Cultural Differences in UK Companies' International Partnerships

The assignment content presents several research proposal topics, each requiring a different approach and methodology. Some of the proposals involve comparative studies, while others focus on specific industries or sectors. The topics cover areas such as international business, organizational studies, human resource management, and consumer behavior. The proposals aim to explore various themes, including cultural differences in business communication, team leadership, the impact of empowering employees, and consumption rituals. The references provided for each topic offer guidance for conducting the research and developing a comprehensive understanding of the subject.

The Research Proposal
Objectives/ Learning Outcomes
The coursework assessment is designed to enable you to partially demonstrate the learning
outcomes required for the successful completion of the module, with particular reference to
the business/market/academic research skills development outcomes for this component as
detailed in the module specification and module handbook:
 Evaluating secondary data sources such as academic literature and market research
reports to frame research question
 Demonstrating understanding of development, conduct, analysis and interpretation of
business, market and academic research to propose a research plan
 Working creatively with qualitative and quantitative (and potentially alternative research
methods)
 Understanding of ethical issues in business, market and academic research that apply to
your proposal
 Producing a succinct, well-argued and well-presented research proposal.
This Research Proposal is mostly based on topics you have covered over your degree
programme so far, giving you a choice of topics to focus upon (see below): you must choose
just one to develop.
You are asked to play the part of a business researcher or market research agency,
submitting a proposal document to the client for their approval of your plan to research the
question you choose. In order to create an appropriate proposal, you are required to
analyse the existing academic and practitioner literature in the area, identify an aim and
objectives, develop a strategy for sampling, collecting, analysing and interpreting data, and
discuss the ethical and other limitations of your research.
Although practically-focused, this assessment requires an academic slant uniting academic
and practitioner knowledge. You are expected to integrate academic concepts and theories
from your other modules, and your own reading, to underpin your work and support the
judgements you are making. In this regard it is essential that you properly reference all
books, academic articles, websites and other reference sources used in your report.
Your Research Proposal is expected to cover the following (N.B. Word counts given here
are approximate guidelines only):
 Introduction briefly covering justification for research (approx. 200 words)
 Background – a short literature review identifying clear gap in theoretical and
practical knowledge (approx. 900 words)
 Aim and objectives (approx. 75 words)
 Research methods covering both quantitative and qualitative approaches in a mixed
methods study. These approaches should be covered separately (in whichever order
you prefer and which makes sense for your study) and in each of the two sections
should cover:

o Clear sampling plan for each stage, including sampling frame, sample size,
intended recruitment methods and any requirements for incentives (approx.
200 words i.e. approximately 200 words on the qualitative and 200 words on
the quantitative sampling plan)
o Outline of data collection methods for each approach, and commentary on
how any surveys or moderators guides will be developed. This should include
consideration of issues such as socially desirable responding, issues with
literacy etc. Details about conducting the research (e.g. environment,
recording data, any materials required) should be covered (approx. 800
words for EACH of quantitative and qualitative)
o Plans for data presentation, coding, analysis and interpretation suitable for
each research approach (approx. 300 words for EACH of quantitative and
qualitative).
 Consideration of ethics issues arising from the research and how you would address
these (approx. 300 words)
 Description of any limitations of the research (approx. 150 words)
 Proposed time frame for the research, ideally using Gantt chart (approx. 150 words)
 Brief closing summary
More detail is provided below about content for each section and marking criteria.
Formatting
The report should
 Be in a Microsoft Word format (i.e. a .doc or .docx file) to allow feedback, with 1.5
or double line spacing and 12 sized font.
 Use headings and subheadings to provide a clear structure
 Use diagrams, charts or images where they help support your argument
 Be spellchecked and grammatically correct
 Be referenced in the Harvard style
 For the avoidance of doubt, anything in the main body of the report beyond this
word limit of 4000 words will not be read or marked. The word count includes
everything in the main body of the text listed here: abstract, text, headings, tables,
citations, quotes, lists, acronyms and numbers expressed as digits or in words. It
does NOT include the contents page, the references section or the appendices.

Criteria for marking
We expect cohesive and logical research methods that build on each other to achieve your
research aim and objectives. The marking criteria are split between the key sections of the
assignment, and reflect the content and quality of each section and the proposal as a whole.
See the marking grid below on how this is applied at each grade level, with details on
expected content.
Please note that the word count guidelines for individual sections are JUST guidelines.
Introduction / Background and literature review: 20%
 Effective summary of, and introduction to, the research issue (approx. 100 words)
 Introduction with clear signposting of structure and content of proposal (approx. 200
words)
 A SHORT Review of key academic literature (8-10 papers) on the research topic,
identifying key theoretical constructs and leading to justified aims and objectives
(approx. 900 words)
Aims and objectives: 10% (approx. 75 words)
 Clearly defined overall research aim
 Objectives suitable for each research approach
 All answering research brief while using theory from literature review
The following methodology sections MUST link to what you found in your literature review,
and achieve your aim and objectives. The qualitative section usually goes before the
quantitative section, however as long as you use an integrated mixed methods approach,

