Reference no: EM133529057 , Length: word count:200

Leveraging IT for Business Advantage

Assessment - Research Proposal

Research topic - Use of social media for collaboration, marketing, management, human resources, productivity. Focus on a business field or industry.

Purpose:

Write a research proposal on a specific topic in Information Technology. A student will be required to conduct research in regards to their assigned topic and present his/her idea or question and expected outcomes with clarity and definition.

1. Critically evaluate how technology can enable an organisation's core business processes and support the strategic goals.

2. Analyse and comprehend the issues that arise with the acquisition and adoption of technology and recommend possible solutions.

3. Critically evaluate the ways in which information technology can contribute to organisational innovation, efficiency and overall corporate performance.

4. Critically analyse and evaluate the key issues, challenges and opportunities associated with the latest developments in Information Systems.

Research Proposal

Objectives

This assessment item relates to the unit learning outcomes as in the unit descriptor. This assessment is designed to improve student learning skills and to give students experience in researching the literature on a topic relevant to the Unit of Study subject matter, critically analysing current academic papers then presenting idea or question and expected outcomes with clarity and definition in a referenced written report.

Instructions

For this component you will write a research proposal on a particular topic. The topic you select must be directly relevant to IT in Business. Your topic must include a specific information technology and a specific business application, e.g., AI For fraud detection.

All students must have a different topic. Students can choose to write about the same technology, but the approach and the thrust of each paper must be different. For instance, you could look at cloud computing from a security viewpoint, or from an environment impact viewpoint, or from the perspective of a manager trying to reduce their hardware costs. There will be many perspectives to look at each technology and its relation to Business IT.

To ensure this uniqueness, each student must email their topic and title to their tutor within the first two weeks. Your tutor will respond with an approval or with a message that you will either need to choose a different technology or to change the thrust of your paper. Once it has been approved you should begin by working towards the first deliverable.

The Key elements of the research proposal

The following elements must be included in your research proposal:
1. Introduction or background to the research problem or issue, including an identification of the gap in the current research
2. Research question and, if possible, a thesis statement answering the question
3. Justification for the proposal research, i.e., why the research is needed
4. Preliminary literature review covering what others have already done in the area
5. Theoretical framework to be used in the proposed research
6. Statement of the contribution of the research to the general area
7. Proposed research methodology
8. Research plan and outline
9. Timetable of proposed research
10. List of references used in preparing the proposal

1. Introduction

• The introduction should be as brief as possible (a paragraph or two). Whatever you do, don't ramble on for pages; you need to make this part of the proposal clear and crisp. In the introduction, you need to give a sense of the general field of research of which your area is a part. You then need to narrow to the specific area of your concern. This should lead logically to the gap in the research that you intend to fill. When the gap is identified, a research question can then be raised. The answer to this question is called the thesis statement.

2. The research question
• The research question may not be a question as such, but rather a statement of a problem to be investigated.

3. Justification for the proposed research
• one page is usually sufficient for this. You need to tell the reader that the research can justified along four main criteria: (1) The size of the industry/area involved; (2) The gaps in the literature that demand attention;
(3) The unusual or improved methodology being used; (4) The benefits in terms of policy and practice

4. Preliminary literature review
• This is where you provide more detail about what others have done in the area, and what you propose to do. You need to write around 2-3 pages in which you cover the following: (1) The major issues or schools of thought (2) Gaps in the literature (in more detail than is provided in the introduction) (3) Research questions and/or hypotheses which are connected carefully to the literature being reviewed (4) Definitions of key terms, provided either when you introduce each idea, or in a definition sub-section (5) Questions arising from the gaps that can be the focus of data collection or analysis.

5. Theoretical framework
• The theoretical framework usually forms the final part of the literature review section. It describes the concept/theory/model that you are using in the thesis to demonstrate your point.

6. Contribution of the research
• In this section, you outline how your research will make a change to an area of study. This is different from the justification of your research. The justification explains why the research should be done. The contribution section explains how what you will do will lead to certain outcomes. You need to outline: (1) The importance of the research outcome(s); (2) The practical or theoretical nature of the outcome(s).

7. Proposed research methodology
• You do not have to describe the methodology to be used in great detail, but you should justify its use over other methodologies. For example, you could explain the reasons for using: (1) a certain paradigm or theory
(2) qualitative or quantitative research (3) a case study of a specific kind (4) surveys, correlational experiments, field studies, specific statistical measurements, etc. (5) certain dependent or independent or moderating variables (6) a particular sampling frame and the size of a sample.

8. Research plan
• The research plan or outline can be discussed in conjunction with a research timetable. However, be aware that they have a different function. A research plan helps you as well as the reader as: (1) it gives you a framework for the direction your research will take (2) it shows the reader the project is well-organized and achievable in the time available (3) it shows your detailed research activities.

9. Research timetable
• The timetable should indicate the weighting of each part of the proposed thesis in percentage terms, the topics covered, approximate word limit and, importantly, the approximate length of time it will take to complete them. You might consider providing a graph for convenience.

10. List of references
• This must be provided in the usual scholarly fashion. It helps to convince your reader that your proposal is worth pursuing if you can identify literature in the field and demonstrate that you understand it. It makes a very strong impact if you can identify where there is a research gap in the literature that your proposal hopes to fill. This is your contribution to the scholarly conversation. You should use academic references (peer reviewed articles), rather than web articles.