Course Catalogue

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This course allows students to appraise several interconnected taught elements from the programme and apply these to a real world business and management problem in order to formulate recommendations that could be applied in response to the brief.

Students will work individually to deliver a substantial business research exercise on an approved topic demonstrating the appropriate selection and application of tools and research methods from the programme and use these to discuss implications and formulate recommendations.

Students are supported by a preparatory online compulsory research methods course including homework and  tutorials in semester 2.

The first part of the course (Research Method element) is structured around lectures, self-study online research methodology modules and face-to-face tutorials of 2 hours each. These normally take place in Semester 2. The Dissertation is typically carried out during the summer months, between June and August, and is supported through approximately 5 supervision meetings between the student and his or her supervisor during that period.

Please refer to the current postgraduate prospectus at: http://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/ 

None

Online research methods course must be completed before supervision will begin.

In the research methods course, each week, students will need to submit a homework exercise that reaches a satisfactory standard that will allow them to move onto the next learning unit. After they have completed all learning units to an appropriate standard, they will be awarded a completion certification that will grant them access to the supervision stage of the dissertation.

All students will be required to submit a dissertation of 12,500 words that will include a critical literature review and the outcome of the individual research exercise.

The dissertation should normally be submitted before the end of August.

This course is intended to lay foundations for and contribute to the development of the students' capacities necessary to design and carry out independent research in Business and Management. The taught component of the course is designed to help students develop effective research skills (evident, for example, in the review of the literature, data sourcing & collection, investigation, quantitative and qualitative analysis, weighing evidence and reaching sound conclusions) that are then utilised to deliver a substantial research exercise with some original content on an approved topic demonstrating the appropriate selection and application of tools and research methods from the programme.

The course aims to:

■ Provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their research skills and produce an important piece of written work

■ Introduce students to the key research choices concerning questions, designs, methods and analytical procedures and highlight the consequences of these choices.

■ Stress the importance of the critical literature review and provide advice on how to plan and undertake a literature review.

■ Consider issues regarding the generation of ideas, the choice of a suitable research topic, question(s) and objectives.

■ Critically review a range of research designs and data collection methods, including quantitative and qualitative approaches.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Identify and delineate a research aim and multiple objectives pertaining to a management problem.

2. Critically analyse relevant literature.

3. Examine the relationship between research process and managerial practice.

4. Critically assess and apply a range of research techniques that include literature searches, and gathering and analysing secondary data.

5. Understand the structure and purpose of each component chapter of an applied research dissertation project.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.