‘THE STRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT DISSERTATION’

BAMG3118 (30 CREDITS)

LECTURE 3

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Lecture Overview
Linkage part (1) and part (2) of the module
Literature Review
- Research Hypotheses
- Research Model
- Research Methodology
- Data Analysis
- Final Written Report

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 Abstract and Introduction
Literature Review
Research Methodologies
double weight
Data Analysis and Findings
Conclusions

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Linkage part (1) ➔ part (2)

Part 1 Literature Part 2 Dissertation (Final Report)

Review/Proposal
LR/ Proposal Dissertation (6,000 - 8,000)
(2,000)
1. Abstract 1 Abstract  300
2. Introduction 2 Introduction  800
3. Main body 3 Literature Review  2,000
of discussion 4 Methodology  1,200 (factual)
4. Conclusion 5 Data Findings and Analysis
 2,000
6 Conclusion  1,500
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Literature Review (final report's LR part)

“..a systematic…method for identifying, evaluating and interpreting the

…work produced by researchers, scholars and practitioners.”
FINK, A. (1998). Conducting literature research reviews: from paper to
the internet. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. p3.

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Why review the literature?
“…without it you will not acquire an understanding of your topic, of what
has already been done on it, how it has been researched and what the key
issues are.” →BACKGROUND
HART, E. & Bond, M. (1998). “Doing a Literature Review: releasing the
social science research imagination”. London: Sage. p1.

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Why is there a Literature Review on this module?

- You can identify useful frameworks and possible methodologies for

your work

- You have benchmarks against which to compare your findings

- Forces you to research and write early on

- You receive feedback about your writing and your understanding of the
topic area

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Why is there a Literature Review on this module? (2)
- It allows you to develop subject authority
- Provides you with a theoretical background and an overview of your
subject area
- It helps you to clarify your Research Questions* and to delineate the
boundaries of your dissertation
➔ N.B. Research Questions are the questions that will define what you
hope to learn about the topic and that will shape your dissertation

At least 50% of your references are used in

this part and mainly are journals

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 Research Hypotheses
Need to develop research hypothesis

A statement are clearly stated based on a genuine

understanding of concepts and research objectives

A very specific research questions that can be

answered based on primary data / secondary data
Data being collected is numerical or at least structured data

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 Ways to Develop Research Hypotheses
1 Based on Research Questions

Research Questions- “What are the views of the workforce about participation
in the strategy formation process?”

Then, the research hypothesis would be

H1 “Women and men show no significant difference in participation rates”.

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 Ways to Develop Research Hypotheses
2 Based on past journals

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 Literature Review to Research Conceptual
Framework / Model
The electronic commerce acceptance model (Lee et al., 2001) has integrated perceived
risk with TAM to explain e-commerce adoption. The perceived usefulness of the
technological platform is determined by the perceived purchase risk. The combination of
uncertainty and the cost of any loss reduce its perceived usefulness and, thus, adoption
(Cheng et al., 2006; Seyal and Rahman, 2007)
Therefore:

H4 Perceived purchase risk has a negative influence on the perceived usefulness of

Internet as a shopping channel.

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 Research Conceptual Framework / Model
A framework gives the overall structure of the project
- It indicates the perspective you use to carry out your research.

A model is developed within a framework

- It is graphical descriptive tool that help you to show the inter-
relationship among the variables in the study and developed
hypotheses

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 Examples of Conceptual Research Model
Drivers and barriers to online airline ticket purchasing
H1 Perceived usefulness of Internet as a shopping channel has a positive influence on the online purchase of airline tickets.
H2 Perceived ease of use of Internet as a shopping channel has a positive influence on the online purchase of airline tickets.
H3 Perceived ease of use of Internet as a shopping channel has a positive influence on the channel’s perceived usefulness.
H4 Perceived purchase risk has a negative influence on the perceived usefulness of Internet as a shopping channel.
H5 Perceived purchase risk has a negative influence on airline ticket purchase.

