about to embark upon a significant piece of research. What you are about to begin will be for many the most significant contribution you will make to your field of study. This is an exciting prospect and one to savour. For some, completing masters’ level study can be a life changing experience, not just in an organisational setting but in making you look at life in general and problem solving in particular in a new way. Once you have acquired the taste for bringing a critical and educated perspective to bear it is a taste that stays with you well beyond your academic study. You may go on to complete further study or you may make a nuisance of yourself in future meetings at work, but you will certainly be better equipped to face any number of problems that you may encounter from now on. Please take these comments in the spirit they are meant. The Masters level dissertation should be treated as an opportunity to enjoy and to stretch yourself, to discover new things and to develop new capacity for thought that will stay with you. It is not an easy journey by any means but the travel and destination can both be rewarding. The following sections of this handbook take you through each of the points raised in this introduction in order that you are prepared to start work on your dissertation, stay motivated throughout the process, and have the necessary information to complete the process successfully.

1. What happens first?

You will know when your groups dissertation preparation classes are scheduled from the Dissertation Blackboard site. Following these classes, you will complete and submit the dissertation proposal form, a copy of which is on your dissertation Blackboard site. Once your proposal has been accepted you will be allocated a supervisor and can then continue with your investigation.

You may already have some idea of the subject or phenomenon you wish to investigate. This may be a broad interest in a particular topic area, or you may already have a very specific focus in mind. You may even have some idea of how you intend to conduct your research. Some of you may still be unsure of the focus of your research.

The good news is that we will provide the necessary support to help you focus on a suitable research aim, by which we mean one that is relevant to your studies, appropriate to meeting the module requirements, and capable of being undertaken by you in the time available. This will be provided during the taught support you will receive up-front (including the Research Methods module), before submitting a dissertation proposal for consideration.

1. What is included in the support sessions ?

The taught session may cover the following topics (working in conjunction with the Research Methods Module):

• Unit 1 – Overview of the dissertation module
• Unit 2 – Motivation
• Unit 3 – Time management
• Unit 4 – Managing the relationship with your supervisor
• Unit 5 – Masterliness and originality
• Unit 6 – Setting a suitable research aim
• Unit 7 – Achieving criticality in a literature review
• Unit 8 – “Ologies” and “isms”; ontology, epistemology, methods
• Unit 9 – The discussion chapter – what it is about; why it is included; how to critically relate your findings to your literature review
• Unit 10 – Conclusions and critical reflection
• Unit 11 – Ethical considerations
• Unit 12 – Completing the dissertation proposal

1. What should be included in my dissertation proposal?

The outcome of the classroom and on-line sessions is that you will be fully prepared to complete a dissertation proposal form that sets out the course of action for your research project. This is your dissertation, and the course of action will be determined by you, although we will assess whether or not your plan is realistic and will offer constructive advice on amending it if necessary.

1. Clearly focused research aim

Your proposal will let us know why you are researching what you are researching by getting you to think about your interest in your research aim, and focusing this clearly in an acceptable scholarly way.

1. Key theoretical concepts and section of literature review

You will need to take some time to think about what else has been done in this area already. Your proposal form will outline some of the key theoretical concepts relevant to your area of investigation.

As part of the proposal you will be required to submit an initial draft of a section of around 1000-1500 words of your literature review. This will be forwarded to your supervisor. You will be able to discuss the results and implications of this with your supervisor.

1. Methods of data collection and analysis

You will need to think about how, where and when you will collect and analyse your primary data. The proposal form has a section for you to outline your research plan.

1. Timetable of activity

Your proposal will also outline your planned timetable of activity and planned dates for completion of key sections of your work in order that you may later discuss this and reach an agreement with your supervisor concerning what you should do and by when this should be done.

1. How do I submit my proposal form?

After engaging with the taught materials you should then fill in the proposal form which is found on the Dissertation Blackboard site.

Consult your schedule to find the date when this is due for your cohort. It is absolutely critical that you ensure you know the timing requirements of your particular circumstances – this is your responsibility.

Your proposal form should be submitted electronically to the digital drop-box on the Blackboard module site via Turnitin.

1. What happens next?

Your proposal may be accepted as submitted, or may need further work. If your proposal form needs further work in order to be accepted you will be informed of this by your Course Leader. You will then be informed of the specific areas within your proposal that you need to develop further. You will also be informed of the date by which this should be completed and your proposal form re-submitted via Blackboard.

Once your proposal is accepted your form will be processed by the Course Leader and a supervisor allocated in negotiation with the relevant Academic Manager. Supervisors are allocated on the basis of subject expertise and workload. Please note that the Business School cannot guarantee that your supervisor will have in-depth subject expertise in your chosen area but they will be an experienced supervisor. The name of the supervisor allocated to students will then be communicated to students via the Blackboard site for the dissertation module.

Once a supervisor is allocated the student should make contact as soon as possible. Please note that it is your responsibility to make the initial contact with your supervisor.

3. Ethical considerations

This section addresses two issues. Firstly, gaining organisational approval for your dissertation. Secondly, ethical considerations are addressed and some guidelines are set out to inform your topic choice and subsequent research.

1. Gaining organisational approval

The majority of students on the Masters programmes in the Business School will be doing research within an organisation, often their own place of work. Where an organisation is involved it is vital that the organisation approves of the research that is being conducted. The reasons for this are two-fold. Firstly, it is important for you to receive the co-operation of key individuals in the organisation as well as ensuring that you will be given access to data. Secondly, it is also important that the University maintains a mutually respected relationship with supporting organisations.

1. Ethical Considerations

Ethics is a complex field, but in professional contexts its fundamental concerns are to:

• Respect the autonomy of individuals
• Avoid causing harm
• Treat people fairly
• Act with integrity
• Use resources as beneficially as possible

Each of these issues is addressed in a little more detail below by considering some questions to be addressed when ethically appraising research:

1. Respecting autonomy…

Do the objectives or methodology of the research fail to respect autonomy by, for example, deceit, dishonesty, the invading of privacy, breaking confidentiality or by using data in ways not clearly stated to researchers and subjects? These subjects may include people who are not actively involved in the research but about whom data is used. Are all likely participants, including subjects and researchers, fully informed of the nature of the research before deciding whether to participate or allow information about them-selves to be used?

Is the situation in which people are invited to take part such that they will not feel pressures or coerced into doing so? Can participants withdraw from the project at any time without feeling they might be penalised for doing so?

Is written consent to take part ethically appropriate?

1. Avoiding harm…

Are any adverse effects likely on subjects, researchers, institutions or communities from the carrying out of the research and its consequences, including the publication of findings?

Have all reasonable steps been taken to eliminate the risk of harm? If the objectives cannot be achieved without risk of harm, should the project be abandoned? Is there any justification for continuing with it?

1. Treating fairly…

Do researchers and subjects get the resources and support they need to carry out the research and to cope with its impact, not merely during its execution but also after its completion?

1. Acting with integrity…

Is the impartiality of the project at risk by dependence on a sponsor, institution or participants with particular interests?

Will the methodology achieve the stated objectives?

1. Using resources beneficially…

Is the project the most beneficial use of resources such as data, participant’s input and sponsor’s resources? If not, should an alternative project be put forward, or fewer resources used?

Dilemmas arise when these ethical concerns conflict. When this happens, we can either aim for a compromise between their demands or give priority to one concern over the others. There may be no ethically ‘correct’ course of action; only the one we judge to be appropriate after considering all ethical concerns.

1. The responsibility of individuals…

Since these ethical concerns are inevitably very general, as an individual researcher you are responsible for relating them to your specific activities and for meeting their requirements as far as possible. You will be required to consider the ethical issues arising from your planned research, and to address these in your dissertation proposal. If you think that there are particular ethical issues then you should explicitly raise them with your supervisor. If you are not certain then seek their advice. In some cases, permission may have to be sought both from the organisation you are working with and from the University Ethics Committee depending upon the nature of your proposal.

It is not anticipated that MSc students will be undertaking work which requires CRB clearance but again, if you are at all uncertain, please check this out with your supervisor.

Your professional organisation may offer advice on ethical issues. For example, the Market Research Society, ICC and ESOMAR publish codes of conduct suitable for marketing and social researchers.

1. Data Protection

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 Personal Data means data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from the data, or from the data and other information in the possession of, or likely to come into the possession of, the data controller and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual. Processing means obtaining, recording or holding the information or data or carrying out any operation or set of operations on the information or data, including: organisation, adaptation or alteration; retrieval, consultation or use; disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available; alignment, combination, blocking, erasure or destruction. In the UK the eight data protection principles are:

The First Principle – Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully.

The Second Principle – Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.

The Third Principle – Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.

The Fourth Principle – Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.

The Fifth Principle – Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.

The Sixth Principle – Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act.

The Seventh Principle – Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

The Eighth Principle – Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area, unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

1. Exemption from the Second and Fifth Principle of the Data Protection Act for Research Purposes

Where personal data processed for research, statistical or historical purposes are not processed to support decisions affecting particular individuals or in such a way as likely to cause substantial damage or distress to any data subject such processing will not breach the Second Principle and the data may be retained indefinitely despite the Fifth Principle. As long as the results of the research are not published in a form which identifies any data subject, there is no right of subject access to the data.

