Assessment Four: Findings, Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations 10% Week 12 Assessment Instructions You are now required to write the key parts of your final research paper. You should write your findings, the discussion which also should include a detailed analysis of the strengths and limitations of your project, the conclusions and your recommendations. You must demonstrate how well you understand the data you collected in relation to your research objectives. You should attempt to relate these results to your knowledge of the learning outcomes you are studying. You should discuss how your results compare with what you expected based on the theory. It is not necessarily true that your results will always fit into the theory. If they do not, explain why you think that is so. You must also include an Abstract – this is a summary of around 500 words that explains all the key points of your research project. The Abstract is included at the start of the research paper. However, he Abstract is written last as it is a summary of the full project. The paper should be written in HCT report format and fully referenced using APA format. You should also submit the document to Safe Assign on Black Board Learn. This task should be 2000 – 4000 words and should be complete within due date. See separate marking rubric You will resubmit this task in Week 16 as part of the Final Research Paper (10%) and you are encouraged to make improvements based on feedback received. Guidelines for Assessment Four Abstract An Abstract previews the main points of your report, it summarizes the entire proposal, especially your main findings and recommendations. Therefore, the abstract should outline the proposal's major headings: the research question, theoretical framework, research design, sampling method, instrumentation, data analysis, and a brief summary of your interpretations and conclusions.It is written for upper management so that they can become familiar with what is discussed in the full report without having to read it. The abstract should convey your objectives, along with key conclusions and recommendations. A reader should be able to skim the abstract without missing the point of the main report. The abstract should be no more than 500 words. Examples of an Abstract 1. The following abstract is for a marketing research analysis of the possibility of further developing tourism in Dubai. Although an abstract is different to a conclusion, your main conclusions should be made in the opening statement. In this example, the researchers introduce their market research, their main conclusions, and their final recommendations. Our market research group makes the following recommendations for increasing transit passenger stay-over in Dubai. The vast majority of transit passengers do not stop in Dubai. The average transit visitor never exits Dubai Airport. This may be because many tourists are under the perception that Dubai is too expensive and that it offers little more than a shopping mall experience. To encourage transit passengers to stopover, Dubai must develop a reputation as offering a unique e experience which is great value for the money. In order to maximize time/expenditure in Dubai we recommend: 1. Emirates Airline offer inexpensive 2-day stopover packages which include hotel and transport at concessionary prices. The main attraction during these stays should be shopping trip to the Dubai malls and a day on the beach to unwind. 62% of those surveyed said they would take such a package if priced competitively. 2. Research shows transit traffic is highest during the summer months. This is also traditionally a 'low' time for hotel occupancy in Dubai. Transit passengers may be reluctant to break their trip in Dubai due to the summer temperatures. 40% of those surveyed would consider a 2-day layover which included an indoor luxury 'spa' treatment day. The Dubai Tourism & Commerce Department (DTCD) is responsible for marketing and promoting Dubai as a destination worldwide, as well as for taking initiatives to enhance the experiences of visitors once they have arrived. DTCD has explored ways to increase the amount of tourism time (and money) spent in Dubai. It identified three distinct market segments: the transit traveller, usually from the west, who stops in Dubai en route to another final destination, GCC travellers who frequent Dubai during short holiday breaks, Middle Eastern and Indian sub-continent visitors who have family and friends living/working in Dubai. Our research concentrated on the transit traveller. Research shows that Dubai is a convenient transit stop en route between the Far East or Australia and Europe. Dubai's position at the crossroads of the world has allowed it to emerge as one of the major transit hubs. Dubai is also a short-haul distance from countries with large populations and eight hours from the more developed economies, which is an added advantage. Despite the recent economic downturn, passenger traffic through Dubai is expected to increase 13.67% in 2010. Our research is based on data provided by DTCD, results from 200 questionnaires distributed to transit passengers at Dubai International Airport and a focus group held at the airport with transit passengers on Emirates Airlines. 2. The following Abstract is for the Influence of Supervisory Feedback on Goal Orientation of Employees – A Conceptual Analysis: Abstract: This paper deals with individual goal orientation of employees within the personal selling domain. Individual goal orientation is defined as "a mental framework for how individuals interpret and respond to achievement situations" (Brett &VandeWalle, 1999). In the current study, we have conceptualized goal orientation in the three-dimensional manner, focusing on learning orientation, performance-prove orientation and performance-avoid orientation. Many studies have indicated that these orientations of salespeople had influence on their performance (Silver, Dwyer, and Alford 2006; McFarland and Kidwell 2006; Payne, Youngcourt, and Beaulien, 2007). These studies revealed that learning orientation and performance-prove orientation had a positive influence on the performance of salespeople while performance-avoid orientation had a negative influence. Ultimately, these orientations will have an impact on the overall performance of organization. Therefore, how to enhance learning orientation and performance-prove orientation of salespeople, and how to lower performance-avoid orientation of salespeople will be beneficial for the organization. We focus on supervisory feedback to see whether these objectives can be achieved. Supervisors are likely to be influential not only because of the position they occupy, but also salespeople are likely to have less personal contact with their peers than other employees and are thus more likely to rely on supervisors for direction and guidance. We tried to analyse how different types of supervisory feedback viz. positive output feedback, negative output feedback, positive behavioural feedback, and negative