Topic 1: The impacts of influencer marketing on the way consumers perceive brands…
· Some concepts to begin with (you can use other relevant concepts if you wish so): Brand Personality, Brand Respect, Influencer Credibility, Online Brand Engagement, Brand Equity, etc.
Question
The Marketing Research & Analytics course assessment is based (50%) upon an individual coursework, a project-based assignment. Its main objective is to expose you to the critical issues, and decisions involved in the process of marketing research. It is a structured collection of evidence and critical reflection, or analysis designed to support, and document your learning, and development towards the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) or competences of the course. This assessment will play an important part in designing, and prosecuting the research contained in your dissertations, as you will be required to set out several component parts demonstrating your learning. It is therefore very important that the assignment shows evidence not only of what will be done (descriptions), but also why it will be done (evidence-based justifications), in the way that it reflects the rationale of the whole project, at each and every stage.
The assignment is presented in 2 main parts:
Part 1: Research Proposal (2500 words)
Your research proposal should be structured featuring:
1. An introduction section (Discussing the background of the assigned topic, and why it is of interest both theoretically (intended academic/theoretical contributions), and practically (intended managerial/practical implications for relevant stakeholders), outlining the research aim, questions/objectives of this research project, research setting/context, and the structure of the proposal);
2. A critical literature review section (Positioning your research aim, questions/objectives in the broader literature, outlining the gap in knowledge you want to close, defining key terms/concepts, and identifying if there are academic debates surrounding these, evaluating key theories, models and concepts, and setting relevant hypotheses (the number of hypotheses you set depends on the key concepts you have reviewed);
3. A methodology section (Pursuing a mixed-methods approach: a qualitative and a quantitative phase, justifying your choice of methodology, justifying your research philosophy, research design, logic of research, process of research, time horizon, and purpose of the research, the order and sequence of qualitative and quantitative phases/studies, research instruments and their design (interview guide and questionnaire based on your key concepts), sampling (including the sampling criteria and proposed sample sizes), and data analysis, critically addressing the following questions: what are the strengths and weaknesses of your approach/technique and research design in comparison to other relevant approaches/techniques and research designs? What are your sampling techniques, and how are you going to recruit participants/respondents? How will you prepare your data and analyse your data? Which techniques will you use? And, why have you considered these as appropriate for your assigned research project? What is the scope? For example, is your research bounded by time, geography, participant/respondent characteristics, or any other relevant parameters? What are the limitations of the research design? For example, the quality of the evidence, sampling, and any other constraints… What measures are you going to undertake to ensure rigour/quality? What are the ethical implications?)
4. References should be enclosed following Harvard referencing guidelines at the end of your research proposal. References are excluded from the word-count.
Part 2: Appendices (excluded from the word-count)
1. Your interview Guide
2. Your Questionnaire
Please note that…
1. You are assigned to topics, rather than being asked to come up with your own topics, in order to firstly, ensure that the topics have significant academic/theoretical contributions, managerial/practical implications, secondly, to ensure that there is a gap in knowledge concerning the topics, and thirdly, to ensure that the topics are suitable for a mixed-methods design. You will be allowed to choose your own dissertation topics, only after undertaking both core and elective courses, and, thus, after being introduced to various subjects, topics, issues, and paths entailed in the whole MSc in Marketing programme.
2. You CAN choose any country, industry, sector, etc. as the context/setting of your research in this assessment, provided that there are legitimate reasons for your choices, and that you critically justify them in your assignment.
3. You CAN enclose further relevant tables/charts/appendices/diagrams/figures/exhibits/pictures, should you wish so. As stated in the first page, these are excluded from the word-count.
4. You do NOT need to collect any data for this assessment, and conduct any analysis, as this is a proposal.
5. Having a conclusion section is optional, albeit please be mindful of the word-count (conclusion section is included in the word-count).
Please can you use this book for references:
Title Essentials of marketing research / Joseph F. Hair, Jr., David J. Ortinau, Dana E. Harrison.
Author Hair, Joseph F., Jr., 1944- author.
Edition Fifth edition, International student edition.
Publisher New York, NY : McGraw-Hill Education, [2021]
Distributor Preston : Askews and Holts.
Copyright ©2021
I prefer that most references come from this book.
