Reference no: EM133047519 , Length: word count:12000

Consultancy Project Report

1. Introduction
These guidance notes:
• set out the basic requirements for your assignments;
• explain how to choose a topic for your Consultancy Project Report;
• set out how the Consultancy Project Report will be marked;
• give a recommended structure for your Consultancy Project Report;
• explain supervision arrangements.

If you have any questions about the Consultancy Project Report, you should contact your supervisor in the first instance. If your supervisor is unable to help, you should contact the Programme.

2. Basic requirements for your assignments
There is one formative and one summative assessment for this programme. The formative assessment is intended to give you useful feedback and guide your progress, but it will not be given a specific mark. The summative assessment is marked and determines your grade for the whole programme.

The summary research proposal should:
a) explain the topic you have chosen;
b) say why it is interesting/important: what is the problem, issue or opportunity it addresses?
c) set out the aim and objectives of the proposed research;
d) reflect on how it meets the learning outcomes.

This formative proposal must comply with the relevant University ethical guidelines and be signed off by your Consultancy Project Report supervisor before you can proceed with your data collection or further research.

This assessment should build on the formative assessment, taking into account the feedback you received. It needs to be submitted by the dates given by the Programme Manager.

The purpose of the Consultancy Project Report is to deliver a practical and realistic solution to a business-related problem, which is supported by appropriate reference to theoretical and conceptual analysis. You need to choose ONE of the following two approaches:

1. A work-based project, which will involve you working in a consultative capacity with a specific organisation, where the emphasis will be on analysing and evaluating substantive strategic problems or issues within the organisation and formulating appropriate solutions and/or recommendations.
or:

2. A project which will involve analysing and evaluating substantive strategic problems in a specific business sector, formulating perspectives on how the problems might be tackled and making an assessment of the future changes that will affect developments in that sector.

As you are likely to be already employed in an organisation, it is assumed that the first of these will be your first choice, as you are likely to have access to a wide range of resources to carry out your investigation. Otherwise, your choice of topic will depend largely on arranging access and gaining commitment and support from an organisation or organisations that have a strategic problem in need of investigation.

Your specific choice of topic may also be influenced by a number of other factors, such as:
• whether your topic meets the required ethical guidelines set by the University;
• the business areas/sectors that have interested you in previous studies;
• the type of prior business experience that you have had;
• the range of skills that you feel you need to develop;
• the future work that you are likely to be doing in a commercial or non-profit making environment.

5. Recommended Consultancy Project Report structure
This section sets out a recommended structure for the Consultancy Project Report, with indicative word lengths for each section. It is your decision as to how you manage your project

work and produce your Consultancy Project Report. However, the approach recommended here is based on many years of experience and, if followed, should lead to a well-balanced, coherent piece of work that meets the learning outcomes and assessment criteria for the module. If you depart from this model, you must be aware of how your Consultancy Project Report will be assessed. If you do not include content which is relevant to an assessment criterion then you risk not meeting the required standards.

Title page

The title page should include your project's title, the name of the programme, London Graduate School and the awarding university, your name and your student ID number.

You should follow the usual format of academic research titles. The first part of the title should state the management/business topic which is the focus of the report; the second part should mention the organisation/sector and possibly also the method used, typically a case study.

The two parts of the title should be divided by a colon. Here are some examples: Innovations in digital marketing strategy: A case study of ABC Ltd.
The expected impact of Brexit on staff recruitment in the UK hospitality sector: A case study of the Paramount Hotel, London

Contents page

Use you automatic Word contents page template - keep this to the main headings and hyperlink the pages to this page for ease of reference.

Section 1. Introduction (c2000 words)

The Introduction should set out the background to the study and the nature of the problem/issue/opportunity being examined. This means setting the study in context, explaining why the Consultancy Project Report is needed. The focus of the justification should be on why the report will be useful to the specific organisation or to the wider sector. The overall aim and related specific objectives should be stated clearly towards the end of this section, so the reader can see what you were trying to achieve. The Introduction should therefore include the following:
• Brief introduction to the research topic: Say in one or two sentences what the research is about - this is not a mystery story - and briefly define any key terms.
• Organisation/sector background: Include financial and other company/sector information to give the reader the essential background to be able to understand the context of the report.
• Problem statement: Highlight the strategic challenge that you are looking to review, what has happened and what needs to be resolved. Why is this report important to the company and/or sector and how might your analysis and recommendations be used in the future?
• Aim and objectives: Your aim should set out in one sentence what your research was trying to achieve overall, using clear, simple English. You should have specific objectives for your background research/literature review, your primary data gathering and your recommendations. If you follow this approach, you do not also need research questions or hypotheses.
• Limitations of the report: Mention any limitations of the report and further work that may be required.

Section 2. Background Research (c3500 words)

This section should set out the background research you have done on the problem / issue / opportunity. Typically, your background research will be based partly on an analysis of secondary data from the organisation itself - for instance, management accounts, staff survey results, training feedback forms or web analytics data. This will normally be combined with a literature review. Sometimes there may not be sufficient data, or you may not be able to gain access to a specific organisation. Under such circumstances the background research will take the form of a literature review alone.

The literature review element of this section has two main purposes:
• To find information which will directly help address your chosen problem / issue / opportunity (e.g. by identifying a specific change that might help the organisation, such as identifying what is regarded as best practice in HR terms when implementing a major organisational change); and/or
• To guide your primary research (e.g. by identifying key questions that need to be followed up, such as identifying the key areas to be covered when measuring customers' perceptions of the organisation's brand).

Section 3. Method Justification and Explanation (c1500 words)

This section should briefly describe your primary research method(s) and then justify your chosen method(s).1 In other words, what are the advantages of the proposed method(s) in your specific case and, where there are potential disadvantages of the method(s), why are these not so important or how did you minimise them through a good research design. It is not necessary to discuss the underlying research philosophy, methods of reasoning etc. - whilst your research method needs to be soundly based, the purpose of the Consultancy Project Report is essentially applied and practical.

The section should then explain the primary data collection and analysis techniques that you used when undertaking your primary research, so that the reader can see that your results are likely to be valid. The section should typically include:
• Access - how you gained access to the organisation or why consent was not needed
• Sampling method and sample size
• Primary data collection instrument used - a clean copy of your questionnaire or interview questions should be included as an appendix
• Data collection administration - how you went about conducting your questionnaire survey or your interviews
• Data analysis approach - how you went about analysing the collected data
• Ethical issues relevant to the research- what these were and how you addressed them. You must complete a University of Chichester ethical approval form before any data collection takes place.

Section 4. Results and Analysis (c3500 words)

This section should set out and analyse the results of the primary research that you conducted. The content of the section will vary depending on whether you have used a qualitative approach (e.g. semi-structured interviews with staff or managers) or a quantitative one (e.g. a questionnaire survey of staff or customers). However, whatever your method, this section must:
• analyse and evaluate the data, not simply describe it;
• include suitable comparisons with the literature;
• set out your conclusions about the data, supported by the evidence presented.

Section 5. Recommendations and Implementation (c1500/2000 words)

This section needs to set out the recommendations which you believe the organisation or sector should implement, or at least consider. Recommendations need to be specific, realistic and cost-effective ones for the organisation where you carried out your research or for the sector generally. Recommendations must also be based on the earlier discussion, research and conclusions - nothing new, or unsupported by earlier evidence from sections 2 and 4, should be added at this stage. You should also set out in some detail how each recommendation would be implemented. For example, you should consider estimated costs, timing, management responsibilities and review arrangements.

Attachment:- Consultancy Project Guidelines.rar