Business and Management Dissertation

Academic year and term:
Module title:	Business and Management Dissertation
Module code:
Module Convener:
	LEARNING OUTCOMES •          Knowledge outcomes – Students will be able to plan how to conduct a dissertation/thesis based on their own area of investigation which will consolidate their in-depth knowledge of business and management or of the specialism of their business degree and its relationship to the wider organisation. •          Intellectual /transferable skills outcomes – Students will be able to identify and outline an appropriate approach to conduct a literature-based investigation, the results of which, through synthesis and evaluation, address a problem related to their degree discipline and/or its practice; plan which range of sources of information they will draw upon to support the investigation and which procedures and techniques will be appropriate to the analysis of a complex business situation. Students will be able to plan how they will demonstrate criticality (independent thinking) in the evaluation and synthesis of information relating to the discipline and/or its practice. They will be able to present their plans/proposal in an academic style.
Type of assessment:	Thesis involving extended critical literature review not exceeding 8,000 words (excluding bibliography): 100% The applicable elements of the research proposal (3000 words) submitted as a summative assessment in Semester A (Dissertation part 1) can be carried over to (used in) the summative assessment in term B. Using the same elements verbatim will not be treated as self-plagiarism. It is however advisable to improve on the work already submitted rather than re-submitting the same material verbatim (yet no penalty will be incurred for doing that). Please note that your task in term 1 involved the elements which will no longer be applicable to a thesis involving extended critical literature review – particularly sections describing the empirical data gathering process (which is not part of this assessment).
Assessment deadline:

Instructions for assessment

Normally, thesis will be based on the research problem which you have identified in term 1. Since you are no longer required to gather and analyze primary data or conduct secondary data analysis, it may be the case that your topic will need to be reformulated in discussion with your supervisor. However, it is advisable that your topic remains as close as possible to the one originally formulated.

In order to address your research problem, you will conduct a critical literature review. Your critical literature review will normally include the elements of:

1. Theoretical review: examining the body of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory or phenomenon. It is helpful to structure it according to the main themes (which you need to identify).
2. Integrative review: critiquing and synthesizing the representative literature on a topic in an integrative way to generate new frameworks and perspectives on a topic

Therefore, the critical literature review is not limited to identifying, arranging and discussing literature relevant to your topic (theoretical review), but it also asks you to:

1) synthesize the literatures – which conclusions can be drawn from combing two or more literature sources, do they agree/disagree with one another, do they complement each other, do they even use the terms in the same way

2) position your own inquiry against these literatures – if I am exploring the problem involving X, Y and Z, then how are X, Y and Z informed by the literature, and so how does my overall problem relate to what the literature is saying.

3) explain what have you learned from these literatures – which new perspectives on your topic has the literature review helped you develop, do you see your initial research problem in a new light, and how.

In conducting the literature review it is strongly suggested that you use, in that order:

1)      Academic journals and books

2)      Handbooks

3)      Official documents produced by established organizations, where the author/organization is known.

Avoid using any tertiary sources, such as Wikipedia.

It is strongly advised that you consult Saunders, M, Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A. (2016) ‘Critically Reviewing the Literature’, chapter 3, in: Research Methods for Business Students. Harlow, Essex: Pearson.

THESIS STRUCTURE

The thesis will normally have the following parts:

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Abstract (up to 250 words)
• Contents Page
• Introduction (including a clear explanation of importance of your research problem or your argument to others and why it is of interest to you – up to 500 words)
• Literature Review (see ‘Instructions for assessment’ for explanation of key terms):

-          Introduction, explaining how you have planned and executed your literature review, how have you identified the relevant literatures and why you think they are relevant (500-700 words)

-          Theoretical literature review, preferably organized in themes, in relation to your research problem/argument (2000-2500 words)

-          Synthesis of the reviewed literature (1000-1500)

-          Clear explanation how you position your own inquiry against the literature (500-800 words)

-          Explanation what have you learned from the literature (1000-1200 words)

• Conclusions (summarizing the main findings and how they inform your research problem or argument) – 400-500 words
• References (not included in the word count. Provide details of the reading materials you used and noted in the text of your thesis. The list needs to be in alphabetical order and follow the Harvard system of referencing).

Please do not include appendices.