Research Report
Due: 25th May 2017
Length: 6500-7000 words
Weighting: 50%
Requirements
You are required to undertake a research project involving industry. After acquiring knowledge regarding how to conduct research, and possible problem spaces to research in, you will be required to apply these skills in practice. You should engage with an organisation (Described Below) to undertake this research project in.
You are required to present a final written report based off their research project. This should follow the generic structure.
Marking criteria
1. Critical Reasoning (40%)
2. Research/information literacy: (40%)
3. Communication (Effective communication and social skills) (20%)
Problem: Reducing Delivery charges to an Indian take away shop in Melbourne suburb. Significant goal is to discover best techniques to lessen calculated delivery expenses in the business. The main aim is to reduce the inventory investment in the supply chain and building competitive advantage. Benefits for our organization can rocket upward in the event that if we accomplish adequate reserve funds in supply chain costs.
Overview of Company
At the shop we utilize just the freshest locally sourced deliver, joined with appropriate flavour’s imported specifically from the sub-continent, to offer standard, traditional recipes with a present day curve, making a one of a kind and vital eating background for customers with three members of full -time staff and four casual staff including me as kitchen assistant working part-time. Customers can download shop menus or get in touch with us to book your next meal at shop.
Final report – Checklist
Title page
Choose an interesting and catchy title for your report.
The name of your industry partner should be part of the title or subtitle.
If you do not wish to disclose the name of your industry partner, make up a name. Don’t just write ‘company X’.
Executive summary
Keep it short and simple (ideally not more than 1 page – well formatted)
Summarise the background of the research (1 to 2 sentences)
Summarise the research approach (1 to 2 sentences)
Summarise the findings (dot points is fine, but write full sentences)
Summarise the implications/recommendations (dot points is fine, but write full sentences).
Table of contents
Introduction and problem statement (around 20% of your total word count)
Introduction to topic
What real problem does your research seek to resolve?
Why is this problem such a big issue for your industry partner? Why is it important that you research it? Convince us that your project is important and that it will help your industry partner.
State the overall research aim based on this problem
Theoretical background – Literature review (around 10% of your total word count)
What have others found in this research space, or in similar research spaces?
Are results from previous studies helpful for your context? Do they adequately inform how the firm, region or sector can move forward? (the general assumption is that they don’t, and hence there is a need for your research)
What are the underlying business theories that relate to this research space?
Link your literature review back to your problem space and use this as a foundation to formulate your research questions.
Methodology (around 10% of your total word count)
Do not review all different methods available. Only provide an overview of YOUR research design.
Address nature of your research approach (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods).
Address methods of data collection / your research tools (e.g. interviews, surveys, etc.).
Describe and justify your sample (who are your respondents and how did you find them?).
Address methods of data analysis (e.g. themes analysis, multivariate statistics, etc.)
Clearly and critically address ethical considerations. Are there any ethical issues you had to be mindful of (e.g. power relationship if you are interviewing your own team)? What impacts could your research have on the stakeholders involved in the process? How did you ensure that there was no risk to your participants/the involved stakeholders?
Findings (around 40% of your total word count)
Structure your findings
Use figures, graphs, tables to visualise findings. Be creative!
Conclusions and recommendations (around 20% of your total word count)
Respond to research questions – how do your findings link back to your research questions? How do they help the industry partner resolve the pressing problem you identified in the beginning?
The most important question: So what? What implications does your research have? How can your industry partner implement your recommendations? Provide action plans, policy proposals, training documents, workflow models, etc. Be very specific!
Footnotes (as required – avoid if at all possible)
List of References
Appendix (as required)