1 BUSN20016: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS SOME ADVICE FOR CHOOSING OF A PROJECT TOPIC (DRAFT) • This course has been purposefully designed to incorporate a high degree of flexibility relating to various topics; therefore the choice of topic for your project is entirely your own choice. • Topic for the project outline (Assessment 1) and project proposal (Assessment 3) MUST be same. • Remember, it is your project and if you select something that holds a deep interest for you, you will find it easy to commit and you will be highly motivated to complete the work that your project outline requires (Assessment 1), and subsequently that your project proposal requires (Assessment 3). • Make sure that your topic is relevant to your current area of study or what you want to be in future. There is often temptation to pick a topic that is too broad, and might require a longer time to do it properly. • Up to five topic areas are given below under five broader areas of interest (i.e., discipline). We strongly suggest you to choose a topic from one of the broader areas. However these are not the exhaustive list and you can choose beyond this list. o Marketing:  Marketing communications – such as why do some controversial marketing communications work whilst other fail?  Social marketing: such as why are social networks more persuasive than traditional word-of-mouth?  Telemarketing – such as selling goods or services to customer via telephone or surveying customer satisfaction via computer assisted telephone interview  Branding –Impact of branding in sales or organisational development  Factors affecting product marketing: How can countries use national culture to help them promote major exports? o Management:  Enterprise management – such as how can an organisation (any industry) engage with and facilitate the creation and growth of new ventures, including opportunity identification and evaluation, venture capital, and/or corporate venturing; and what are the processes for managing and improving the success of the enterprise?2  Strategic management – such as investigating high performing and innovative firms in turbulent environments  Corporate governance such as how can an organisation (any industry) cope with environmental, social, and ethical influences upon their practices and processes of doing business; including environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management and influence, and business ethics? o Human Resource Management  Leadership– such as leadership impacts on organisational performance  Employee engagement, wages and workforce performance  Decision making under pressure  Avoidance approaches to conflict  Maintaining performance during organisational change o Accounting  Managerial accounting- how can managers use accounting information to make better decisions?  Technological development in accounting – such as technological development relating to information processing and its impact on accounting  Accounting system design- The effect of accounting information and auditing on the design of organizations  Forensic accounting- such as using forensic accounting as a tool for fraud detection o Economics and Finance  Property market dynamics – such as impact of global financial crisis in Australian property market  Risk and uncertainty in coal and oil markets  Financial characteristics of large and small firms  Economics of production systems  Managing cash flow