Research strategy for making a good dissertation

There are several options to a researcher when developing strategies for a good dissertation. According to Saunders (2007) , these options can be limited to the following strategies , which in fact is very convenient for  university level dissertations. The strategies which are considered for the research are experiments, survey, case study, action research, grounded theory, ethnography and archival research. 

A careful reading of the descriptions for these strategies usually rule out archival research, ethnography and grounded theory (never mind these are my personal selections). Now if you consult with your supervisor you may also drop the case study, but it is just a personal opinion.  However if you are so convinced about what you are doing go ahead but keep in touch with your supervisor to design the statement, problem, solution and outcomes for your case study. Now one of the most popular methods is a survey research, I reckon you will prepare a survey for one your objectives.

 It is recommended to prepare one or you may find it very difficult to defend your outcomes. Besides the survey provides brand new data for you which is as good as a new car rather than a dodgy second hand car. Try to focus your recommendations and outcomes using the primary data and amount of 'quality' primary data is directly proportional to the value of your dissertation. (I recommend a reading on the 'triangulation in research ' which benefit the choice of research strategies).

It is also very appropriate for researchers to choose multiple research strategies since each objective reflects on specific outcomes. The choice of multiple strategies also improves the acceptability of your research since more than one strategy exhibit the expertise of the researcher with strategies. There are several other important points to be followed when choosing your research strategy since it should follow the choice you have made in the research philosophy and research approach. Let me summarise the points here in order to make a quality choice in the research strategies.

1. make sure you have understood all the strategies and their implications in your area of your research before making your selection.

2. Be conscious about the time limit to complete the dissertation and choose appropriate strategy.

3. The research strategy must follow your philosophy of the research and the research approach or else the valuator can stop reading the dissertation at this point.

4. Try to include examples for each of the strategy (you should specify all the strategies and give more explanation to your choice of dissertation in the later part).

5. A neat and clear explanation for the choice you have made in this section is expected which should be around 50% of your content in this section.

6. Choose more than one strategy which is more preferable and adds value to your expertise.

7. Specify clearly the tools and techniques to carry out each research strategy for example the sample size, characteristics of the respondents and methods for drawing the sample (preferably the simple random sampling).

Out of box:

The case study method is not popular among valuators you better make a through consultation with your supervisor before fixing it (and for your safety I recommend a second opinion) . How you explain implementation of the strategy you have chosen is the most significant point in this section other things can be obtained directly from the text books.

Research approaches for a good dissertation

A gentle reminder to the readers of this blog. In this blog I am following a systematic approach to introduce various tips and tricks for producing a valuable dissertation for top universities in the world especially in UK. The inputs can be utilised for doing an effective dissertation especially in management subjects and is specifically focused on getting good marks for the dissertation. Most of the students end up with bad grades since they have not fully understood the overall evaluation method by the University. Here, it is handled in a simple way with professional inputs to guide you through the complex task of producing a  dissertation. Please refer to all the other chapters for a better understanding and keep track of the developments.

Again and again I prefer to remind you that , it is better, stick to simple ideas and produce a fully sensible research. The universities and the evaluators are looking for the over all logical connection made at each chapter , the skills you have shown in choosing each tool and how you have implemented it in your investigation. 

So a dissertation that is too complex to understand may put you in to big trouble !..... the thumb rule here is 

KEEP IT SIMPLE AND STUPID ( K.I.S.S.).

The section following philosophy (last blog)  is the approach we are going to take when conducting the current research. That is how you are planning to approach the execution of research. Management students are very familiar with a top-down approach and bottom up approach that are very common in business analysis. whenever there is a need for analysing the strategy the management usually fix a particular approach such as a top down approach or a bottom up approach in accordance with the requirements of the situation. This practice in fact follows from the fundamental approaches in scientific and non-scientific research . 

This section is much easier to understand than the philosophy ( don't remind me about that..... !!!) .  

As I mentioned earlier,all the researches can be classified into 2 groups scientific and non-scientific research approaches or 'inductive' and 'deductive' approaches. The word deductive itself provides a clue about how it is conducted ,that is it moves from theory to data. This means you first create a theory and experiment with the theory.

In this stage we may remember how Einstein created relativity theory and gave a tough time to all the other scientists to prove it with experiments (data). it is difficult to understand the way in which scientist think since they think first and then make equations. Unfortunately in most of the educational system across the world the students are taught to learn those equations and do not get the time for creative or irrational thinking.

Let us  first discuss the deductive approach. the following points will make it very clear on the logic of deduction. 

