Based on Dissertation Proposal and research plan, make a Primary Research of 5000 words.

Topic- Value of implementing TQM (Total Quality Management) standard to increase the firm performance

Instructions to Students:

The coursework should be approximately 5,000 words in length (inclusive of improvements to your work previously submitted) and should be presented using 1.5 line-spacing and 11 sized Arial Font. Sensible use may be made of the Appendices, which will need to include the evidence of your primary research (e.g. questionnaire, interview transcript; these will not be considered part of the word count).

Remember that the mark received is formally recorded and will count for 60% of the Business Research module mark. You will also potentially have the first few chapters of your final dissertation, as it is expected that your research plan will form the backbone of that dissertation.

It is compulsory to

• use academic texts, (journal articles rather than textbooks) which should be cited in the Harvard format (e.g. Bloggs, 2010). You should therefore ensure you access the university's electronic databases such as ABI Inform (Proquest) and/or Emerald. Pay particular attention to how recent your sources are. The 1990s are now some twenty years ago so depending on your research topic, knowledge at that time may have been superseded.

• design a piece of primary research and pilot it.

For successful results, do not put your dissertation proposal on the back burner after completion, but work to the time plan that you developed there, ensuring enough time for feedback on interim stages from your supervisor.

This assignment focuses on the following:

In particular the assignment addresses the yellow highlighted learning outcomes:
1. Clarify aim(s) and/or research question(s) and objectives and justification for the research
2. Design research methodology to address a defined research problem, justifying all choices made and identifying any ethical issues
3. Analysis and write up of primary data

Please note: there is NO need to include the literature review for this assessment

The Assignment Task:

Clarify the aim(s) and /or research question(s) and objectives.

Identify clearly the detailed methodological considerations for the research.

Present and evaluate the primary data analysis making sure that you relate them to your aims and/or research questions and objectives.

These are the purposes of this Primary Data assignment which should be structured as follows:

Title (You should have a working title in progress and should be nearing a completed version by now)

A working title for the dissertation that reflects its focus. This may be the principle research question that it seeks to answer.

Introduction and research purpose (You should have completed this in cw 1 and 2 and should have revised this section in line with your supervisor's feedback)

This section should explain the ‘what' and ‘why' of your investigation. It should include the following:
• a clear statement of the research issue and overall aim(s) and or research question(s) to be addressed in the dissertation,
• the specific objectives of the research,
• a discussion of why this issue is important, within a wider organisational and business context.
It will be useful to refer to appropriate secondary sources, in justifying the importance or topical nature of your investigation.

Methodology (You should have completed most of this in cw2 but may refine it for submission of cw3 in the light of your supervisor's feedback).

This section will explore the three key issues in any methodology chapter. These refer to namely ‘what you did, how you undertook this and why you undertook it this way'. The key headings for your methodology chapter are detailed below:

1. Philosophical Position
2. Research Design
3. Primary Approach
4. Sampling Strategy
5. Data Analysis
6. Validity, Reliability
7. Generalisability
8. Ethical Issues
9. Limitations.

You should consult the core text by Saunders et al for further reading on the above issues.

Data Analysis of Primary Data

Present and evaluate the primary data analysis making sure that you relate them to your aims and/or research questions, and objectives.

For those of you undertaking quantitative data analysis there are a range of approaches contained within two broad approaches to data analysis. These are descriptive and inferential statistics. For many undertaking quantitative data analysis, you may find that descriptive statistics is sufficient. This is where you describe the data using central tendency (average) and spread of dispersion (for example through standard deviation). You can also use charts to present the data. It is highly recommended that you consult the core text by Saunders et al for further advice on data collection and analysis.

For those of you undertaking qualitative research, especially from semi structured interviews the framework by Miles and Huberman (1994) is particularly useful. Again, you can also consult your core text by Saunders et al.

List of References

You should also include a list of all your references, using the Harvard system.

Note: marks will also be given for use of English, please therefore ensure you check your work carefully for spelling and grammar.