The text of the Data Protection Act 1998 can be accessed at:

http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm

Other equivalent legislation exists for each member state of the EU in compliance with EU Directive 95/46/EC.

1. Confidentiality

If you are conducting your research within an organisation or industry, you will need to be aware of the issue of confidentiality in two contexts. The first involves your day-to-day dealings with those who supply you with information; the second concerns the final report.

During the investigative stages of your dissertation you will need to earn and maintain the trust of your informants within and outside the organisation. It is therefore essential that you are seen to be respecting the confidentiality with which some of that information may have been disclosed to you for the purpose of your research.

One of the problems that may be encountered within an organisa­tion is that one of your key informants may press you for information about what you have been told by another key informant or department. It is essential not to give way to such requests since doing so would prejudice future enquiries within the organisation. If asked, you should make it clear that as this information has been provided to you for research purposes only, it therefore cannot be divulged.

The second problem comes at the time of writing up your final report. In general, your dissertation must be viewed as a publicly available document. It is therefore important that nothing should be written which could be potentially damaging to the interests of the organisation (e.g. by making information available to a competitor, or by influencing public image) or of individuals within it. A commonly used approach is to attempt to anonymise the document; however, there are situations in which even the most scrupulous efforts to achieve anonymity leave scope for an informed reader to identify the organisation and/or the individuals concerned.

If it is clear that the contents of a report could be prejudicial to organisational interests, it is possible to request that your dissertation be classed as a restricted-access document, in which case it would be read by your supervisor and the external examiner(s) only, and would not be placed on departmental or college library shelves. If this becomes the case then you should indicate this clearly within your submitted work.

Researchers sometimes allow the organisation to satisfy itself with the contents of a dissertation report before it is made public. This can have the advantage of shifting the onus onto someone else’s shoulders, and also provides an opportunity for a representative of the organisation to confirm the factual accuracy of the report. However, it must be borne in mind that this could prejudice your own editorial control over the contents and style of the document, and also that such a consultative stage can become time consuming and affect your own ability to meet the deadlines prescribed for the dissertation.

4. Motivation

The dissertation will be undertaken over a considerable period of time. Your own involvement is likely to be around 400-600 hours of study – reading, conducting primary research, and writing up your work. This is necessarily a long process, and you will need to keep your motivation throughout in order to achieve your goal of successful completion of your course. There are three essential requirements to achieving your goals:

• Motivation – That you want to achieve your goal
• Means – That you know how to achieve your goal
• Opportunity – That you have the chance to achieve your goal

So, take a little time now to think about your goal. What do you define as your end result? Is it: Finishing your dissertation? Receiving a bound copy of your work? Handing it in? Receiving your results? Attending graduation? The employment and career development opportunities it may bring? Whatever your end goal, now is the time to start focusing on it.

5.0 Time management

By now you should be realising the amount of time and effort you are required to put in to undertake this significant piece of work. You will need to dedicate around 400-600 hours of study to your dissertation. Managing your time will be one of the essential skills you need to develop in order to undertake the dissertation and complete it successfully. You will be required to submit a timetable of activity as part of your dissertation proposal so you should start thinking now about how you will manage your time in order to balance your commitments to your studies, your family and friends and your work. The steps you will need to take along the dissertation process are outlined below. You should think about how long it is likely to take you to complete each one of these steps and then use this information to complete the Gantt chart within the dissertation proposal.

1. The dissertation process
   1. Dissertation Preparation Classes

When is this taking place?

If you do not yet know, you should check the dissertation module site.

1. Online Support

If you are studying off-campus, do you have access to the Blackboard materials?

1. Submitting completed proposal form

Have you finally set your research aim?

Have you considered the academic literature you will access?

How long will it take you to undertake the section of literature review required for the proposal form (around 1000-1500 words)?

Have you considered your methods of data collection and analysis?

1. Receiving notification of your allocated supervisor

Please see the schedule for the date on which you will know when you are allocated a supervisor (normally 4 weeks after the submission of your proposal but this may be longer depending on holiday periods etc.). If you do not hear anything in the scheduled time, please contact the module leader.

1. Contacting your supervisor

It is your responsibility to make initial contact with your supervisor.

When will you do this?

How will you first contact your supervisor?

1. Literature review

How long will it take you to conduct a thorough review of the relevant literature?

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Methodology

How long will it take you to write a confident defence of your method?

How will you conduct your primary research?

How much time will you devote to the following:

• Data collection
• Data analysis – Do you already have the necessary skills you will require in order to undertake this analysis? Do you require time to learn or brush up on skills such as using certain analysis software (e.g. NVIVO; SPSS)?

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Findings

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Discussion

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Conclusion

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Recommendations

Will you be including recommendations in your dissertation or not?

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Introduction

By when do you aim to complete this chapter of your dissertation?

1. Abstract

By when do you aim to complete this section of your dissertation?

1. Final draft

By when do you aim to complete your final draft?

1. Printing

You will submit your dissertation by Turnitin?

However, do you aim to have your work hard-bound by a professional service? Note that the University has specialist printers available should you wish to use them.

1. Submission

What is your final hand-in date?

5. Assessment and Progression

The marking scheme that is used to assess your work is available in the Appendix to this handbook for guidance but please note that the marking scheme is itself not a set prescription for the allocation of percentages. Students and supervisors should take note of the caveats attached to the marking scheme. Reference should also be made to the validated aims and learning outcomes for this module and the QAA guidelines set out in the introduction to this handbook (Section 1) above, and the characteristics of the suggested content that follow (set out in Section 9). These may also be consulted by assessors in taking a holistic view of the merits of individual pieces of work.

1. Handing in your dissertation

You should consult your cohort schedule with regard to your hand in date.

1. Failure To Submit.

Failure to hand in can occur for a number of reasons.

Where a dissertation is not received on the deadline date it will be counted as non-submission and results in repeating the module.

There can be unforeseen circumstances that mean students have genuine extenuating circumstances preventing them handing in a completed work. Where this occurs you should contact the Advice Zone to obtain information on making an extenuating circumstances claim.

It is worth mentioning that, for example, losing your work due to computer problems (you should be keeping back-up copies), or pressures of work are highly unlikely to be accepted as a extenuating circumstance. If you find yourself applying for extenuating circumstance please keep your supervisor informed, although remember that you are responsible for obtaining and returning the relevant form.

1. How your work is assessed

Once your dissertation is received, it is first marked by your supervisor. It will then be second marked by another member of staff. This is a quality control process through which a mark is arrived at by agreement between the two markers, although the initial marking occurs independently.

Please be aware that a large number of dissertations are also examined by external examiners who will satisfy themselves that the marks awarded are fair.

Once this process is complete the marks will be considered by the relevant Subject Board and the relevant Award Board. The outcome will then be officially communicated to students via the normal online processes.

As you can see the dissertation assessment process is quite involved, chiefly to ensure students are treated fairly. This means that supervisors and other markers or examiners are under significant pressure and may not respond favourably to being telephoned or emailed by students asking for results before the process is complete. Please be patient with us, rest assured the marking process proceeds as quickly as possible while ensuring due care and attention to fairness is applied.

A random sample of students may be asked to sit a Viva Voce examination. This is an oral examination which will be conducted by the Supervisor, the second marker and by a member of staff who was independent of the original marking e.g. The Dissertation Module Leader or Course Leader.

1. Failure to Achieve a Pass

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of student and supervisor a dissertation may be handed in that does not meet the requirements of a pass grade. Unless extenuating circumstances intervene this is counted as a failed first attempt and you have one more opportunity to re-sit the dissertation and hand in at the relevant re-sit date. You will not have to change topics or start an entirely new dissertation. You should be aware that the maximum mark achievable for a re-sit is the 40% pass mark.

1. Graduation

The graduation ceremony will take place at the University of South Wales either in July or December following your Award Board (see the schedule for details).

You may receive an invitation to the graduation ceremony before you have completed your dissertation. This is normal University procedure and is necessary for us to establish who is likely to be attending from all those who could be eligible to attend.

1. The possibilities of publication

It is possible that aspects of your dissertation may be of suffi­cient rigour and importance to warrant submitting to journals for publication. While this is not appropriate in all cases we may encourage you to participate in the production of a publishable version. As this will normally happen after you have obtained your degree you may feel at this point that you have had enough of it and may be reluctant to put in additional effort. Alternatively you may feel that you lack the experience and expertise to turn the dissertation, or part of it, into a publishable article. If such a situation arises you may consider a joint effort with your supervisor leading to a paper under joint authorship.

Unless exceptional circumstances dictate otherwise, the resulting publication will almost always have to be joint authored with the supervisor as he or she will have to bring experience to bear on the considerable work necessary to ensure the paper obeys the conventions of the publishing journal. Publication is in your interest but is voluntary and no pressure will be put on you to publish if you do not wish to do so.

6. Managing the relationship with your supervisor

Prior to your first contact with your supervisor you will have attended the Dissertation Preparation classes (as well as attending the Research Methods Module). Your supervisor will assume that you have engaged with these taught sessions and will not be prepared to spend time addressing the basics of that which should have already been covered.

You also have this handbook with details of word counts, referencing, layout, etc. Study this and put it all into effect. It is very frustrating for a supervisor to have to answer simple questions which are already covered in the handbook, or to pull you up about simple points which you should be familiar with.