• The deductive approach is based on scientific principles.
• This approach fundamentally moves from a specific theory to generation of data.
• This approach is strictly based on a structure such as procedures in a controlled (laboratory) experiment and obviously suitable for quantitative data.
• The statistical methods have a high influence on the outcomes and is less biased with the involvement of researcher.
• all the advantages and disadvantages of statistical data collection, classification and analysis are applicable to this approach.
• The outcomes of the research are generated from available facts.
• This approach is usually known as the top down approach.
• The deductive approach progress from the theory to hypothesis, observation and finally conformation.

Now you know this is not what you are not looking for right ? ( provided you are a management student). 

Fine, for a research conducted in a social setting an inductive approach is usually used . However, most of the researchers now try to select a particular approach for individual research objectives which gives more clarity on the outcomes.

The inductive approach is suitable for a research conducted to investigate various attributes that are not quantifiable. I hope the following points will make it more clear.

• The inductive approach is expected to provide more understanding about human attachments to certain events.
• This is the most suitable approach when dealing with qualitative data.
• There is high flexibility to change or update the structure of the research  as we progress with the investigation.
• In this approach the researcher is part of the research which sometimes create personal bias, but most suitable in case it is necessary to reflect the experience of the researcher in the outcomes.
• It begins with the creation of data and these data's are well explained with the existing theoretical foundation.
• This approach is usually known as the bottom up approach.
• The inductive approach begins with observation to identification of patterns and creates tentative hypothesis and develops the theory.

so when you select your particular approach for the research, have a  word with your guide and choose separate approaches for each research objective. sometimes they may advise you to follow one particular approach in that case better you do that :) . 

        

Philosophy of the research for a dissertation

The philosophy of the research is discussed here . You should be now wondering what is the relation between a philosophy and your humble dissertation. 

..........I have no choice but to get a little philosophical.......... !

So let us start with the term philosophy...as it always happens what ever work you have not understood, and consistently found in your study materials can be blamed on Greeks ( my Greek friends are very descent!). 

So... Philo= Love and Sophia = Wisdom ( some of my other friends are asking if they love wisdom so much how come they are in economic trouble now???..good question).

To make things a less philosophical , let me introduce this with some real life examples. For example , if you are supporting a specific political party , then you are understood to have a philosophy,following an ideology ( liberalism,socialism,communism so on) . So you developed your philosophy ( this can be economical,political,social,cultural,regional....) first and joins hands with like minded people.  

Therefore when you start your dissertation...research...follow a  particular philosophy . There are mainly 3 to 4 philosophies ...however I  understood only two :( ... but for the purpose of dissertation find the definition of other philosophies and mention it. Let us begin with positivism. you can get tons of material on positivism..still at the end of the day you will be wondering what it is ... at least I did :(.

So all those 'isms' I mentioned are your philosophy and the research approach and methods are the political parties you have selected to full fill your philosophical objectives. 

The theoretical explanation says positivism philosophy is followed by scientific experiments . In a scientific experiments , the scientists believe that they can prove any thing with experiments and if they have gone wrong blame it on the random error or statistics. This philosophy postulate that  the outcomes of the research should be quantifiable or it is not considered to be  a perfect experiment. Hence if your research involves conducting experiments in a controlled environment and data have a quantitative nature you are a 'positivist'..... GREAT!!!!

Just like you and me there are many people who do not believe that the truth cannot be squeezed out of a research conducted in a controlled environment especially for attributes with qualitative characteristics.  So when you are planning to conduct the experiment in a social setting , the outcomes are not always quantifiable and is explained with qualitative data analysis. So these sensible researchers are usually considered interpretivist. 

Hence the positivist have an objective approach and the interpretivist have a subjective approach ....

The inconsistencies of  a social science research are more visible if a positivism is applied ...such as trying to measure the loyalty of employees through a questionnaire and rewarding for best answers. The attribute like loyalty needs analysis from different dimension with subjective analysis... So a manager will show better accuracy in identifying more loyal employees than a positivist researcher.  

There are other philosophies and I am trying to summarise them with subjective and objective characterisations. 

Objective.                                         

1. Positivism
2. Realism.
3. Determinism.
4. Nomothetic.

Subjective.

1. Interpretivism.
2. Nominalism.
3. voluntarism.
4. Ideographic.

This list is not optimised and frankly for the purpose of dissertation I recommend only positivism , interpretivism and realism ( it is actually a mix of positivism and interpretivism) to be on the safer side. 

    Happy philosophical thinking .........!

