A99119 Research Methods

Participants completing this course should be able to:

1. Define research, explain and apply research terms.
2. Describe the research process and the principle activities, skills and ethics associated with the research process.
3. Identify and define the boundary for a business research project.
4. Locate problem areas in organisational settings and plan, organise, design, and conduct research to help solve the identified problems.
5. Develop a conceptual framework for research methodology.
6. Use technology to locate information from different sources.
7. Write and present research reports, such as their dissertation or thesis.

Research is a process that people undertake in a systematic way in order to find out things, thereby increasing their knowledge. It includes reporting, descriptive, explanatory and predictive studies. Particularly in business, research is a systematic inquiry that provides information to guide decisions: it is a process of determining, acquiring, analyzing and synthesizing, and disseminating relevant data, information, and insights to decision makers in ways that mobilize the organization to take appropriate actions that, in turn, maximize performance.

This course provides an introduction to research methods and prepares students for conducting their own independent research activity in the context of a dissertation or thesis project. It covers the whole research process from the identification of research questions through to writing up the project. Furthermore, it is designed to immerse students into the principles of qualitative research. Through lectures, in-class exercises and an interactive learning environment, this course addresses research problem formulation, literature review conduct, qualitative methodology and presents the collection, description, analysis and summary of data.

Assessment

1. Final individual project (50%): This project refers to identifying a research problem in the literature, conducting basic literature review online and proposing a qualitative methodology that is suitable for this problem. The submission deadline is 30 days after the end of the course. The assignment will be sent to e.hadzilias.ieseg@analyse.urkund.com for checking plagiarism.
2. Individual assignments (30%): The individual assignments take place in the course sessions and relate to in-class individual exercises on the cases.
3. In-class participation (20%): Class participation refers to the discussion and knowledge sharing in the class. Students are required to prepare in advance the course material related to each session.

The attendance is compulsory and only attending students will be admitted to the final exam. There will be only one exam date. If students fail the exam or reject the mark obtained they will not have a second chance to retake the exam.

Plagiarism

Please note that the final individual project must have a bibliography and cite all references correctly within the paper, according to the Harvard referencing system. Any form of plagiarism – not citing sources, submitting someone else’s work as your own, submitting group work as individual work, not properly attributing citations, etc. – will result in a final grade of 0 for the individuals involved.

Teaching/Learning Methodology

Lectures cover the core principles and concepts of the subject syllabus. Seminars are structured to enhance students’ understanding of relevant concepts through various kinds of activities, including online exercises and case discussions.

Assessment Criteria Grid for the Final Individual Project