As you near the end of your studies and are about to embark on the dissertation you may well become increasingly tense and agitated about the support you feel you deserve. Remember, though, that although your dissertation is all-important to you, it is only one of a whole range of priorities for your supervisor. Reading dissertation drafts is difficult and time consuming. A supervisor will also be supervising other students, as well as having a heavy teaching load. So remember that there are other priorities.

Please also bear in mind that your supervisor will want to take holiday during the year, and that usually these may and indeed often coincide with your periods of panic. Each year there are students who make formal complaints that supervisors should not be allowed to take holiday in the run up to dissertation hand in: this clearly demonstrates how their expectations have gone adrift from reality. You can expect your supervisor to be off duty for a while each year in the December/January period, around April, and in the July/August period. So discuss this in advance with your supervisor and work around these dates.

The ideal relationship will be a co-operative one with benefits arising for both student and supervisor. You are urged to study the roles and responsibilities set out below in Section 7.2 and Section 7.3 but overall the relationship should be based on one of professionalism and mutual respect. There is also a large degree of common sense involved in making the relationship work. Supervisors take different approaches but, in general, email is a good way to communicate. Also if you want your supervisor to read 5000 words for example, please do not email it on a Friday and ask for feedback on Monday morning. Chances are that your supervisor has many students demanding similar attention and you may have to be patient at times. You should expect comments within about 14 days normally – beyond that, it is worth dropping your supervisor a reminder. Bear this 14-day turnaround in mind as you near the deadline for submission. If you haven’t allowed enough time, don’t expect your supervisor to be able to recover the time that you have lost.

At the earliest possible stage, the supervisor and student should meet and agree on an approach to the management of the dissertation. Please remember that it is your responsibility to make the initial contact with your supervisor, to keep to your timetabled plan of activity as closely as possible, to inform your supervisor as early as possible if this is no longer possible, and to re-negotiate an amended plan of activity to which you will be able to keep. It may not always be possible but it is recommended that you arrange to meet face-to-face at the University or another mutually convenient location for your first meeting so that your relationship gets off to a good start in terms of quickly building trust and rapport. Obviously this is less important if you already know your supervisor. It is anticipated that the majority of your meetings will be conducted using the telephone and/or skype.

The supervisor and student are expected to form an agreement based on partnership, with both parties providing inputs and having responsibilities. We are avoiding use of the term “contract” with its connotations of terms and conditions, and remedies for non-performance or compliance. However, some supervisors may wish to formalise the agreement in writing, and this agreement could cover issues such as:

• Your proposed timetable of activity and what to do if you are unable to keep to your plan. During the first contact with your supervisor you should also consider whether or not there are significant chunks of time when either party is unavailable, for example away at conferences or on leave.

• How you should contact your supervisor and what form of contact is considered appropriate by both parties (e.g. face-to-face meeting; e-mail; telephone contact). Where will meetings take place? Will meetings take place at all or will you communicate solely by e-mail and/or telephone? Supervisors will vary in their approach but in general email is the preferred method of communication for remote contact. This has the advantage of providing a record, which is clearly in the interest of both parties.
• How often should contact occur? When will meetings take place? Should a time of the week be arranged when supervisor and student will be available for “ad hoc” meetings?
• What input is your supervisor offering in terms of reading your work? Will your supervisor want to see a draft or a few pages of each chapter before you complete it, or would prefer you to complete each chapter before submitting it for comment? How often is your supervisor prepared to see each section of your work.

1. Roles and Responsibilities: The Supervisor

The role of dissertation supervisor is supervisory (they are not tutors). They are not there to complete the project for you, but to give advice and encouragement. In particular they may be able to steer you away from unprofitable areas or research, or to give suggestions for directing a project into more fruitful areas. Supervisors can be useful for discussing methodological issues, and for making the conceptual leaps into other academic areas. If you have a supervisor with specialist subject knowledge, use this for supplementing your own background reading. You should also be prepared to be directed in your work.

Remember that, above all, the dissertation should be regarded as a self-managed study programme. It needs to be clear that it is original, that you have taken some initial ideas and developed them yourself. Your supervisor’s input should therefore be minimal. Although the dissertation is a self-managed project you can look for supervisor input in terms of the overall process, methodology and methods. Talk through the details contained in your research proposal with your supervisor in the initial stages and refine your proposal as necessary. In fact you should expect to see far more input from your supervisor in the earlier stages than later – a well-structured piece of research (one that has been clearly thought through) should progress smoothly with minimal supervision.

It is reasonable to expect your supervisor to read and comment on the first draft of your dissertation (or on the first draft of each chapter). It is not usually reasonable to expect the same for the second draft or later versions. If, however, you have agreed with your supervisor that you may submit a second draft, it is good practice for you to tell the supervisor the following:

• This is draft number ….
• I have made the following changes to the following sections…
• Could you please have a quick glance over it to make sure the changes are what you were looking for.

Do not send part chapters for comment unless there is a good reason, you are just wasting your supervisor’s time. If you really must send an incomplete chapter, make it clear what the gaps are and how they will be filled – but remember that you may not get any feedback once these are complete. You are looking for feedback on your work –supervisors make suggestions on how they feel it could be improved. So when you revise the work it is a good idea to implement these suggestions – all of them. Otherwise the supervisors feel that they are wasting their time with you. If you feel you can’t make the changes or disagree with them, then explain why.

This is a self-managed project. Don’t just send of a draft of a chapter and then wait around until you have some feedback on it; move onto the next chapter and then revise the earlier one when the comments come back. Waiting for feedback is usually an excuse for not progressing.

If you are really determined to achieve a high level piece of work, make sure your supervisor knows this as it makes a huge difference to the amount of work you will need to do, and the standard you need to achieve. If instead you just need something which will comfortably pass, then again make this known. Effective communication of this kind is the key to you having your expectations met. There are usually at least 3 separate people involved in the final grading – so although your supervisor may be able to give pointers about how good the work is, nothing is agreed until the final decision of the academic boards held in June or November.

The University of South Wales Handbook for Research Students and their Supervisors contains the following summary of responsibilities. Supervisors should ensure:

• That adequate time is available for supervision and encouragement;
• That the student fully comprehends the complexity of the proposed task;
• That the student is focusing the work in the intended direction; that the student and the university are aware of any ethical, legal or political problems associated with the work;
• That the final dissertation is the student’s own work;
• That the supervisor will act as mentor, guide and friend to the student and will take a keen professional interest in the work of the student.

1. What a supervisor won’t do

• Check grammar and spelling, other than to tell you that your work contains errors.
• Correct mistakes on page numbering, section numbers, tables, etc.
• Deal with problems concerning specific references, other than in general terms
• Tell you what you should be reading (except in general terms)
• Tell you how to do the research

1. Roles and Responsibilities: The Student

Remember that you have access to nine hours of your supervisor’s time, so please use it wisely.

Your role and responsibilities need to be determined and agreed with the supervisor but should be along the following lines;

The student will:

• Ensure that an appropriate amount of time and effort is applied to the dissertation;
• Be receptive to counsel from the supervisor;
• Properly acknowledge text, material and ideas created by others;
• Meet all regulations relating to the work;
• Communicate any problems likely to prejudice the quality or timeliness of the work to the supervisor as and when such problems arise.

1. Remote Learning and Communication

Undertaking a dissertation is a significant challenge and one that should not be underestimated. Up until this final element of your studies many of you will have benefited from the routine of the taught input on modules, with the network of contacts and tutor support inherent in this form of learning. However, while the dissertation is at heart a solitary endeavour that does not mean that the student should be without support at all.

7. Demonstrating “masterliness” and “originality”

1. Masterliness

It is difficult to set detailed criteria for what constitutes a good dissertation which will cover all different types of research. The key point to remember is that you have to demonstrate your competence in conducting a ‘masterly’ investigation into an area of business or managerial interest. We will begin with a consideration of what we mean by being ‘masterly’. As a first step you should carefully familiarise yourself with the paragraphs on post-graduate skills, the suggested content, the marking criteria, and the introduction to carrying out the literature review. You will notice that some common themes recur and it is worth briefly drawing your attention to these here.

Firstly, the need to be critical is essential. This does not mean being purposely negative, but means carrying out an evaluation of literature by comparing and contrasting what commentators have said and identifying contradictions, comparisons and gaps. There is more of this in the section on the literature review. In order to be critical, you need to write with clarity and accuracy. Be clear what you mean. In addition you need to make sure your critique has relevance, goes to the appropriate depth without losing sight of the broader relevance of your comments. You also need to maintain logic in your arguments without taking contradictory positions.

Secondly, theory must be appropriately applied to the organisational or managerial context being studied. Implicit in this is the demonstration that students can distinguish between underlying theory or philosophy and what are actually models or frameworks based on underlying theory and philosophy, or even empirical observation.

Thirdly masterliness demands self-awareness as a researcher. This requires the application of critical evaluation to one’s own underlying methodological assumptions, as well as the methods and techniques used. In a sense it requires awareness of your own philosophical position with regard to research. Similarly it requires students to understand and acknowledge the limitations of their own research, perhaps leading to suggestions for improved future studies.