Research methodology chapter for a dissertation

The last post of the year begins with a new chapter...Research methodology ( chapter III). Here I am going to give a detailed section on producing a good research methodology chapter. let us look in to the basic elements in a research methodology.

The process of research can be carried out only with the help of data's. there are mainly two type of data such as primary data and secondary data. Primary data is like a fresh fruit grown in your backyard and the secondary data is fruits bought from a shop. I am sure that you can answer any question on how you have grown the fruits in your back yard.  you are most probably in a position to tell me what sort of fertilizers you have used , the age of the tree , variety , when you plucked the fruit , any artificial methods for preservation and so on. This is exactly what we mean by a primary data .

The primary data is collected directly from the research environment, and the researcher will be able to answer questions on various tools and techniques used for the collection of data. This means you should be able to tell me how you collected the data , tools an techniques , nature of data ( quantitative or qualitative) , time period, participants in the process of collecting this data , whether the data is collected using random sampling ( this is important for making statistical inferences) and various other procedures. 

The secondary data is like the fruits that are bought from a shop, some times you can provide certain amount of information on the source and variety , but we get that information from a secondary source such as packaging or the shop keeper. However , we cannot personally guarantee any of these information. Also the quality is also at risk when it is bought without a label or packaging. 

So that is the best idea I can give about the data, but what is research methodology?

The methodology of the research provides a detailed explanation on the structure of research process along with a step by step representation of various tools and techniques used in the research. The methodology of the research is best explained using a research onion. ( Search for a research onion image in Google). There are five layers for a research onion......

Research philosophy .

Research approaches.

Research strategies .

Time horizon.

Data collection methods. 

Once you are finished with the above five layers , we still have some more subsections .....such as 

Reliability .

Validity .

Ethical considerations .

Time scale . 

...........and as I told you in the earlier posts an introduction and conclusion to the chapter ( compulsory for all chapters). 

All the above subsections and detailed explanation of it will  produce a good research methodology chapter. however , the most important part is in integrating the   above methods with the research under consideration. 

Some times the students prefer the qualitative , quantitative approach along with an explanation of the research such as exploratory , explanatory so on . however I prefer this method since you cannot miss out any thing and the methodology is crystal clear to the evaluator. 

I will give detailed explanation on the subsections in later posts....

                               Cheersssssssssss.  ;) 

7 ways to improve the value of a university literature review.

   I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas holidays ...let us come back to our main business. 

Today I am giving you some important tips for improving the value of your literature review and a check list of matter that is expected in every literature review. 

When you write a literature review for your dissertations.....

1. You must concentrate on a very recent literature available in the field of study(3-5 years).

2. In a 5000 words literature review...leave at least 1500 words for questionnaire related literature. for example  employee satisfaction, resistance to change , communication,training on job, work environment so on. 

3. Try to make multiple referencing as and when possible ( Yin , 1999;Saunders,2007), which make it more authentic .

4. Provide sufficient headings ( sub-headings are not compulsory). 

5. Try to write the literature review in the order of research objectives , over all a head , body and tail approach is expected. 

6. Criticisms of every concept , existing in the literature is highly expected and a literature without critical remarks from eminent authors ( not you ...!) will let you down on improving your grade. 

7. summarise the whole literature review sufficiently and provide if possible a conceptual frame work ( popular in 2011-2012). 

In order to keep you remain focused , read through the check list and improve your literature review..... I will come back later with an introduction to the great research methodology.....till then with your permission....

                                               Good bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                               

Still struggling....... with the collected materials for a dissertation???, may be these inputs can help you!??

                                MERRY CHRISTMAS

So I guess you have collected some amount of good articles with the help of sources I have provided. Refer to to the last post.

Hmmmm.... I know it is not easy , pulling your hair on how to classify and analyse?. Hope today's inputs will help your efforts. I will present it like a step by step guide ...should not be that difficult to follow.... 

Step 1. Read other literature reviews published in your area of research. 

This is one way to develop a model for your literature review. Further  you can create a theme for your literature review. 

The most significant point is giving a structure for your literature...means it must have a head , descent body and tail (summary).

you can imagine this structure just like human anatomy...big head , small body and long tail looks funny...scary!...so don't scare the evaluators . Try to be proportional for each section. 

Step 2. Stating the fundamental problem .

 This do not mean you have to desperately support your problem with the help of other authors. Rather you just provide a slanting towards a particular problem . 

Step 3. Rigorous searching in the literature. 

Now once we have taken that particular slant towards the problem, search for authors who are specialist in the topic .

