Sample BE955 International Marketing and Entrepreneurship Assignment

BE955 International Marketing and Entrepreneurship Assignment Sample

Assignment structure

Title

- The title should not be too long
- It should reflect the topic chosen (e.g. three key words in the title)
- The title is posed as a statement, not as a question
- The topic should fit your master’s degree
- The topic should not be too wide/general in scope

1. Introduction (about 150 words)

- You will link your topic briefly to your master’s programme

- The focus of your study and how it is placed in a research context in terms of your discipline.
(E.g. international marketing - customer relationships - branding – India to China - service sector)

2. Rational for the research (about 200 words)

- Justification for the dissertation research: Given what is already known on the specific topic, what is the knowledge gap that deserves a study? For an applied research project that does not address a knowledge gap in the literature, please establish the strategic importance of the concerned practical problem to an organisation or a population.

- Significance of the study: Why do you believe the proposed study is important? (e.g. the research problem is of strategic importance to an organisation, or potential impact on the society)

3. The objectives and scope of the research (about 150 words)

- Research aim: Overarching statement on what the study aims to achieve in one or two sentences

- Research questions: What is the research question or questions? The research question or questions should directly address the identified knowledge gap or practical problem.

- Research objectives: List at least two or three specific objectives. E.g. to find out what enables or hinders a circular economy, etc. If necessary, provide additional information to define the scope. For example, the context of the study is the UK, or this study only considers the perspective of consumers and excludes other stakeholders, etc.

4. Literature review (theories, concepts, definitions, the most relevant studies on your chosen topic and their key findings) (about 800 words)

- In relation to your disciplinary area, in general (e.g. consumer behaviour, supply chain management, etc.)
- In relation to your chosen topic, more specifically (e.g. brand management)
- What others have studied on the most relevant topics in a same context or different contexts, and what are their key findings?

A short paragraph at the end of this section to summarise the knowledge gap on your chosen topic, which will be addressed by your proposed study. For an applied research project, please summarise the potential solutions to your practical problem.

5. Methodology (about 400 words)

Describe your methodology, data collection procedures, data analysis methods, and justify each of them briefly. The justification should be related to the nature of your research and your research questions/objectives.

6. Expected outcomes/contributions (about 150 words)

‘Wrap up’ as to how all aspects above fit together and will be relevant. It should link back to the introduction by saying e.g. ‘this study is innovative; this study will generate new knowledge on...; this study will solve an important practical issue faced by ...’ etc.
Expected outcomes: e.g. empirical data that can help to understand:

- The what (variables; experiences; perceptions, attitudes, behaviours; actions)
- The how (processes, practices, systems, etc.)
- The why (internal and external conditions, causation, correlations, etc.)

These should be in relation to your research questions(s)/objectives: e.g. the link between networking behaviour of Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs and their business chances in the town of Southend; e.g. a robust NHS staff scheduling heuristic to cope with the unpredictable demand in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Potential contributions: e.g. to support policymaking; a model or framework to improve environmental sustainability; to improve operational efficiency of an organisation.

7. Timeline for completion (about 150 words)

Draw a Gannt chart or something similar considering the following:

- Most research works will be done in the Summer

- Ethical approval is required before primary data collection

- Including the deadline for submitting the draft to the supervisor!

- Set a time for your fieldwork (in the UK or abroad of about 2-3 weeks in July, on average)

- Set a time for your analysis and write up after the fieldwork

- Practical issues: assess likely contingencies; calculate the time of any potential holiday breaks or other commitments (this must be subtracted from any activity in the plan to make it viable.

Contingency plan: You should also highlight potential challenges which may prevent you from carrying out the proposed study, and your contingency plan.

References (excluded from the wordcount)

Biography information of the references cited in the main text, presented in the Harvard or APA 7th edition referencing style but not a mixture of both

Solution

1. Introduction

Leaders are vital assets of the organisation that aims to bring co-ordination among employees and attains the organisation’s goal. Involvement of effective leadership skills is crucial to bring great confidence among employees and motivate them well in order to satisfy the customer’s need further. They are responsible to create a positive organisation culture and sustain enthusiastic environment around the community for assignment help.

The proposal will try to investigate the essential leadership skills that can exert great impact on organizational performance and promote the overall growth of business. Role of a manager is only restricted to achieving the short-term business goals but leaders are responsible for creating long term vision and influence others to achieve the vision. Therefore, the research will assess the impact of leaders that can make significant changes on organizational performance.

2. Rationale of research

The research will shed light on the differences between management practices and leadership practices as often both the concepts overlap and create confusion (Guhret al. 2019). In this research, the researcher will try evaluate the impact of leadership on organisational performance and prepare objectives based on the research phenomena. Collecting evidence based on phenomena on the participant for a specific period of time will allow the researcher to point out the present issues in leadership. As poor leadership style concerns a negative performance in the organisation, it is intricately important to study the effectiveness of leadership practices. Improper communication issues of leaders can also imply a challenge in the surrounding environment of employees that also need to be resolved to create a sustainable organisation culture.