As has been said, these themes are articulated more fully in some of the following sections and students are urged to consider these in some detail.

1. Originality

“Tutors grow old and grey in direct proportion to the number of retreads they read” (Jankowicz, 2005).

This quote from Jankowicz, although somewhat tongue-in-cheek, does help focus the mind on the sheer number of dissertations your supervisors deal with year upon year. As supervisors, we are often faced with a research topic that has been attempted over and over again by various students, with very few fresh ideas being brought to bear by students in this area. So, a broad answer to the question of what constitutes creativity and originality is that this does involve some element of novelty or “newness”. In order to avoid focusing on an idea that’s a “retread”, and to seek originality, Jankowicz (2005) suggests that you will first need to find out what’s old – “what has gone before, what has already been done and covered in the academic literature, and the things that are taken for granted in organizational setting”. By doing this before setting your research aim you may discover an aspect of a topic that has not yet been covered before, or has not been done in a particular way or context before.

Does this necessarily mean discovering something totally ‘new’?

Many definitions of “research” exist, and many definitions include the concept of newness of discovery within them. However, Riley at. al. (2000) define research in the context of higher education as “a review of existing knowledge in a particular area together with the creation of a new slant on this knowledge. This therefore involves the creation of a new perspective on existing knowledge and need not presuppose the uncovering of new ‘facts’.”

You may achieve originality by:

• consulting different sets of literature, or incorporating literature(s) that

previous writers have not

• using a methodological approach which no one has used before
• using research methods which have not been used before
• asking questions which no one has asked before
• using a sample of organisations or case study organisation which no one has used before
• identifying patterns, relationships, causality through your analysis of data that no one has identified before
• infering things from the research that no one has thought of before

Avoiding plagiarism – Another reason you should aim for originality in your dissertation is to avoid plagiarism. This matter is dealt with more fully in section 9.12.1 of this handbook, but is very important and worth going into in some detail here.

Plagiarism is primarily defined as ‘copying or paraphrasing another person’s work, be it published, or unpublished, without clearly acknowledging it’. Please note that plagiarism is considered to be cheating and is strictly forbidden and may be heavily penalised. Plagiarism may happen intentionally when a student deliberately attempts to pass off someone else’s work as their own, but may also happen unintentionally if you are not aware of the rules concerning this matter, or are unfamiliar with correct forms of referencing. You are strongly advised to check the detail behind your Turnitin originality score to ensure that you have not intentionally plagiarised other work prior to submission (and you are also advised not to recycle your own work as this is also plagiarism).

You are free to quote directly or indirectly from any publication, provided that you provide a reference for the author or originator. In other words, if the research or the views you cite are not your own, then you MUST acknowledge your source(s), ideally in accordance with the Harvard style whereby citations are made in the text by author and date, with a full alphabetical listing at the end of the paper. If you fail to acknowledge your sources, you run the risk of being accused of plagiarism, which is an academic offence.

8. What should a dissertation contain?

If you have not yet undertaken any modules or previous studies into research methods, then you should consult this section of the handbook very thoroughly. Students who have studied research methods previously should consider this section of the handbook as a revision of certain key themes. Whichever case applies to you, please note that this section of the handbook offers an introduction only. You will need to refer to journal articles and books in order to successfully complete your literature review and methodology chapters, and execute your methods effectively.

While every dissertation is, or should be, a unique piece of work, there are enough commonalties for us to suggest how it may be divided up into chapters or sections. The suggestions that follow are substantially drawn from the requirements of the QAA for Masters level dissertations.Please note that these are suggestions only and not a rigid prescription for how you should set out your dissertation.

1. Title Page

The first typed page should contain the title, your name, your student number, the month and year of completion, and the statement:

“This dissertation is submitted in part fulfilment of the (M.Sc. in …. / Masters in Business Administration).

It should also contain the following signed and dated declaration:

“I declare that this dissertation is the result of my own inde­pendent investigation and that all sources are duly acknowledged in the bibliography”

8.1.2 Acknowledgements Page

You are advised to include an acknowledgements page. This will allow you to thank individuals and organisations that have helped you with your dissertation.

1. Abstract

An abstract should be included at the beginning of the dissertation. This should normally be no more than one or two pages long (600 words) and should cover all aspects of the dissertation including the conclusions. Have a look at the abstracts on the journal articles which you have read and/or seek guidance. An abstract is similar to an executive summary in that it should summarise the key elements of your dissertation to the reader. It is also a good idea to list up to six key words that could be used in a future search to identify your dissertation.

1. Table of Contents

You should include a table of contents giving chapter and section headings and page references. E.g. Introduction, Background, Literature Review, Research Methodology, Research Findings, Discussions, Conclusions. You should include a list of figures such as diagrams and tables after the contents page.

1. Introduction

This should contain a contextualisation of the research, in other words what is the research rationale and what is the organisational background. There should be an acknowledgement of the scope and boundaries of the dissertation. It is critical that the aim and objectives of the dissertation are made explicit. It is also a good idea to outline the overall structure of the dissertation to the reader so that they know what to expect in reading the full document.

Note that it is often a good idea to provide your reader with a narration throughout your dissertation ie advise them what is coming up in a chapter and then provide a brief summary at the end of a chapter. In this way you make your dissertation easy to read and follow. However, you are advised to seek advice about this from your supervisor who may have different ideas in this respect.

1. Literature review

This should provide the theoretical background to the dissertation, including a demonstration of why this literature is relevant to your specific aim. It is absolutely vital that this chapter is a critical evaluation and discussion of the relevant literature and its theoretical roots, and not merely an uncritical listing of ‘who said what’ in an attempt to demonstrate how much you have read. In critically evaluating the literature you should demonstrate an understanding of the ‘leading edge’ thinking in the relevant discipline, as well as an appreciation of where the gaps in the literature exist. Some consideration should also be given to the dominant methodological approaches found. Are they appropriate? Is there room for a different approach? It might be useful to keep in mind that in later sections you will be discussing your findings and how they relate to the literature.

In order to find out what research other people have done on your chosen topic, you will need to undertake a literature search. Your review of the literature will then act as a background against which you can carry out and report your own research. As Jankowicz points out (2000, pp. 159) “Knowledge doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and your work only has value in relation to other people’s. Your work and your findings will be significant only to the extent that they’re the same as, or different from, other people’s work and findings”.

Remember that you are expected to carry out a critical review of the literature. It is not enough simply to list and describe that which has been previously done by researchers. However tempting it might be to demonstrate exactly how many texts you have consulted, it is vital that you remain focused and take a critical view of what you read. You need to summarise and compare the pieces of research to see how they differ (in their approaches, research methods, and findings) and to see whether any common themes emerge. Aim for what Gill and Johnson (1997) call an “insightful evaluation” of the literature (p. 21). What is needed is a “critical review which demonstrates some awareness of the current state of knowledge on the subject, its limitations, and how the proposed research aims to add to what is known” (Gill and Johnson, 1997, p. 20).

When engaging with the academic debate on your chosen topic you could consider the following questions:

• Where are the shared ideas?
• Is there anything that you know or have discovered that contradicts these shared ideas?
• Can we discover why these shared ideas have become the norm?
• Where are the disagreements?
• Why are there disagreements?
• Where are the stand-alone ideas?
• Is there something new or creative in the topic?
• What are the challenges?
• What is old can be revered, but what is new can change the world. “It is not wise to put old wine into new wineskins” Matthew 5.

A good literature review will make explicit the basic theories in which the models and frameworks adopted by a particular management discipline are grounded. For example a much-quoted framework, like the ‘five forces’ structural analysis, used by strategists and others, could be said to be grounded in basic economic theory, which attracts its own critics. Considering the theoretical provenance of models allows the critical researcher to evaluate how appropriate certain models and frameworks are in particular situations.

As well as the literatures relevant to your topic, you will also consult literature concerned with methodology to familiarise yourself with the range of philosophies and methods available. You may wish to think about buying a good dictionary at this point. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology for example is a good example of a helpful source. Although you will write up a separate methodology chapter, you should apply the same critical approach in order to evaluate what methodological assumptions have informed research in your area so far, together with what tools and techniques have been used. This will inform what methodological assumptions and methods might be appropriate for your dissertation. You may come to the conclusion that certain methodologies have dominated your field so far and that another approach may shed new light on your topic.

Throughout your dissertation you will be using the results of the literature review as a backdrop, or theoretical framework to your own research. The review can help you to plan parts of your own research, and you should use the key ideas from the review in your own discussion of your results showing how your findings fit in with the previous research.

Opinions about how long a literature review should be vary greatly. Literature reviews of 20% – 30% of the total word count of the dissertation are not uncommon.

You need to be fastidious in the way you keep details of the publications consulted. Some people advocate the use of index cards (one for each publication) with a summary of the research and enough detail to enable you to cite the work correctly in the “References” at the end of your dissertation [e.g. title, (and title of journal where relevant), author, date, of publica­tion, publisher, page numbers, and a brief note on the content of the article or book in question). Alternatively, you can use a suitable computer database for keeping your records of the publications consulted.