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 Testing Hypotheses
A statement about that can be tested statistically the
relationship between variables

- Testable in that collecting the correct data allows us to

support or reject the hypothesis

- Clearly and succinctly stated

Ho must be no

Ho/H0 Ho: The null hypothesis states that there is no effect, difference or
relationship
Ha/H1 Ha:alternative
The alternative hypothesis states that there is an effect,
difference or relationship

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 Example of Testing Hypotheses

The first hypothesis, H1

“Women and men show no significant difference in participation rates”.

Ho: There is no significant difference between male and female in participation rates

Ha: There is a significant difference between male and female in participation rates

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 Example of Testing Hypotheses

The Third hypothesis, H3

Perceived ease of use of Internet as a shopping channel has
a positive influence on the channel’s perceived

Ho: Perceived ease of use of Internet as shopping channel has no

influence on the channel’s perceived usefulness
Ha: Perceived ease of use of Internet as shopping channel has a
positive influence on the channel’s perceived usefulness

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How many?

Research Questions
You may have 4 -10 research questions and this may be a mix of more
qualitative issues and more testable hypotheses.

Research Hypotheses
Depending on the topic chosen you may have no hypotheses at all or a
great many (perhaps 10-12). Typically 5 - 8 would be adequate for most
studies.

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 Items in Research Methodology
- Research Approach
- Validity and Reliability
- Questionnaire Design and Sample Size Determination
- Sampling Frame, Sampling Methods and Data Collection Methods
- Data Analysis Methods

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Research Approach
Research Approach

Qualitative Approach Quantitative Approach

You can utilize one or both of these methods in your dissertation

When using both research approach in a study, it is known as

TRIANGULATION APPROACH

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Definition of Qualitative Research
Qualitative research includes an array of
interpretive techniques which seek to describe,
translate, and otherwise come to terms with the
meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or
less naturally occurring events in the social
world. (often not capable of being expressed in
numerical form)

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Examples of Qualitative Research?
■ Managers basically do business research to understand how
and why things happen.

■ If the marketer needs to know only what happened, or how

often things happened, quantitative research methodologies
would serve the purpose.

■ To understand the different meanings that people place on

their experiences, a researcher must often concern more
deeply into people’s hidden interpretations, understandings,
and motivations. In this case, qualitative research is
designed to tell the researcher how (process)
■ and why (meaning) things happen as they do.
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Qualitative Approach

Focus Group
– A small group of respondents interviewed together
In-depth interview
- One to one

Useful for getting deeper insights into people’ feeling, thinking,

emotions, behavior. It is unstructured & flexible to allow
respondents to express their opinions

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 Focus Group Composition
- 6 to 10 people
- Relatively homogeneous
(Similar lifestyles and
Experiences) or
- Relatively heterogeneous
(different age group, education
background…)

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Content Analysis - A method for studying the respondent’s
opinions.

■ Content analysis can be carried out for each Category of Analysis

■ Under each category of analysis, directional analysis is carried out to
group content under “PRO”, “CON” and “NEUTRAL” directional groups
■ Under each directional group, quantification is carried out to ascertain
the occurrence of observations and their frequency of occurrence in
the interviews.

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Quantitative Approach
■ Deals with data that may be counted or measured
numerically
– Descriptive studies directly describe the stat./data

■ Data are recorded in tables, graphs, or summary statistics such as

mean, mode , median and range, variance and standard deviation(
personal profile)

■ Inferential Studies further analyse (SPSS)

– Research hypotheses are tested using statistical tests

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Quantitative Approach
■ Deals with data that may be counted or measured
numerically
– Descriptive studies
■ Data are recorded in tables, graphs, or summary statistics such as
mean, mode , median and range, variance and standard deviation.(
personal profile)

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Validity and Reliability
Validity done by LR

