Guidelines: You are to research, select, and analyze a problem, an issue, a profession or a business process that is required to be solved/ improved with the aid of business research. Regardless of the research problem you are investigating and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions: 1. What do you plan to accomplish? Be clear and succinct in defining the research problem and what it is you are proposing to research. 2. Why do you want to do it? In addition to detailing your research design, you also must conduct a thorough review of the literature and provide convincing evidence that it is a topic worthy of study. Be sure to answer the "So What?" question. 3. How are you going to do it? Be sure that what you propose is doable.

Sections:

I. Title Page: Titles are brief but comprehensive enough to indicate the nature of the proposed work.

II. Abstract The reader may use the abstract to make preliminary decisions about the proposal. Therefore, an effective summary states the problem addressed by the applicant, identifies the solution, and specifies the objectives and methods of the project.

III. Introduction After reading the introduction, your readers should not only have an understanding of what you want to do, but they should also be able to gain a sense of your passion for the topic and be excited about the study's possible outcomes. Think about your introduction as a narrative written in one to three paragraphs that succinctly answers the following four questions: 1. What is the central research problem? 2. What is the topic of study related to that problem? 3. What methods should be used to analyze the research problem?

IV. Why is this research important What is its significance, and why should someone reading the proposal care about the outcomes of the proposed study?

V. Literature Review Explains what previous studies state about the topic, discuss recent developments on the topic, and identify the gap in the literature that has led to your study. You should also explain the problem that the study addresses and give a brief account of the history of the problem mentioning whether it has been addressed in any form before. This will lead up to identifying the statement of the problem and the research objective(s) of the study.

VI. Statement of the Problem The problem statement describes the context for the study and it also identifies the general analysis approach. A problem might be defined as the issue that exists in the literature, theory, or practice that leads to a need for the study. It is important in a proposal that the problem stand outthat the reader can easily recognize it. Sometimes, obscure and poorly formulated problems are masked in an extended discussion. In such cases, readers will have difficulty recognizing the problem. A good problem statement should be: A. Presented within a context, and that context should be provided and briefly explained, including a discussion of the conceptual or theoretical framework in which it is embedded. B. Intelligible to someone who is generally sophisticated but who is relatively uninformed in the area of your investigation. C. Effectively answering the question Why does this research need to be conducted. If a researcher is unable to answer this question clearly and succinctly, and without resorting to hyperspeaking (i.e., focusing on problems of macro or global proportions that certainly will not be informed or alleviated by the study), then the statement of the problem will come off as ambiguous and diffuse.

VII. Research Objectives Objectives must always be set after having formulated a good research question. After all, they are to explain the way in which such question is going to be answered. Objectives are usually headed by infinitive verbs such as: To identify To establish To describe To determine To estimate To develop To compare To analyze To collect

VIII. Research Design and Methods Trying to specify What are the methods that need to be implemented in order to achieve the objectives OR attack the problems This section must be well-written and logically organized because you are not actually doing the research, yet, your reader has to have confidence that it is worth pursuing. The reader will never have a study outcome from which to evaluate whether your methodological choices were the correct ones. Thus, the objective here is to convince the reader that your overall research design and methods of analysis will correctly address the problem and that the methods will provide the means to effectively interpret the potential results. Your design and methods should be unmistakably tied to the specific aims of your study. Describe the overall research design by building upon and drawing examples from your review of the literature. Consider not only methods that other researchers have used but methods of data gathering that have not been used but perhaps could be. Be specific about the methodological approaches you plan to undertake to obtain information and the techniques you would use to analyze the data. When describing the methods, its good to cover the following: Specify the research operations you will undertake and the way you will interpret the results of these operations in relation to the research problem. Keep in mind that a methodology is not just a list of tasks; it is an argument as to why these tasks add up to the best way to investigate the research problem. Anticipate and acknowledge any potential barriers and pitfalls in carrying out your research design and explain how you plan to address them. No method is perfect so you need to describe where you believe challenges may exist in obtaining data or accessing information. It's always better to acknowledge this than to have it brought up by your reader.