You should aim to complete a reasonably comprehensive literature review before carrying out the substantive part of your own research; this is because what you find out in the literature review can help you to refine your research question and your research method. In one sense you will not be able to achieve a complete review before your own data collection because research will continue to be published during the period of your own research; but you should aim to complete most of the review as early as possible (otherwise you might find, half way through your data collection, that someone else has already done it).

What now follows are some practical suggestions on how to undertake an effective literature review, but these are to get you thinking only and should not be taken as any kind of substitute for accessing books and journals on research methodology (see previous recommended reading list).

• Start off by referring to some books and articles on the topic of your research. From these, by following up the references, you will be able to trace more specific publications, which will in turn guide you to others, and so on. For this task you will need access to a good academic library. You may need to use the inter-library loan system because it is unlikely that the average academic library will have all the relevant books and articles.
• The sources you should search include books, articles, theses and dissertations, government reports, research papers, conference papers, abstracts and reviews, library catalogues and on-line databases. The University Business Librarian should be able to offer useful guidance but please see the guidance available on the University’s Library website and on the Blackboard site. Many professional bodies have libraries that might be relevant to your particular research topic.
• If you are unable to trace any previous research on your topic, try broadening your search. For example, if you are researching the use of staff appraisal systems in voluntary organisations and you cannot find any previous research on it, look at more general literature on both staff appraisal, and management in voluntary organisations. You will soon find that the literature is vast. It then becomes a case of narrowing down to some aspect of staff appraisal which is relevant to your research question.

• When you are writing up your literature review, you will probably need to divide it into sections in order to make the review manageable and reader friendly. What sections you will have will very much depend on what you find in the literature. As a general rule, when writing up the review, deal with the more general material first and then gradually narrow down to­wards your particular research question.
• Finally, remember that criticality can be achieved by comparing, contrasting and critiquing the literature.
• • Compare
    • What has been written before
      • Is there agreement?
      • Are there differences in approach; nuance; style; outcome?
  • Contrast
    • Avoid trying to synthesise the opposed positions.
    • Emphasise the differences
    • Why do they exist?
    • Are they crucial to the debate?
    • Can we characterise both sides to help understand them better?
    • Does emphasising the distinctiveness teach us something?
  • Critique
    • Weigh the ideas
    • Try to give equal weight to theories even when one may be more appealing

1. Methodology

This chapter is sometimes referred to as ‘defence of method’ but should be more than merely a setting out of what methods you have used and why. An explanation and evaluation of your underlying philosophical methodology will be necessary, which will include considerations of an epistemological and ontological nature. This evaluation should show why the particular position taken is relevant or appropriate to this research and how it will inform the nature and quality of the conclusions. Similarly the selection of particular methods and techniques should be evaluated in terms of how appropriate they are for this research. This chapter should also address any ethical problems implicit in the methodology and how these may be minimised.

Before starting on the process of focusing your research aim it is useful to clarify some of the various terms you may encounter. Riley et. al. (2000) note the following distinctions between different types of research:

Pure research, conducted for its own sake, “has no obvious practical implications… no obvious use value beyond contributing to a particular area of intellectual enquiry”.

Applied research is “problem-oriented, directed towards solving some particular intellectual puzzle that has practical implications”.

Primary Research “involves collecting some original data using an accepted research methodology”.

Secondary Research draws on secondary sources of data that already exists.

Theoretical Research although this can involve the collection of some original data, its key focus concerns “abstract and contemplative connotations and entails acts of interpretation and reinterpretation of existing data to extend both the concrete and abstract understanding of phenomenon”.

Empirical Research “involves the collection of original data for analysis. In this sense, empirical research is synonymous with primary research”.

Based upon this understanding of different types of research, and in order to meet the assessment criteria for your dissertation you will probably be conducting Applied, Empirical Research, and although you may well use various sources of secondary data to inform your research, you will usually be expected to collect Primary data for your own research purposes.

As you will be conducting Applied research, your research aim is likely to be focused on meeting one of the following problem-oriented research aims:

• Exploratory Research – to identify the nature of the problem
• Descriptive Research – to identify a range of possible solutions to the problem
• Causal or Explanatory Research – to identify which solution should be implemented, or in which way it would best be implemented

1. Generating Research Topics

The research may either be linked to an aspect of your organi­sation, or an organisation with which you are familiar, or be an attempt to assess the usefulness of theoretical approaches in a particular context. The key aspect of research on the Business School’s postgraduate programmes, and certainly at Masters level, is that they must include some element of primary research, although remember that the definition of primary research covers a wide range of possible activities. The need to ‘do something yourself’ means that research which is merely a review of the literature in a subject area does not make up a dissertation, although all dissertations will include such a review.

Choosing a topic is often one of the most difficult parts of research and it is important that the chosen topic is one that will maintain your interest throughout the research period. While it is hoped that the topic will be one that is mutually agreed between you and your current employing organisation, if any – it is important to remember that it is your degree and the dissertation is principally part of your academic endeavour, rather than part of your job. Having said that, it is rare for there to be a conflict between the University and the employing organisation over choice of topic.

The four key features of a good topic are:

1. That it be concerned with an issue of current major concern to an organisation or organisations;

1. That it be of sufficient scope and depth to form the basis of a Masters dissertation;
2. That it be manageable, given your time and resource con­straints;
3. That is relevant to the concerns of your course.

Taken together, 1) and 2) above mean that the work can be viewed as an internal consultancy project on a problem facing the organisation, provided the student can stand back from the work so that it becomes generalisable to other cases. In other words the issue should be a general one with the organisation providing the context. If the topic is so specific to the organisation that no messages for others can be drawn, then the topic will not be appropriate for Masters level research.

Points 3) and 4) above are important as the most common fault made by students is probably over ambition. Students frequently underestimate the time required for each stage of the research and choose objectives that are better suited to a Ph.D. (often several Ph.Ds) than to a Masters dissertation.

Gill and Johnson (1997) include the following in their list of the characteristics of a good research topic:

1. Access – will you be able to obtain the data required for the research? Will you have access to key people, documents etc.?

1. Achievability – can the work be completed in the time allocat­ed for the dissertation? This may refer more to the timing of required information than to the total amount of work involved.
2. Symmetry of potential outcomes – will the research be of value regardless of the outcome? Negative results are often of equal value to positive ones, but testing the hypothesis that green-eyed managers perform better that brown-eyed managers will only be valuable if a significant relationship is found.
3. Student capability – a student with low numeracy skills should avoid choosing a topic requiring complex statistical analysis. A student with poor descriptive writing skills might be unwise to embark on an ethnographic study. This may seem obvious, but we have seen many examples of students choosing topics that do not play to their strengths.
4. Value and scope of the research – to quote Gill and Johnson “There are several reasons why the value of the research should be considered when topics are selected. Both students and super­visors are likely to be more highly motivated if the work has obvious value and examiners, too, are likely to be more interest­ed – and award higher marks if the work is clearly making a contribution to the solution of a significant problem”

If you are working for an organisation, or if you wish to conduct a dissertation based around a particular organisation you could consider the following:

• Will the organisation support an in-company project?
• Will I be able to gain access to the people and data I need?
• Is there an idea I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while that could be worth exploring?
• Has someone in the company suggested a relevant area of investigation?
• What is it that is most useful to do?

You may not wish to conduct company-based research, rather preferring, for example, to conduct research that could be applied generally within a particular industry. However, you should discuss expectations with your manager in this respect and, if you are doing company-based research, you should ensure that you receive appropriate authorisation so that you have access to your proposed research population etc. You could then consider some of the following options:

• Have I examined the list of research topics suggested by the academic field within which my dissertation is based?
• Have I examined academic staff CVs on the Business School website to examine the research topics undertaken by the academic field within which my dissertation is based?
• Is there an area of business and management that interests me?
• Is there a topic covered on my course that has interested me?

Identifying lacunae, or gaps in the extant literature, can also help you focus on a suitable research topic. E.g. lots has been written about X, however, having thoroughly reviewed the literature (if it isn’t a thorough review how can you be sure that the gaps really exist?) X is only explored from a manufacturing perspective: I want to discover if it can be applied in a public sector context.

Once you are starting to refine your ideas, whether you are conducting an organisation-based dissertation, or one on a more general phenomenon, you should also consider:

• Does the topic interest me enough to sustain my interest over such a long period of time? How much do I know about the topic already?
• What other research has already been conducted on this topic?

In conclusion, it is true to say that the selection of topic is a very important part of the process. It is also the case that the more focused the student can be on the aim, the easier it will be to begin thinking about such things as methodology, and what literatures should be studied. However, be aware that research is a process that occurs over time and things can change. There appears to be an inherent “assumption that both the process of research and that of writing a dissertation … is best tackled in a systematic manner”, yet “the research process – and particularly the intellectual or ‘thinking’ part of it – is inherently ‘messy’”, due to some element of “creative uncertainty”. (Riley et. al. 2000).

Just as businesses find that strategies can be incremental and that problems arise meaning that changes of direction emerge, so the researcher will almost inevitably find that research is an ‘emergent’ or ‘evolutionary’ process. Sometimes that change of direction can lead to rich, fertile pastures. Other times it seems that obstacles are insurmountable. Either way, the initial aim may change in focus as the research proceeds. It is likely that the aim becomes more narrowly focused than initially envisaged, but all of these concluding comments should not discourage you from making your initial aim as tightly focused as you can.