Significance of the research

Role of leaders not only impact on the performance of organisation but also impact on the development of community. The research will try to generate the importance for leaders that can motivate their employees to reform their practice and contribute in larger context.

3. Objective and scope of the research

Research aim

The aim of the research is to explore the impact of leadership on organizational performance and evaluate the benefit of effective leadership style application on an organization.

Research question

- How can poor leadership imply a negative performance in the organisation?

- What are the potential challenges confronted by the leaders in the organisation?

- How communication issue creates a gap between leaders and employees in the performance of the organisation?

- How have the leaders challenged themselves in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis?

Research objective

- To identify the factors that affect the leadership styles

- To determine the impact of effective leadership in organizational performance.

- To evaluate the common leadership challenges.

- To suggest plausible recommendation to overcome the current issues in leadership

Research scope

Scope of the research is to determine the contemporary issues in the modern-day leadership and use relevant real life examples of leadership so that impact of the leadership on organizational performance can be elaborately depicted. In order to evaluate the impact of effective leadership on organization, the research will consider the perspective of both internal and external stakeholders that will help in understanding the overall influence of leaders on organizational performance.

4. Literature review

Factors affecting leadership style

Technology

Technology can influence the business environment dramatically overnight. The leaders try to adopt different leadership styles and adjust according to it to accomplish the technological needs of the organisation. Research and development practices also trigger the leader’s minds to deploy innovative techniques in the firm to make the operations easier.

Organisational culture

Culture varies widely depending on the history and crisis of the existing and potential leaders in an organisation. Based on the views of Al Khajeh(2018), culture is difficult to change as it is highly dependent on the customs, formal systems, traditions and long-held information of the company. To suit the needs of the firm, leaders undergo transparent leadership style to respond appropriately for different circumstances.

Organisational environment

As organisations have their own specified working environment, the values of the company are recognised to be the legacy of the past and current leaders. The leaders often care for the shareholders, employees, customers and working community through a defined leadership style to make up the personality of the firm.
Impact of leadership in organisational performance

The leadership style encountered by the leaders of the organisation significantly impacts the level of engagement and dedication of employees. They are able to inspire, motivate and nourish the potential employees by building loyalty and trust to influence the team’s actions. Positive leaders alert the mind of the workers where the employees greatly respond to the leaders to seek their interests with a positive outlook (Mui, Basit & Hassan, 2018). Involvement of effective leadership strategy in the organisation increases the customer satisfaction rate as employees tend to be happier and cohesive to provide better service to the consumers. Good leadership raises the sales and revenue of the organisation as it is a crucial part of the leaders to be committed and have guts to imply higher growth expectation for the firm. Increased productivity is another positive impact of leaders towards organisational performance as they concentrate on engagement and motivation instead of authority style.

Challenges of leadership

Communication issues

Poor communication between the leaders and employees indulges a frequent leadership challenge. The most common and authentic problem disassociates with the business leaders as their communication sometimes lacks authenticity. It is either due to failing in understanding the employee perspective or due to external environmental implication that has led to a barrier between the employer and employee (Razzaq, Sami & Hammad, 2020).

Inadequate leadership

Inappropriate leadership can discern poor management with the employees due to which they remain unclear about their roles and responsibilities in the organisation. It tends to create disengagement and lack of motivation among the employees as they are unable to focus on their duties with too many distractions.

Lack of problem-solving and negotiation skills

Failing to acquire proper problem-solving skills incurs the absence of a methodological approach of the leaders to solve the problem. It occurs due to the lack of commitment to address the problem or misinterpret it on the cause of having no knowledge on the problem solving and negotiation tools or techniques.

Overcome the issues of leadership

Open communication is the foremost way to address the leadership challenge of communication as it can improve the employee’s confidence level and boost increased growth in the organisation. As per the views of Khan et al. (2018), leaders need to respect and accept feedback based on their engagement level with the employees as it can clarify the roles of the workforce as well as endorse sustainable culture within the firm. Allowing collaborative practices within the company is crucial to split the teams into smaller groups for larger projects to avoid management issues with the employees. On the contrary, reduction of the cultural gaps among the workers by creating more awareness in the company is important to overcome the barriers between the employees and leaders.

Theoretical insights

Implementation of Behavioural leadership theoryis effective to focus on the actions of the leaders as per the demands and requisites of the employees. It promotes the value of leadership style by encouraging the workforce to support the individual needs based on the circumstances (Alhashediet al. 2021).

Figure 1: Behavioural leadership theory
(Source: Alhashediet al. 2021)

Involvement of the Michigan model of Leadership is crucial for the leaders in order to achieve the highest employee productivity and satisfaction rate. The leaders need to change their attitude by positive means by understanding the discrepancies of the workplace and the physical needs of the employees.

