The coursework is designed to prepare you to be able to conduct and apply research
methodologies for the commissioning, use and development of research in your future courses,
careers, and final year dissertation. Your research methods proposal will centre around a research
question. This question can be chosen from the list of questions made available to you by our
academic team or you may work with your own research question. Your summative assessment for
this unit is a 2,500-word research proposal.Your research proposal should state a research question, developed by you, or drawn from/related
to the list of research questions/topics provided. You will submit your research question early in the
term and build your literature review around your chosen question. From this point we strongly
encourage that you stick with your original research question, and this can only be altered in
exceptional cases and in conversation during your seminar with your seminar lead.
Having defined a clear research question, you are then required to develop a relevant research
philosophy, research design and rigorous methodology that is appropriate to address your research
question and the way you have posed it. This question must be related to management and
organisational studies (e.g. leadership, organisational behaviour, industrial relations, corporate
responsibility – please note this is not an exhaustive list and many questions are broadly related to
management and organisational studies), it can intersect with other areas also (e.g. gender,
sustainability). Your research proposal must have a feasible methodology to be undertaken and
completed as part of an undergraduate dissertation project i.e. be completed over approximately 9
months by one student. You must draw on, and cite, methodological literature presented in the
Unit to support your proposal.