1. Turning topic ideas into focused research aims

It is preferable to think of your research aim in terms of discovery (what you want to find out) rather than enquiry. This helps to identify your aim

. Your aim should be able to be phrased as a question, but ask yourself…

• Is it actually more than one question?
• If it is addressing more than one question:

• Are those questions related?
• Are they addressing fundamentally different issues? E.g. should I do it, compared to how should I do it?

The most common features of poor research aims are that they are:

• Overambitious
• Too operational for masters level
• Organisational rather than a research aim
• More than one aim
• Unconnected aims, or worse where aim #2 is dependent on aim #1

1. Research philosophy

Your methodology chapter should adequately explain and defend the

philosophy of your research.

This brief overview of various philosophies underlying academic research is no substitute for reading texts and journals on research methodologies. It is intended only as a guide to the key areas you will need to address in order that you may more fully explore the philosophical stance you will take and defend in your dissertation.

In this chapter of your dissertation you should discuss the following:

• Ontology

– concerned with questions of ‘knowing’. Do you believe that phenomena have an actual or material existence which can be known, measured and studied? In which case you are tending to favour Realism

. Or do you believe that no universals exist outside of the mind? In which case you are tending to favour Nominalism.

• Epistemology
• – theory of knowledge creation and reality.

Realists

tend to favour Positivism i.e. phenomena can be objectively studied (etic viewpoint). Knowledge is scientific and has ‘generalities and patterns waiting to be discovered’. Nominalists tend to favour Interpretivism i.e. any human action is dependent upon comprehension of the context for deep understanding (emic approach).

• Human Nature

– Concerned with degree of self determination.

Realist; Positivist researchers tend to favour Determinism i.e the world is preordained, determined or fate bound. Nominalist, Interpretivist researchers tend to favour Voluntarism i.e. human beings’ actions are voluntary

• Method – the techniques to collect or interpret data that arise from the researcher’s philosophy of research. The realist; positivist; etic; deterministresearcher is likely to use nomothetic methods i.e.objective, ‘scientific’. The nominalist; interpretivist; emic; voluntarist researcher is likely to use ideographic methods, i.e. subjective.

1. Methods of Data Collection

There are various approaches to data collection in research. None of them is “best”; it is all a matter of what is appropriate for the particular research question. Once you are clear about the purpose of your piece of research in other words your aim, objectives or hypothesis, and are then sure of the philosophical underpinnings of your research, then you need to decide what data you will need to collect and the most appropriate method(s) of collecting it. In making your choice you need to consider the issues of reliability and validity these concepts are dealt with in most basic research methods books.

Some key methods of data collection are set out below. There are many more methods of data collection that can be outlined in a handbook of this nature. However, your reading will allow you will find out about a wider range of methods, some of which may be more suitable to meeting your research aim. Which­ever you use, you will need to describe and justify the methods used in your Methodology chapter. For example, why did you choose the methods you did? In what ways were they more appro­priate than other methods?

1. Questionnaires

These can be extremely useful for collecting information from a large number of people in a relatively short period of time. If you are going to use questionnaires, you need to consider a number of issues:

• Will you use an existing questionnaire or will you design your own? Questionnaires are quite difficult to design effectively and you will need to show a draft to your supervisor for comment before you issue the questionnaire to respondents.
• Are you planning to “pilot” the questionnaire with a small sample of respondents to see whether the questions are clear and the questionnaire is easy to complete? You may well want to modify or improve the questionnaire in the light of lessons learnt from the pilot study.
• The questions should be relevant to your research question. Test each one against your statement of purpose. The questions should be unambiguous and likely to elicit useful and relevant data.
• One of the advantages of pre-coded questions is that the replies will be easier to analyse. The advantage of using un-cod­ed questions is that you may be less likely to lead respondents with preconceived ideas about how the questions should be an­swered: you will end up with “richer” data but it may be more difficult to analyse it to see what patterns are emerging.
• One of the difficulties of using questionnaires is that response rates are commonly low. You can reduce this problem by ensuring that the ques­tionnaire does not take long to answer (it has been suggested that if it takes more than a quarter of an hour to complete it is too long. It is very unusual for surveys to be conducted by post nowadays and more common methods include the use of email or specialist computer programmes like Surveymonkey.
• If the number of questionnaires is large, will you use a computer to analyse the results? If so, do you have the necessary skills, or do you need to learn how to use certain analytical software e.g SPSS?

1. Interviews

You might decide to interview people rather than to ask them to complete questionnaires. You will probably not have the time to interview as many people as you could have in your sample when using questionnaires, but interviews allow you to dig more deeply into respondents thoughts and perceptions for example by asking supplementary questions. One of the decisions you will need to make is whether to use:

• Structured interviews – in which you ask all your interviewees the same questions in the same sequence and in exactly the same way (as far as possible).
• Semi-structured interviews – in which your interview schedule is made up of a list of questions, but where you will probably allow yourself to ask supplementary questions in order to dig more deeply when it seems appropriate;
• Loosely or unstructured interviews – in which you start with a list of issues to discuss with your interviewee but where you are led, to a large extent, by the direction in which the interview seems to flow; compared with a structured interview this third kind is more like “following your nose” but it is important to ensure that the interview remains relevant to your research question.

You will need to discuss your interview schedule with your super­visor before you carry out the interviews. You will also need to decide how to record your interviewees’ statements. You could use tape-recorded interviews, notes taken during the interviews, or notes taking immediately after each interview for example. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.

1. Observation

Ethnographic, or observational, research involves the researcher observing for an extended period the behaviour of subjects in their day-to-day surroundings, e.g. the boardroom, hospital ward, teachers’ staff room, operating theatre, or drawing office. It is a method commonly (but not always) used in combination with interviewing or with documents. It is less commonly used with surveys or other means of producing quantitative data.

Key issues for consideration include:

• How will you ensure that your observations are systematic? Will you use a prepared chart for ticking off examples of specific behaviours or will you collect all the field notes first and then analyse them to see what categories “emerge” from the data (this is commonly referred to as a “grounded theory” ap­proach because the categories into which the behaviours seem to divide themselves are “grounded” in the evidence of your field notes: the categories are not prepared before the data collection stage). The key point is that data needs to be extensive so you should be prepared to record as much as possible.
• Will you be a participant observer (complete immersion in the day-to-day life of the group being studied so that you feel some empathy with the group’s problems) or a non-participant observer (a non-involved spectator or “fly on the wall”)?
• Will the observation be overt or covert? Are there ethical implications to this? You need to consider the special ethical problems that observational studies raise such as in relation to deception and confidentiality.
• How will your presence influence the behaviour of the ‘observed’?
• Analysis and writing up start at the beginning, not after data collection.

You should resolve the above issues in consultation with your supervisor.

1. Scrutiny of Documents

This is often done to supplement data collected in some other way. But it can be the primary (or even the exclusive) method of data collection. The analysis of documents requires a critical and sceptical eye: some useful guidance on this is available in Bell, 1999, pp. 112 – 116, and Melling, 1977, pp. 21 – 46. The book by Alvesson and Deetz (2000) also provides a framework for the critical analysis of voices in a business research context, be they written or spoken.

Documents which might be relevant to your research question include reports, minutes of meetings, government papers, Parlia­mentary debates, Parliamentary select committee reports and minutes, letters, newspapers, and diaries.

1. Some General Points

The aim of this part of the handbook is not to be a mini-course in Research Methods but to outline some of the issues that you will be expected to consider in deciding on appropriate method of data collection.

You may, of course, use a combination of methods if appropriate, and this can provide some useful “triangulation” or cross check­ing of your data.

You will need to consider carefully how you will analyse the data, and you should consider this early, such as when you are designing your data collection instruments. Avoid the situation some people have found themselves in where they have collected data only to find they have great difficulty in knowing how to analyse it. Think about how you will analyse the data before you collect it.

Whatever research method you use, choose it in consultation with your supervisor. However, remember that it is your research and you are responsible for the decisions you make.

1. Findings: Presentation and Analysis

This may be quite a short chapter or section presenting the primary research findings in a clear and focused manner. Keep in mind the aim of the research at this point. You are beginning the process of presenting your answer to the question you set yourself in the aim. Remember also your ethical obligations: the findings should be presented in a way that protects vulnerable subjects.

The point has already been made that the way in which you propose to analyse your data should be considered as part of the process of deciding what data is to be collected, and the way in which you will collect it. This is because the kind of data you col­lect, and the particular way in which you gather it, will inevi­tably place some constraints on the way in which you can conduct your analyses. Unless your analyses provide you with a means of achieving your original research objectives, then much effort will have been in vain. It is therefore essential that your research design should take account of interrelationships within the data collection – analysis – reporting phases.

If you are undertaking research for you own organisation, it is important that you seek advice on the sort of methodology/methods that they consider to be acceptable. For example, some managers are only interested in quantitative results and do not accept the validity of findings produced using more qualitative methods. You will need to build this in to your aim, objectives etc.

It is also at the design stage that you should identify any potential need for using computer packages for analysis of data. Software availability, and your own familiarity with it, could be constraints which determine how you proceed with the analysis, and hence how you collect and compile your data.