- is the extent to which a test measures what we actually wish to

measure
- concern with how well the concept is defined by the measure(s)
Reliability done by SPSS
– has to do with the accuracy and precision of a measurement
procedure.
– Cronbach’s coefficient alpha is common method to test the
reliability

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Questionnaire Design, Sampling Frame, Sample Size

Questionnaire design
- One of the critical components in your dissertation
- Poor questionnaire design will lead to difficulties in data analysis and you will be
unable to answer research questions and draw useful conclusions
- Strongly advisable to use the well-established questions in good articles. They are
usually found in the content
- The most common scale to measure is LIKERT SCALE ( Define it)

Sampling frame
- The group of individuals
Type text here
who will be able to participate in your study

Sample size
- The more representative the sample size, the more accurate the results are. Some of
the factors are Statistical Precision, Industry benchmarks, Cost and Time constraints

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Example of Questionnaire Design

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 Example for Sampling Frame

An Analysis of Consumer Behaviour towards Online Shopping of

Electronic Goods With Special Reference to Gender

The Sampling Frame : Hong Kong Residents

Target population : Male and Female, and their age is greater than
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Example for Sample Size (Proportion)

1. Sample Size - Proportion . What is sample size of Hong Kong residents who
age over 18

𝑍 2 (𝑝 × 1−𝑝 )
n=
sample size 𝐸2
acceptable error

p = population percentage of target group. When we have no idea what the

population proportion is, set p = 0.5

Z
With regards to 5% error, the confident level will be 95%. The report of Hong Kong
Statistic Department (2018) reflected there are about 6.4 million Hong Kong
residents are aged over 18 which means 80% of the total population
(6.4/7.0) x 100

7 million

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Example for Sample Size (Proportion)

1. Sample Size - Proportion . What is sample size of Hong Kong residents who
age over 18

1.962 (0.80 × 1−0.80 )

n=
0.052

1.962 (0.80 ×0.20)

n= 2 = 245.8624  246
0.05

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Example for Sample Size (Proportion)

1. Sample Size - Proportion . What is sample size of Hong Kong residents who
age over 18 , if you have 180 respondents, what should you do?????

1.962 (0.80 × 1−0.80 )

n=
𝟎.𝟎𝟔2

1.962 (0.80 × 0.2 )

n= 2 = 170.7377777…  171
𝟎.𝟎𝟔
i.e. error is near to 6%

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 Sampling Methods and Data Collection Methods

Sampling Methods Data Collection Methods

Non-probability

Convenience
Judgment - Personal Interview
Quota e.g. 100 male, 100 female
Snowball - e-mail Survey
- Telephone Survey
Probability - Online Survey (Internet)

Simple Random
Systematic Random
Stratified Random
Cluster Random

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Data Analysis
1 Correlation Analysis
2 One sample t-test
3 Independent sample t-test
4 ANOVA
5 Linear regression

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 Data Analysis
1 Correlation Analysis
Determine associations between scale data using the
Pearson correlation test.

Use to test the

relationship of
all hypotheses

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 Data Analysis
2 One sample t-test
It is to test whether the mean in the population is
equal to a specific value

Ho : the mean value from Q1 = 3

Ha : the mean value from Q1  3

Intention to buy online

Q1 Intends to use Internet in the future to buy airline tickets

Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Agree Disagree
1 2 3 4 5

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 Data Analysis
3 Independent sample t-test
It is to test the means of two groups of data.
e.g If we consider again the data file and analyze the differences between
the gender
This Time to test Q1 vs Gender

Ho: The mean of the two sex groups are equal in Q1

Ha: The mean of the two sex groups are not equal in Q1

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 Data Analysis
4 ANOVA
It is to test the means of more than two groups of
data.
e.g If we consider again the data file and analyze the differences between
the age group
This Time to test Q1 vs Age Again

Ho: there is no difference in years of age amongst Q1

Ha: there is a difference in years of age amongst Q1

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 Data Analysis
5 Regression
In this section, we consider the relationship between
variables and how this can be measured.
For example a online shop owner may wish to
understand the relationship between customer
satisfaction and web design, trust and customization?