Figure 2: Michigan model of Leadership
(Source: Arif&Akram, 2018)

Literature Gap

The study has used qualitative research methodology that is often time-consuming and can imply complex result work due to the subjective responses of the leaders. Another literature gap is the use of a cross-sectional time horizon for the study that is not effective to analyse the behaviour of leaders over time to showcase their impact on the organisation’s performance level. The ongoing crisis of Covid-19 is regarded to be a knowledge gap due to which the researcher has not presented vivid findings of leadership effectiveness in different realistic organisations (Para-González, Jiménez-Jiménez & Martínez-Lorente, 2018). In order to resolve the literature gap, the researcher can use mixed methods of research that could ensure contextualised insights of both qualitative and quantitative data. Involvement of longitudinal time horizon could be advantageous in terms of conducting the research for a longer time by identify the different behavioural characterises of leaders for organisational performance. The researcher needs to identify the potential problems of leaders in the pandemic crisis in order to provide a realistic solution to the problem and increase the visibility of the research scope.

5. Methodology

5.1 Research philosophy, approach and design

1. Research philosophy

The research will apply pragmatic research philosophy as it will allow the researcher to collect both qualitative and quantitative data and build compact ideas about the research phenomena. As the research will try to investigate the influence of leadership on organization, therefore, pragmatism research philosophy will enable the researcher to form both subjective and objective knowledge about the research topic (Snyder, 2019). Pragmatism research philosophy also enables the researcher to select the most effective research approach that can help in addressing the research issues. Involvement of Behavioural theory of leadership was followed to address the leadership challenges in the study through a pragmatic approach.

2. Research Approach

Implementation of a specific research approach will help in developing details and plan and process of data collection so that aim and objective of the research can be attained. The research will include the inductive research approach to include specific information about the research phenomena. Inductive research approaches provide opportunities to develop research objectives and allow the researcher to apply specific theories and models that help in setting the pattern of the research.

3. Methodological Choice

There are three types of research methods such as mono method, mixed method and multi-mixed method that provide guidance to the research to conduct their research in a specific way. Mono method comprises only one type of research methodology such as qualitative or quantitative. On the other hand, the mixed method commonly used the combination of two methods and the multi-mixed method selected a wider range of methods to address the research phenomena (Al Khajeh, 2018). In this research, a mono method will be most appropriate for the research that will allow the researcher to collect qualitative data. Inclusion of non-numerical data will help the researcher to develop authenticated outcomes that develop clear understanding about the impact of leadership on organizational performance.

4. Research Strategy

Research strategy plays a critical role in introducing the main components of the research; therefore, selection of effective research strategy will enable the researcher to attain the research objectives.In this research, application of qualitative interviews will be appropriate as it will allow the researcher to collect concise information from the selected participants. The research will include 5 randomly selected participants and gather their view about effective leadership impact on an organization.

5. Time horizon

The research will include the cross sectionaltime horizon method that allows the researcher to collect data from a singular point of view and it restrain the researcher to practice any type of data manipulation technique. Longitudinal studies are more suitable for acknowledging the impact of changes on population. However, in this case, cross sectional study is more significant as it will provide an opportunity to describe the present situation of an organization and its employees.

5.2 Data collection and analysis technique

Data collection

Primary and secondary data collection processes will be involved within the research to collect information that has already been tested. Due to the nature of the secondary data collection process, risk of failure of data will be minimize and the research will be able to present more accurate and authenticated research outcome (Cr, 2020). On the other hand, primary data collection process will also allow the researcher to conduct interviews with participants and encourage them to share their opinions about the research phenomena so that fresh hand information can be incorporated within the research.

Data analysis

Thematic data analysis method will be incorporated within the research so that appropriate themes can be made based on the collated information (Mohajan, 2018). Involvement of thematic analysis will enable the researcher to evaluate both numeric and non-numeric data and present significant research outcomes.

6. Expected Outcome

It is expected from the study that organisational environment, cultural background of the company and technological alliances are regarded as the most important variables for underlying the leaders on a good note. This study will generate an innovative knowledge on the impact of leadership on the performance ability of the organisation as it is responsible to boost sales revenue, generate increased employee motivation rate and loyal customers. Involvement of qualitative research methodological process is utilised in the study as it will incorporate the human experience of leaders. The researcher can also solve the practical issues of the leaders by fostering open communication channels and maintaining transparency among the employees through increased feedback sessions. In order to make a significant impact for the leaders for organisational performance, they need to reduce cultural gaps and foster open communication in a positive way (Arif&Akram, 2018).

7. Timeline

Gantt chart

Missing the deadlines of each work can incur over budget of the research project and delay the step-by-step acts with a great surge in the management schedules. The researcher needs to take care of the timeline through a time tracker to maintain a healthy workflow in the project.

Reference list