It is essential to consider at an early stage how you would code your data for any computer analysis. This can have a bearing on how you ask your questions and allow you to take advantage of pre-coding possibilities that can cut down on work later on. For example, instead of asking an open-ended question about a person’s qualifications and then having to group and code each of the many types of answer that you get, it would be far more efficient to construct a question which contains a small number of pre-coded alternatives (e.g. 01 – First Degree; 02 – Masters; 03 – Doctorate; 04 – Professional; 05-Postgraduate Certificate/Diploma; 06 – Higher National Diploma; 07- Other).

In the case of quantitative data, the need for statistical advice should also be identified at the design stage. If you are anticipating carrying out some of the technical statistical analyses referred to later on in this section, then it is wise to establish the requirements of such procedures in terms of type of data, sample size, etc. before launching into sampling schemes and data collection. When necessary, ask your supervisor to direct you to sources of statistical advice within your department.

Please be aware that in a dissertation employing a qualitative method the presentation of findings, and their analysis may be combined. To separate the two may be clumsy or involve unnecessary repetition.

Ultimately though these matters are for discussion with your supervisor in relation to your particular topic.

1. Dealing with Data Gathered from Texts or From Open-Ended Questions

A substantial proportion of the data analysed in research dissertations consists of documentary texts, reports, notebooks or research logbooks, or is in the form of answers to open-ended questions asked through interview or questionnaire. In such circumstances, analysis consists of a painstaking process of ploughing through what might seem to be an overwhelming quantity of qualitative data. It is important to adopt a systematic approach to the management of this kind of task.

One possible approach is to divide the data into sections, with each section corresponding to a particular dimension of the problem or to an issue that has its own identity. Some psychologists suggest that the maximum number of such divisions, which can be held in a researchers short-term memory, lies between 5 and 9; hence if you are systematically scanning a mass of textual evidence and trying to partition it according to more than 9 subdivisions of the problem then you are probably being over-optimistic.

Scanning the whole body of evidence can then be viewed as a process of identifying strips or segments of data, which can then be “pasted” within particular subdivisions of the problem as a whole.

The final stage consists of a close study of the set of segments within each subdivision; this involves identifying relationships, linkages, contrasts, connections and so on, which may lead to theories or propositions arising from the data. You may find such an approach particularly well suited to a situation where you have not begun with a grand theory that you set out to test, but rather perceive your research as exploratory and opportunistic.

When following this kind of approach to the analysis of a large body of documentary material, the task of writing up a balanced final account will be considerably eased if you manage to keep track of the origins of your “pasted” segments of evidence. This would allow you, when compiling your summary results for a particular subdivision or issue, to refer to particular sources of opinion, and to provide brief illustrative quotes.

1. Measurements Based on a Study of a Complete Population

It may be that you designed your study to collect data relating to every member of the population that is of interest to you. This is in complete contrast to selecting a sample for your study, and then attempting to generalise from the sample to a broader underlying population.

An example of the former case might be a study of the management development needs of all Heads of Department within an organisa­tion. Here there would be no attempt to extrapolate the results to the needs of Heads of Department anywhere else. Hence, a finding such as that 65% of Heads of Department sought guidance on time-management can be quoted as fact. The only necessary qualification being a reference to the possible effect of any non-response.

In studies of this kind, it is sufficient to present results – averages, ranges, proportions, percentages, correlations, – simply as observations arising from the data collected, whilst making it clear that the conclusions relate to the studied population only.

The same would apply to studies involving a comparison of two populations, each studied in its entirety. For example, if it were discovered that 80% of male staff within the organisation sought guidance on time-management, but only 50% of female staff sought such guidance, then this again can be quoted as a factual result arising from the study. You are advised, however, to refer to qualifications regarding the effect of non-response and to draw attention to the fact that the data represents opinions collected in a particular way and at a particular period of time.

1. Data in the Form of Measurements Based on a Representative Sample

It is often the case that you cannot afford the resources to study every member of a population of interest, and hence that you deliberately restrict your study to a representative sample. Choice of sampling method lies outside the scope of this booklet, but you should have an appreciation of the difference between random, systematic, quota and stratified samples. You should also recognise that the reliability of any estimates that you make on the basis of your sample will depend largely on the absolute size of your sample, not on its relative size in relation to the whole population. Thus a sample of 200 individuals from a workforce of 2000 is, to all intents and purposes, just as good statistically as a sample of 200 from a workforce of 5000.

Having collected sample data, you need to face the problem of generalising statistically from the sample back to the underlying population. For example, if you estimate from the sample that 38% of respondents agree with a proposition, you should quote a conclusion such as, ‘on the basis of the sample evidence, it is estimated that 38 ± X% of members in the underlying population agree with the proposition’. If you do not produce what is known as a confidence interval of this kind, you will be open to criticism for not recognising the degree of uncertainty involved in basing conclusions on sample data.

Confidence intervals are also appropriate for placing margins of error on sample means; for example, if you have established that your sample members spend on average 1.3 hours per day working on their office PCs, you may wish to generalise to a population statement along the lines of ‘1.3 ± 0.2 hours per day’. You will find that statistical methods needed for this kind of purpose are indexed in statistical texts as confidence intervals for sample means (averages) or for sample proportions (percentages).

Another related, though slightly different, use of statistical inference arises in situations where you wish to test an initial hypothesis. For example, you may start with a hypothesis that there is no difference between male and female workers in the time they spend at their PCs. Sample evidence reveals that for males the average time is 1.6 hours, and for females the average is 1.2 hours. You should then offer a statistical comment on how likely it is that a difference of this magnitude could have arisen by chance just because of the sampling process. In other words, you need to comment on the statistical significance of the difference between sample means, by for example establishing that there is less than a 1% probability of such a difference between males and females arising just through chance effects in the sampling process. Hence the difference would be described as one that is statistically significant.

Statistical methods relevant to this kind of work include the t-test (small samples) or z-test (large samples) for the difference of two sample means, or a similar test based on the Normal dis­tribution for comparing sample proportions in two large samples. Even in situations where you have plotted a scatter diagram based on sample data and then calculated a correlation coefficient for the relationship between two variables, it would be useful to offer a comment on the statistical significance of any relationship that you observe. Statistical tables are available which give you the probability of observing a particular correlation coefficient value just by chance effects, depending on your sample size.

All the formal statistical tests mentioned above have certain prerequisites about the nature of the underlying data distribu­tion. A common prerequisite is for the population’s data to have an underlying Normal distribution. If such an assumption is clearly not tenable, then it may be necessary to use what are known as non-parametric statistical tests, which make far fewer assumptions (in some cases none at all) about the underlying nature of the data. An excellent and readable guide to these methods is provided by Sidney Siegel in his “Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences” (McGraw-Hill), which also provides numerous examples of applications.

One of the better known of the non-parametric tests is the Chi-square, which provides a basis for determining whether two samples have similar distributions when members of those samples are categorised. For example, if samples of staff have been selected from each of two organisations and categorised according to six types of ethnic origin, the Chi-square test allows you to judge whether the distribution across the six categories should be regarded as similar or different in statistical terms.

Finally, remember that it is usually the messages that emerge, and not just the statistical significance of your results, that is important. Therefore, whatever statistical result you quote at the end of your analysis, don’t forget to interpret that in terms of the context of your project. Hammer home the point you are making with your data. Your statistical results and conclusions should be viewed as a means of proceeding towards identification of implications arising from the data.

1. Other Matters Relating to Presentation of Results.

It is probable that only a minority of dissertations require extensive use of formal statistical analysis. However, a far greater proportion of dissertations are likely to involve the summary and presentation of some kind of numerical information.

A key point to bear in mind is the nature of the data itself. For example, some data consists of just frequencies for each of a number of categories whereas other data could be in the form of ranks. For example your subjects might have been asked to rank each of eight attributes in order of importance. Other data allows you to calculate differences, or even ratios, between quantities. It is important that you should recognise that different kinds of data are amenable to different kinds of operations. For example it is not meaningful to calculate the mean of a set of rank data, since it cannot be assumed that the interval between 1st and 2nd rank is of the same width as the interval between, say, 6th and 7th ranks. For this reason, it is more sensible to refer to the median value of a set of ranks.

It is also worth paying some attention to the choice of methods available for summarising data using diagrams. The aim is always to convey as many clear, unambiguous messages as possible using the smallest possible number of diagrams, but avoiding clutter. You should attempt to select diagram-type using fitness-for-purpose criteria. For example, to illustrate how a total quantity is broken down into its component parts, you might choose a pie chart, or possibly a compound bar chart. To illustrate trends over time, you would choose a line graph, taking care to space the time-points appropriately along the horizontal axis. For line graphs and bar charts, remember that the choice of scale for the vertical axis can influence the reader’s perception of the trends; the honest choice is always to start off your vertical scale at zero. Finally, remember that all diagrams and tables must be clearly labelled, with appropriate use of keys and so on.

Whenever you are committed to producing a large number of tables or diagrams as part of your dissertation, you should consider whether or not that material might be more appropriately included in an appendix. As a general rule, anything that diverts the reader from the main text of your thesis for more than a couple of pages is a good candidate for inclusion in an appendix.

