Please proceed with writing the full proposal taking the following into consideration. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you require further clarification.
Title: Ensure your title clearly conveys the aim of the research redefine to ensure you are clear what the focus is on. Title is inadequate.
While you were able to identify the topic you intend to investigate, you were not able to show clear understanding of relevant theoretical construct:
Job Stress; High Turnover; Human Capital Development; OHT etc.
What country, company, industry will you be focusing on? (this needs to be clearly stated in the title).
Are there any peculiarities vis a vis the concepts being studied within the country/company context?
Do you have access to the companies/industry/country of focus?
Provide a valid rationale for the choice of Industry/Company and Country
Provide research objectives and mirroring research questions and ensure that the research questions and objectives align.
Please follow the following guide in developing your proposal
• Title
• Introduction
• Rationale and problem statement
• Aim and Objectives
• Research Questions
• Background Literature
• Research Methodology
• Research Stage and Timeline
Introduction: Provide a brief introduction of the work and background to the research problem. This should seek to identify from the outset what you are doing, why you are doing it (in terms of importance) and potential benefits (in terms of contribution).
Rationale for Engaging and Problem statement
What is the rationale for carryout the research for the industry and the country?
What is the problem statement as it applies to the industry and the country context?
Aim and Objectives: Provide one main aim, the usual practice is to revisit your project topic and then turn this into the aim using action phrases such as to explore, examine etc. Identify 3-4 research objectives, which flow from the main aim. The research objectives must be comprehensive, and the research questions or hypothesis must be appropriate. Also ensure there is a thread that flows from the topic to the aim and research questions and objectives. It is better at this juncture to spend time mulling over this as it saves time and effort later on.
Background Literature: provide a brief outline of the main concepts you will be focusing. Identify prominent academic scholars or debates that will be the focus of later chapters. The background literature should be as comprehensive as possible and should seek to provide a robust outline of the literature review when your progress to the dissertation writing stage. Ensure that the information provided is not disjointed, that you demonstrate an ability to be methodical in your approach. Critically review academic literature and ensure you consult a wide range of academic literature in putting forward a comprehensive viewpoint. Put information from sources consulted in your own words in enhancing originality of thought and reasoning.
Provide a brief overview of the methodological consideration of the project. Ensure you are clear about the types of research and which you are using. The type of techniques and the methods you will be adopting. Consider the research population and potential sample frame. How will you analyse the data. Also identify possible research limitations.
Provide an overview of stages of the dissertation with suggested dates.
Also can you work on the ethics application and in particular, in the section of the form on ‘Identified ethical issues: (Specify whether any pose more than minimal risk)’ they wish to see some statement from researchers on issues such as:
Welfare: Confirmation that in your research you will be concerned to safeguard the welfare of any participants, and that you will not put them at risk.
Informed consent: When you invite potential participants to engage in the research, how will you inform them what is involved and ensure they are freely able to take part, or not, as they choose? Typically, the materials you will use will be a) an invitation letter/email ; b) a short description of the project, including what is expected of the respondent ; and c) a consent form or (in the case of a questionnaire) a click box/tick box to signify consent. A description of the process(es) you will use is sufficient at this point – you don’t need to supply letters and forms.
Confidentiality: How will you anonymise data that you collect as part of the research? Typically this involves allocating a code to interviewees and focus group members, and ensuring that any information linking respondent names to these codes is safely stored separately from the actual interview/focus group data. It also involves anonymising, in any transcripts you create, job titles, department names, and other material that might make the interviewee recognisable. With questionnaires, confidentiality is generally easier, as it is usual to allow people to complete them anonymously. If data is collected that enables you to link the data with a named person (for example, if you ask them to give you their email address if they are willing for you to collect more data from them) then you need to undertake the same measures as you would do when allocating and safeguarding codes to interviewees.
Data protection: How will you ensure that data you collect is safely stored? Under University policies, data must be * Collected fairly and lawfully, and stored/transferred in accordance with the Data Protection Act; held securely, be accurate and only held for as long as necessary. * Processed within the research participant’s rights, under the terms it was collected and be relevant, adequate and not excessive. * Stored securely in a format appropriate for the type of research data in question. * Limited to access by only those that are authorised as part of the research project.
Proposal structure should look like this
Title
Introduction (what is the main focus of the research and why is it important?)
Background Literature (This is the section which discusses how your work fits into the academic literature) -Identify possible heading and content of the dissertation. Also identify possible chapters and title of the chapters.
Aim and objectives (Identify the research aim and objectives. The rationale is that the objectives proposed need to be measurable, they help in focusing the literature review which you will write in say chapter 2
Research questions
Rationale and problem statement
Methodology (For the purpose of the proposal it will suffice to identify the main sources of data i.e. secondary (textbooks, articles, reports) and primary (qualitative and quantitative research techniques…identify the methods). In addition, it would be interesting to consider aspects of sampling and the research population. Keep it brief here as you can always expatiate in chapter 3
Chapter outline (requires you being forward thinking from this early stage, you can always revise chapter contents as you proceed, but rather than being purely generic, I prefer a direct application to the reserach. So following the introduction in chapter one; what will the other chapters focus on?
Time line: (provide a gantt chart on the time line for each aspect of the dissertation)
Conclusion (provide a succinct conclusion to the proposal).
Reference section: List of articles, textbooks etc.
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