It is as important as to find the authors who support your specialisations , as to find the authors who contradict or criticise this particular problem. 

The best literature review , never take sides , and it is the readers who come to the conclusion on your performance and your presentation of arguments made by others gives good grade. ( Try to be in the winning side.... ;) ) 

Step 4. Evaluation of findings. 

Read....read...reread.... evaluation needs through understanding of what you are doing..keep reading everything again and again

    So try to fix the number of materials to read make note of paragraphs or sentences related to your research , collect it and keep it for later referencing. Our literature revolves around some of the main authors others are like extras in a cinema. They are needed or it is too boring to watch it. 

Step 5. Interpreting the findings and analysis. 

The interpretation of evaluated findings require good understanding of what ever you have analysed so far. different authors use different methods for researching same topic , it is really important to mention this here during the interpretation. If you mention the difference in studies then you can impress the evaluator. ( No short cut for hard work...!!).

Step 6. Recommendations and conclusion. 

Now I really have no confidence in you to provide a good recommendation in the literature review part ( some exceptions do exist ...but I think leave it for academic brains . if you are good in it then you have a good future in academic writing, books, journals , reviews....ALL THE BEST).

So the best performance we can make is by decently summarising the literature review , using all most same sort of language used in the literature review. We have enough opportunity in the recommendation chapter towards the end of dissertation to show our creativity. 

 ............  HOPE THIS HELPS .......

Searching for materials (literature review) to develop a good dissertation ..... some useful links.

                  

Today I prefer to search with you for some good inputs , yes! through internet first.I am sure you have visited your library already ;) and using the on-line library facility in your university frequently. 

The links provided here and the topics are selected randomly with special interest to topics like human resource information system, branding , human resource management  and micro-finance industry. Try to include maximum number of journals in your literature...professors are addicted to it !!! . Remember literature from this century only ( heard that recently ?... all-night all-right) , and give special attention to literature generated after 2005, since we are living in 2011...whoa! time is going so fast . 

General links.

Statistical data analysis  .

The spread sheet page for excel users and developers 

Stock charts if you are watching the stock market 

Links to dissertations in Indian universities

Human resource information systems (HRIS).

 The impact of human resource information systems in the public sector

Human resource information system ; replacing or enhancing HRM

Research and practice in human resource management..... ur going to love me for giving this link

Human resource information system security ... nice one

Very useful site ... enjoy

Let me stop here for now giving you all the links , on request I will try for more. 

Recently I came to know that , some of the universities are demanding 6 chapters for the dissertation ( earlier it was 5) , so please be updated by reading dissertation guidelines you receive from the university. In face this is the most important tool to test the genuineness of your dissertation. I hope you have started with your literature review......let me wait for you and I will give inputs on research methodology .

A very very important tips when doing the literature review.................!!!!

Store your author sources in the MS Word ( Linux.. I don't know) , this is the way you do it .

Step one : Open a word document , save it ;)

Step two: Click home ( I assume you have the latest version)

Step three : Click references.....what do you see ?

Step four: On the third column did you see manage references at the top right hand corner ( I mean right hand ...right...right!!!  :)) ) 

Step five: Click manage resources ....u got a pop up window...click new 

Step 6: O.K. Done choose whether ur using book or a journal , then click ( another very important tip) corporate author , or u cannot place it in the bibliography properly. 

Step seven : Now enter the data as it is given there , and finish it..... u can use this in the later assignments or dissertations too.... this is a professional tip ...FREE...FREE ....FREE .

Step eight: Now once you have ur data entered , it can be used for inserting in your literature....go to the place where u want to enter it ..click then insert citation.... 

Step nine : Do u see a twinkling author name ...check the right hand side u can convert it in to static text and remove the initials...( We Don't Need Initials... HARVARD REFERENCING ) 

Now keep expanding the author list and go ahead with the literature .... keep me posted on ur doubts ... I am here for you mate ........ 

                                                                                              Cheers mate!!!

         

Literature review ...continued.

 " It is by logic we prove , but by intuition we discover " - Jules Poincare, Great mathematician. 

Let me continue with the literature review ...today I am trying to give some resources , tips for searching , paraphrasing , quoting and some of the links which may be of good use to you. I came across this link for referring books and journals . In fact Google books is a good source ...and there are many other like  Palgrave which give sample reference material and free samples of good journals . Another really really good site from London School of Economics London School of Economics list of free e-journals , which is extremely good. 

While searching in Google use some thing like ' employee branding literature review pdf ' this usually brings up many good articles .... and also go to the scholarly articles were you can get several good pdf articles...