You may also be wondering whether the original raw data, or the computer analyses in their primitive form, or interview transcripts need to be bound as part of the dissertation report. In general, the answer should be no – although it is always best to keep such material safe and secure in case it is needed later as supportive material for a viva-voce or for possible re-drafting of material at a later stage.

1. Discussion

This chapter allows you to discuss and analyse your findings in relation to what you found in your critical evaluation of ‘the story so far’ in the literature review. This is where you clearly, and in a focused and structured way, show the relationship between your primary findings and the secondary data themes from the literature. You will want to show how your dissertation has contributed to the leading edge thinking in the relevant discipline, perhaps by confirming or contradicting that which has been found previously. Inherent in this discussion will be an acknowledgement of the boundaries of your research and the limitations to its comprehensiveness.

There should be some concluding comments to this discussion, drawing out the main themes that emerge from the synthesis of your primary data and the secondary research you conducted.

1. Conclusions and critical reflection

This is where you conclude the entire work. Firstly you would need to answer the question, or aim, that you set yourself. In addition you need to reflect on the process of the research, highlighting where you might have done things differently to improve the dissertation by, for example, using alternative methods and approaches or attempting to neutralise any bias you may have brought to the process. You might like also to reflect on any ethical issues or difficulties that arose from your relationship with the organisation being studied. Finally, conclusions to research almost always include recommendations for further enquiry. This is not an exhaustive list of what may be in your conclusions, merely a guide.

1. Recommendations

These comments come with a strong caveat: It is not compulsory to put recommendations in a masters dissertation. In fact the QAA guidelines recommend that you do not. However, your employer may want recommendations and in any case you will not be penalised for including them.

As an example, as far as CIPD are concerned:

• Dissertations must aim to respond to an organisational-based concern
• In this it should emphasise the human resources aspect
• It must have a recommendations section that includes an action that also considers the cost of the recommendations
• It must also contain a self-reflection section.

If you have to include recommendations you might like to consider them in relation to three criteria to establish their usefulness.

Firstly, are the recommendations suitable in terms of the overall strategic intent of your organisation?

Secondly, what are the feasibility issues in terms of resources needed to address your recommendations?

Thirdly, are these recommendations acceptable to key stakeholders?

We do not expect to see this analysis in your dissertation but you may like to use these criteria to help you think through your recommendations if you are making any.

1. Appendices

Clearly you will need to be selective as to what to include in an appendix but at the same time ensuring that relevant documents, questionnaires, statistical details, tables, graphs and so on are included. You will, of course, include key tables, graphs, etc. in the body of the text. Your supervisor will advise you on what should go where.

1. List of References

When you need to refer to the work of others in your disserta­tion, you will be expected to adopt one of the conventional formats in referring to the source material. You MUST use the University of South Wales Harvard referencing system which has now been adopted as the University standard. You should be familiar with Harvard style referencing by this stage of your Masters studies, but a reminder of the necessary conventions is set out below.

One very practical piece of advice; create a word document entitled ‘References’ and keep all your references there, in the Harvard format, as you go. This will save you at least a day’s work when you finish the dissertation off. This should be in addition to your normal records of what you have read. Alternatively, use an appropriate piece of computer software to generate your references as you go along.

You will need to refer to other people’s work for several reasons:

• To attribute a quotation;
• To provide justification for a statement;
• To tell your reader where an idea comes from;
• To argue for the reasonableness of your methods, since they are used by other people working in the field;
• To help interpret your results;
• To help you build an argument.

(Jankowicz, 2000 p.162)

There is no one “correct” system of referencing; e.g. there is the Harvard system and the numbered system (for some detail on the latter see, for example, Janckowicz, 1991 p. 119). The Harvard system, as advised above must be followed. It makes the situation easier to handle when you need to modify what you have written, especially if you have to insert a reference into a section of text that you have already written and referenced. The guidance here will therefore concen­trate on the Harvard system.

For a Book;

• The entry in the text of the dissertation would appear as follows: (Heclo and Wildavsky, 1974);

• The entry in the list of references would then appear in alphabetical order, under “H”, as:

Heclo, H. and Wildavsky, A. (1974) The Private Government of Public Money, London: Macmillan.

Notice the relative positions of the initials, brackets, date, place of publication, publisher, etc.

If the author edited the book (which is a collection of chapters written by other people), then the abbreviation “ed” should appear after the editor’s name, and your reference should cite the name of the author in question. For example, if Smith wrote a chapter in a book edited by Williams, you might say in your text – Smith (1992); and in your “References” at the end you would say

Smith, J. (1992) “The Beggar’s Opera” in Williams, A. (ed) , Macmillan.

For an Article

• This is similar to a book, but in this case, when specifying the full details in the list of references, place the title of the article in quotation marks and then give the title of the journal in which the article was published. The details of the journal edition should also be given – volume, number and date.

The list of references at the end of your dissertation should be given in alphabetical order according to authors.

Sometimes (e.g. when you are going to use a direct quotation or when you are referring to a particular point in the cited work) you will need to provide the page number of the source material concerned; e.g. Smith, 1992 p. 45.

If you use the author’s name in a sentence, you do not need to repeat the name in brackets; e.g. “According to Smith (1992), …”. On other occasions, the name should appear in brackets; e.g. “There is some evidence (Smith, 1992) to suggest that …..”.

If you use a lengthy quotation (e.g. several lines), it is common to indent; e.g.:

“The government …………………….

………………………………….

………………………………….

…………. and the will of Parliament”

If the same author has published two works in the same year, then use 1992a and 1992b (etc.) to distinguish between them.

If a work was written by two authors, refer to both names (e.g. Cohen and Henderson, 1991); if there are more than two authors for a particular work, it is usual to cite the work as Smith et al.

Generally try to avoid saying “Smith states…”. Try to be more specific about the kind of statement made; e.g. Smith argues, suggests, asserts, finds, concludes, etc., but be careful not to imply a view that the author may (or may not) hold.

1. Avoiding Plagiarism

This has already been touched upon briefly in section 8.2 of this handbook.

Plagiarism is primarily defined as ‘copying or paraphrasing another person’s work, be it published, or unpublished, without clearly acknowledging it’. Please note that plagiarism is considered to be cheating and is strictly forbidden and may be heavily penalised. Plagiarism may happen intentionally when a student deliberately attempts to pass off someone else’s work as their own, but may also happen unintentionally if you are not aware of the rules concerning this matter, or are unfamiliar with correct forms of referencing. Note that “recycling” of your own work can also amount to plagiarism.

You are free to quote directly or indirectly from any publication, provided that you provide a reference for the author or originator. In other words, if the research or the views you cite are not your own, then you MUST acknowledge your source(s), ideally in accordance with the Harvard style whereby citations are made in the text by author and date, with a full alphabetical listing at the end of the paper. If you fail to acknowledge your sources, you run the risk of being accused of plagiarism, which is an academic offence.

In general, all statements, opinions, conclusions etc taken from another writer’s work should be cited, whether the work is directly quoted, paraphrased or summarised.

To avoid accusations of plagiarism, ensure that you:

• fully cite and reference materials you use;
• don’t share your work with colleagues on your cohort;
• work independently when you are writing up your work;
• use someone not on the course to do your proofreading;
• pick your printing up immediately when using the university printers
• and if in doubt ask your lecturers or the staff in the Drop-In Centre for assistance.

If you have not yet done so, you should examine the University’s policy on plagiarism. Always check the detail of your originality score on Turnitin prior to submission and make amendments to your work as appropriate prior to final submission.

9. Presentation

1. Style

It is difficult to convey a ‘feeling’ for what an appropriate writing style is for a Masters dissertation. You should get a feel for acceptable style by having a look at several previously completed dissertations that are available in the University library. The dissertation should be written in a readable style. Do not try to impress with unnecessarily complex means of expression with difficult words when simple ones would do. At the same time you do not want your dissertation to read like a children’s book.

Remember that your dissertation is a piece of objective research. As far as possible do not use the first person with the possible exception of the conclusions where you are giving your own interpretation, or if you are using a well-defended postmodern methodology that allows this (e.g. introspection). Unless it is important in context, avoid identifying individuals.

1. Word Processing

Your work should be double-spaced or one and a half spaced on A4 paper. Allow a left-hand margin of at least 4cms and a right-hand margin of 2cms. There is no requirement for a hard copy of your work. However, you may wish to have a professionally printed copy as a keep sake given all the hard work and effort that has gone into it. In this case, you should also consider any particular specifications imposed on margins by your local bookbinding firm. Note that the University offers a printing service and they know exactly what is required.

The front of the dissertation should have the title, your name and, at the bottom, M.Sc. and the year of submission e.g.

Fostering Leadership Talent in TGL: An Exploratory Study

P. Jones, No. 9901234

MSc Management

2017

1. Length

The dissertation should normally be 18,000 words +/-, 10%. This does not include appendices, reference lists or bibliography.

1. Page Numbering

Page numbering should begin on Page 1 of Chapter 1. The page number is placed centrally in the bottom margin. Appendices should be numbered and lettered separately on each page e.g. A1, A2, B1, B2 and so on.

1. Copies

You are required to submit via Turnitin but you may wish to also produce at least one hard copy for your own record (see above).

A final note: You are advised to retain your raw data (e.g. completed questionnaires, interview transcripts etc.) until the results are formally announced.