For this assignment you are asked to assume that you are a member of the Investment Management Research team at Carcassonee Associates, a prominent venture capital firm. Your manager, Mary Ashfield, the Director of Investment Management Research, was asked by the managing partners to have her team explore new business opportunities that could be presented to prospective investors. After attending numerous events such as Investors Circle (Links to an external site.), that are designed to bring together prospective investors and entrepreneurs, you have finally identified a new and innovative business idea. You spoke with your manager, Mary Ashfield, and she was very impressed.
Before taking this new business proposal to the managing partners for consideration, the Investment Management Research team will need to conduct a research project to determine the viability of this new business proposal. Your assignment is to write the proposal for this research project.
You are encouraged to be creative when choosing a new business idea. Just bear in mind that it must be one that can be researched so you are encouraged to do some preliminary research in the EBSCO Business Source Premier or ProQuest Central databases at the eLibrary or on the internet.
Five Sections of Completed Research Proposal
I. Problem or objective: Research proposals generally begin with an introductory section that describes the research problem and establishes its significance. This section answers the following kinds of questions: What exactly do you want to study? Why is it worth studying? Does the proposed study have theoretical and/or practical significance? Does it contribute to a new understanding of a phenomenon (e.g., does it address new or little-known material or does it treat familiar material in a new way or does it challenge an existing understanding or extend existing knowledge)?
II. Research question: Your specific research question or hypotheses should be stated clearly at the end of the description of the problem/objective.
III. Literature Review of articles published on your proposed research topic (at least two articles from scholarly journals must be included in your review): The literature review presents a discussion of the most important research and theoretical work relating to the research problem/objective. It addresses the following kinds of questions: What have others said about this area(s)? What theories address it and what do these say? What research has been done (or not done) previously? Are there consistent findings or do past studies disagree? Are there flaws or gaps in the previous research that your study will seek to remedy?
IV. Procedures – Methods Section: This section describes how you will conduct your study. Regardless of the type of research you plan to do, you need to indicate how you will carry out your study so others may judge its viability. This section should cover the following four points:
Subjects for study. Describe the subjects (people or objects, e.g. texts) for your study, considering carefully the type and number you need. Explain your method of selecting your subject(s) (and if a sample, describe the population and how the sample will be drawn). Discuss the subject(s) in relation to your research question or hypothesis, to availability, and to your research design. That is, you need to identify the subjects and make clear whether they will be available and how you will reach them. This section typically answers the following questions: Who or what will you study in order to collect data? Is it appropriate to select a sample from a larger pool? If so, how will you do that? How do these subjects relate to your research question(s)?
Measurement. Describe the kinds of measures you intend to use and explain why you have selected these (have they been used previously? if not, have you piloted them?). A discussion of measurements generally considers the following questions: What are the key variables in your study? How will you define and measure them? Do your definitions and measurements draw on or differ from those of previous research in this area?
Data-Collection Methods. Describe what you plan to actually do and the kind of research you will conduct. Your data-collection methods obviously need to be consistent with your research problem, your subjects and your measurements. This section typically considers the following question: How will you actually collect the data for your study?
Analysis. Describe the kind of analysis you plan to conduct, and explain the logic and purpose of your analysis. The kind(s) of analysis you plan will, of course, be contingent on the subjects, the measures and the data collection as well as on your research question so you will need to explain how you will analyze the data you collect.
V. Reference List: A list of all sources cited in the research proposal