Multiple regression is an extension of this basic ideas

Customer Satisfaction = b0 + b1× Web design + b2×Trust + b3×Customization

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 Final Dissertation Submission
Submission Items

Final Dissertation
Appendices
Turnitin Report

Let’s check the items contained in your final

dissertation
However, the final settings are subject to the advice of
your supervisor

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Contents of a Dissertation
1. Abstract
Literature review
1. Purpose
To provide a selective bibliography for graduate students and new faculty members with
sources which can help them develop their academic career.
2. Approach/Method
A range of recently published (1993-2002) works, which aim to provide practical advice
rather than theoretical books on pedagogy or educational administration, are critiqued to
aid the individual make the transition into academia. The sources are sorted into
sections: finding an academic job, general advice, teaching, research and publishing,
tenure and organizations.
3. Findings
Provides information about each source, indicating what can be found there and how the
information can help. Recognises the lack of real training of many academics before they
are expected to take on teaching/researching duties and finds some texts which help.
4. Research limitations/implications
It's not an exhaustive list and apart from one UK book all the rest are US publications
which perhaps limits its usefulness elsewhere.
5. Practical implications
A very useful source of information and impartial advice for graduate students planning to
continue in academia or for those who have recently obtained a position in academia.
6. Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers practical help to an
individual starting out on an academic career.

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Contents of a Dissertation
Main Body

Chapter 1 Introduction
- Background
- Research Aim and Objectives
- Research Justifications/significance of Research
- Research Questions

Chapter 2 Literature Review

- Review of literatures
- Development of Research hypotheses
- Development of Research framework/ Model

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 Contents of a Dissertation
Chapter 3 Research Methodology
This part is about the research methods you have used
with explanation, how and where you obtain information for
analysis
Sampling Frame
Research Approach Sampling Methods
Design of Questionnaire Sample Size Determination
Validity and Reliability Data Collection Methods
Data Analysis Methods
Chapter 4 Descriptive Statistics
This part is about using graphs, tables or distributions
to present useful and interesting findings about major
variables such as the demographic variables,
distribution of customer satisfaction.

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Contents of a Dissertation
Chapter 5 Analysis of Results
This part can be divided into qualitative and quantitative
analysis, depending on your research methodology
information for analysis
Qualitative Quantitative

Focus Group Descriptive Studies

Content Analysis Inferential Studies

Chapter 6 Conclusions
Conclusion, Recommendation for management
(managerial implication) and academic (theoretical
implication), Research Limitations and Future
Research.

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Chapter 6 : Conclusions
■ Conclusions
– logically from the findings
– Should address objectives and hypotheses
■ Recommendations
– Applied learnt theories
– Academic/ theoretical implication
– Managerial/Practical implication

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Chapter 6 : Conclusions
■ Limitations
– Don’t say not enough sample, time …….
– Should be discovered during the study
e.g. cannot apply to... / after COVID-19

■ Further research
– Should be discovered after the study
e.g. next step want to study which field

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 References –How many???
• Include reference material the whole way through your Dissertation
• CH 1 - Important in the introduction and background discussion
• CH 2 - The majority of your Literature Review chapter
• CH 3 - Helps in defining your research approach
• CH 4 & 5 - Allows you to relate your results and findings to
previous studies
• CH 6 - To back-up your own conclusions and recommendations

• Minimum of 20 cited sources

• Most 40 – 50
• Best 60, 80, 100
• Follow the two 50-50 rules

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 Final Advices
Don’t forget the Ethnical
Approval Form before
official launch of survey
and attach in your final
dissertation (See
Handbook)

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 Final Advices
Avoid Plagiarism
Use your own words where possible and make effective
use of in-text citation
Submit your work to Turnitin as early as possible

Have a good time management

Consults your supervisor

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