behavioural feedback influence learning orientation, performance-prove orientation, and performance-avoid orientation of salespeople. The conceptual analysis has shown that supervisors can influence the three dimensions of goal orientation of salespeople. The research framework provides an insight to sales managers for motivating the salespeople to learn and perform at a strategic level. Findings A major part of the grade for the final report will be based on the accuracy and relevance of your primary and secondary data collection. You will also be graded on how well you understand the data you collected and how you present that data in relation to your research objectives. Good graphs and charts are excellent ways to summarize data for your readers and to illustrate trends. However, you must also be able to explain your analysis in concise terms. Whenever possible, relate these results to your knowledge of the learning outcomes you are studying. You can discuss how your results compare with what you expected based on the theory. It is not necessarily true that your results will always fit into the theory. If they do not, explain why you think that is so. You should always put your findings into the context of the previous research that you found during your literature review. Do your results agree or disagree with previous research? Do the results of the previous research help you to interpret your own findings? If your results are very different, why? Either you have uncovered something new, or you may have made a major flaw with the design of the experiment. Finally, after saying all of this, you can make a statement about whether the project has contributed to knowledge in the field, or not. Try not to be too broad in your generalizations to the wider world - it is a small project and is unlikely to change the world. Discussion Writing a discussion section is where you really begin to add your interpretations to the work. Here you should describe how you developed your project goals from the SWOT analysis that you completed in task one – the Project Proposal. Describe fully your objectives. The SWOT analysis should be in the appendix. In this critical part of the research paper, you start the process of explaining any links and correlations apparent in your data. If you left a few interesting leads and open questions in the results section, the discussion is simply a matter of building upon those and expanding them. You also need to write a detailed analysis of the strengths and limitations of your entire project. The focus should beon the limitations and strengths in company selection, methodology used, technique used to sample and other issues. What went well and what would you change of you had to do the project again. Some Research Limitations and Constraints Accurate, up-to-date information obtained by marketing research can be of enormous value to an organisation in gaining and/or maintaining its competitive edge. However, there are a number of reasons why, in reality, these potential benefits may not be realized. Budgetary constraints – gathering and processing data can be very expensive. Many organisations may lack the expertise to conduct extensive surveys to gather primary data, whatever the potential benefits, and also lack the funds to pay specialist market research agencies to gather such data for them. In these cases, organisations may be forced to rely on data that is less than 'perfect' but that can be accessed more cheaply, e.g., from secondary sources Time constraints – organisations are often forced to balance the need to build up as detailed a picture as possible regarding customer needs etc. against the desire to make decisions as quickly as possible, in order to maintain or improve their position in the market Reliability of the data – the value of any research findings depend critically on the accuracy of the data collected. Data quality can be compromised via a number of potential routes, e.g., leading questions, unrepresentative samples, biased interviewers etc. Efforts to ensure that data is accurate, samples are representative and interviewers are objective will all add to the costs of the research but such costs are necessary if poor decisions and expensive mistakes are to be avoided. Legal & ethical constraints – the Data Protection Act (1998) is a good example of a law that has a number of implications for market researchers collecting and holding personal data. For instance, researchers must ensure that the data they obtain is kept secure, is only used for lawful purposes and is only kept for as long as it is necessary. It must be made clear as to why data is being collected and the consent of participants must be obtained. In addition to this, there are a number of guidelines, laid down by such organisations as the Market Research Society, that, although not legally binding, encourage organisations to behave ethically when dealing with members of the public. (http://tutor2u.net/business/marketing/research-limitations-constraints.html) Once writing the discussion section is complete, you can move onto the next stage, wrapping up the paper with focused conclusions and recommendations. Conclusion and Recommendations Here you draw your main conclusions and link them to the recommendations by showing a need for action. The conclusion should give the main cause(s) of the problem or opportunity that is the topic of the report. The conclusion is NOT merely a restatement of your findings. Conclusions flow logically from your analysis. The conclusion provides the reader with insight into what you think the data means. It should not include findings that are not related to the recommendations. Example of Conclusion: "It can be concluded that to encourage transit passengers to stopover, Dubai must develop a reputation as offering a unique experience which is great value for the money." It is important not to give detailed recommendations in the conclusion section. In the above example, the sentence "Dubai must develop a reputation as offering great value for the money." is a general conclusion that leads into detailed recommendations. Your recommendations should be specific and actionable. If you can, include an implementation plan. In the recommendations, you can identify any additional research that needs to be carried out to investigate questions that arose during the study. Example of Recommendations: 1. Emirates Airline offer inexpensive 2-day stopover packages which include hotel and transport at concessionary prices. The main attraction during these stays should be shopping trip to the Dubai malls and a day on the beach to unwind. 62% of those surveyed said they would take such a package if priced competitively. 2. Research shows transit traffic is highest during the summer months. This is also traditionally a 'low' time for hotel occupancy in Dubai. Transit passengers may be reluctant to break their trip in Dubai due to the summer temperatures. 40% of those surveyed would consider a 2-day layover which included an indoor luxury 'spa' treatment day.