To be frank with you ...try to collect materials first ... then fix your topic and objectives , if you are not strong in statistics go for simple presentations and survey analysis . From my experience I can tell you this works .... provided your analysis is supported by theory ...references... 

Remember! loads of statistics will not give you any extra advantage. So no need to spend money for data analysis..... you can do it.  

( pssssss....or if you are really really out of time , busy with your job, try to piggy back on a good research .... then be a good engineer { re-engineer, :)}........ 

                  Caution !             

Universities do have a software for similarity ...and if ur caught :(( ...ur finished.. plagiarism report will not give a hint on similarity ).So take only the structure of the research and add value to it. 

Now , I told you earlier about categorisation, categorise your main contributors , the main authors .... and fix what you are going to take from those authors. This will give a good start. 

 Move on to specific areas of your topic ...for example employee branding-customer satisfaction,HRIS-efficiency in communication. HRIS-employee satisfaction....Make a note of relevant contributions, then find other authors who made references to this topic. Google should be more than enough. when you are finished with the above links I will give you more or you can just send me a comment about your requirement. 

Appendix::


I came across this information....may be useful to you ....you can do various courses from a world class university without spending a single penny....
Click here

          Let me take a small commercial break...during your search for materials ;) 

  

  

Chapter 2 :: Literature review.

Today we start with the literature review chapter . 

start with a brief introduction, about 300 words( the chapter is expected go up to 5000 words for a 20000 word dissertation). The introduction provides information on what type of literature you are going to review,how you are going to do it , brief description of the sources and if not too inconvenient, main authors listed in the review. 

  Another important point is to specify the time period within which you are selecting the literature review. this depends on the topic you are selecting . It is better to chose last five years , not more than 10 years....and if you can specify why you have chosen this time period the better. 

O.K.... now before starting your review , collect all the materials ...do that first and categorise it . If you can place a table specifying what are the areas you are covering , the main authors listed in those areas and corresponding source with year....... brilliant!!

There are some very standard wordings which you are going to use in a literature review ...let me list it down.

1. According to Obama (2011)....( this form is also used in quotations, however please avoid quotations, paraphrase it ).

Note ; use only the surname and no initials. 

2. Gates (2008) , observes that ......

3. Blair (2009), criticises this view....

4. Cameron (2010), reflects that ....

5. Sarkozy( 2008), support this view and point out that ....

If don't have most of the above stuff...then some how academicians think that this is not a literature review. 

Now use small paragraphs as far as possible, and use headings . Maintain the flow of review starting with the research objective 1 , review topics related to it then move on to research objective 2 , research objective 3 .....

If the evaluator can make out the review of literature for all the research objective then you sure will get more than 60% marks . 

The criteria specified by professors are mostly along this line , however listen to the professor or you may miss out their important inputs.

Now please make sure that you have clearly connected all the research objectives and the literature review part is the reflection of your effort .... which is the main parameter for grades if all other sections being descent. 

just a suggestion....if you can place a diagram..if and only if you can do it properly ...place it to indicate the structure of your literature review. But if you are not confident forget about it , it can add more harm , if you do it in the wrong way.

Bit busy these days .... so I am stopping here may be u can expect another post today. 

            

   

Some reflections .....may be useful !

Friends , I am happy to know that you like this attempt , your feed backs can really improve the content . I am almost done with first chapter . 


A word of caution for UK students trying for PSW . Rush your work and try to submit it as early as possible , the PSW ,with the latest information , ends on March 31 ( you are already aware... I know ... :0 ). Also , recently I heard that  the professors are not suppose to view the final copy... to avoid bias during evaluation...!!  Is it true ? . I think they control us using the form for remarks and feed backs, which in fact can be seen by the evaluator . So try to be good ...punctual ....and avoid being too smart with them. 

A good news to share with you ... Ad-sense accepted my account and you are highly honoured to see a lot of other information in this site ;).Any way at least those guys know that I am spending my valuable time on this one. 

I am planning to make few posts on Harvard referencing soon. So look out for this important lesson. you are literally doing your dissertation just to learn how to reference it!! . 

In fact it is a serious offence in a country like UK , using information from other sources without permission. Many students I know have got terminated due to repeated high level of plagiarism. Also adding to the informations there are confirmed reports about students getting caught for doing their dissertations with professional help. ( I wonder how all those websites offering dissertations for sky high prices survive ...not sure whether it is right!). 

it is easy to do it using MS word and related tools. I will also give you a lot of information soon on making table of contents , bibliography and other automated documentations .