which you justify, this can be adapted to suit your own plan, but there must a section for
each methodology. A brief introduction to how you plan to integrate the two methodologies
is advised.
Qualitative methodology: 25%
This section requires:
Clear sampling plan, including sampling frame, sample size, intended recruitment
methods/issues with access and any requirements for incentives (approx. 150 words)
Outline of qualitative data collection method(s), and commentary on how these will be
carried out to ensure robust data is gathered. This should describe how you would prepare
materials such as moderator’s guides (though no actual moderator’s guide is required) and
details about conducting the research (where/when/how) (approx. 760 words)
Plans for data presentation, coding, analysis and interpretation suitable for qualitative
research (approx. 150 words).
Quantitative methodology: 25%
This section usually goes after the qualitative section and requires:
Clear sampling plan, including sampling frame, sample size, intended recruitment
methods/issues with access and any requirements for incentives (approx. 150 words)
Outline of quantitative data collection method(s), and commentary on how these will be
carried out to ensure robust data is gathered. This should describe how you would prepare
materials such as a questionnaire (though no actual questionnaire is required) and details
about conducting the research (where/when/how) to maximize generalizability and
reliability (approx. 760 words)
Plans for data presentation, coding, analysis and interpretation suitable for quantitative
research (approx. 150 words).
Ethics, Limitations, Timings: 10%
Outline of ethical issues arising through the research and how these would be addressed
(approx. 150 words)
Description of any unavoidable limitations of the research that threaten robustness of the
study, measures taken to reduce them (approx. 150 words)
Proposed time frame for the research, ideally using Gantt chart (approx. 50 words)
Brief closing summary (approx. 100 words)
Overall presentation: 10%
Develop an effective structure for addressing all the tasks
Maintain a succinct and compelling style throughout
Clear links between sections to build arguments consistently
Provide accurate references for all researched or quoted material (including background
information on organisations)
Use grammatically correct English without spelling errors

Methods of Enquiry BIM Research Proposal Topics 2017
You have a choice of topics for your research proposal, as listed below. You can choose any
one topic, and are advised to do so before the library tutorial in the second week, when you
will start doing background research into the topic.
For all proposals, you are expected to follow the assignment guidelines and identify and
apply key academic theories, identify aims and objectives, and describe sampling, data
collection and proposed analysis methods for an integrated mixed methods (i.e. quantitative
and qualitative) approach.
Process Design Innovations and Environmental Wastes
The focus of much of the literature on lean thinking, process activity mapping and value
stream mapping is on reducing waste, and redesigning processes so that customers,
materials and staff flow seamlessly from one operation to the next. One of the difficulties in
convincing organisations to undertake this change is that they may easily see the short-term
costs without being convinced by the long term benefits of reducing environmental wastes.
Draft a research proposal that aims to quantify the benefits brought about when firms employ
these innovations and tools. Also include details on how organisations are able to carry out
the reduction of environmental wastes.
Reference: R.T. White, G.R.T. & James, P.C., 2014. Extension of process mapping to
identify “green waste”. Benchmarking: An International Journal. 21 (5), 835 – 850.
Hines, P. & Rich, N. (1997) The seven value stream mapping tools. International Journal of
Operations and Production Management, 17 (1), pp. 46-64.
Womack, J.P. & Jones, D.T. (1996) Beyond Toyota: How to root out waste and pursue
perfection. Harvard Business Review, September-October, pp. 140-158.
Purchasing: The importance of purchasing
The subject of purchasing is one of the key areas of business and management; however it
remains relatively under-researched. “The average purchasing value in relation to cost of
goods sold is approximately 50%” (van Weele, 2010, p12). For this research proposal, you’ll
need to set out how you are going to judge importance in terms of purchasing, and then how
you will collect data to see how important purchasing is to organisations in both the public
and private sectors.
Reference: van Weele, A.J. (2010) Purchasing and Supply Chain Management. Hampshire:
Cengage.
[Further reading: Kludge, J.N. (1996) Simply Superior Sourcing. 5th International Annual
IPSERA Conference, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1996)].
Consumer behaviour and customer attitudes to buying music
“Since the rise of music on the internet the record industry has reported falling total sales
revenues. This has occurred at a time when technology has radically increased choice,
availability and the opportunity for the consumer to purchase music” (Parry et al, 2012,
p320). Your research is to find out how customers buy music and what market segments
these purchasers fall into. Additional areas to study could include why they purchase music
in that way.
References: Parry, G., Bustinza, O.F. & Vendrell-Herrero, F. (2012) Servitisation and value
co-production in the UK music industry: An empirical study of consumer attitudes.
International Journal of Production Economics. 135. 320-332.
Ethical purchasing and the role of the consumer
Increasingly, companies are being judged not just by the ethical behaviour within their own
organisation, but also by how ethical are their supply chain relationships and partners. Your
research project is to measure the impact on buyer behaviour of the existence of an ethical

supply chain and why customers pay that much attention to the concept.
Reference: Roberts, S. (2003) Supply chain specific? Understanding the patchy success of
ethical sourcing initiatives. Journal of Business Ethics. 44(2), 159-170.
Seuring, S. & Müller, M. (2008) From a literature review to a conceptual framework for
sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production. 16, pp. 1699-1710.
Human Resources Management’s position within the firm. (HRM Topic)
Hayes & Wheelwright (1984) and Reck & Long (1988) wrote about operations and
purchasing’s positions within the firm, respectively. They both placed their function’s
importance within an organisation on a four stage, maturity model. The latter stages
indicated a greater importance for that discipline within the organisation. Your proposal is to
carry out similar work that focuses on the importance that HRM has reached within the
organisation and whether it acts at a reactive or strategic level.
Reference: Hayes, R.H., and Wheelwright, S.C., (1984). Restoring our Competitive Edge.
John Wiley.
Reck, R.F. and Long, B.G., (1988). Purchasing a Competitive Weapon. Journal of
Purchasing and Materials Management. 24(3), 2-8.
Marketing and Segmentation: Using IT to aid learning
Tablet-based technology now has a firm position within the IT market. One manufacturer is
looking to break more into a new demographic, namely for students to use within lectures or
seminars, which they see as a lucrative market. You have been asked to outline a
marketing research proposal for a project to explore the lives and needs of students and
to further understand this segmentation in the context of using IT in the classroom. The
project would be used to develop recommendations for either hardware or apps that could
be incorporated into future tablets. [Please note: the academic literature on this subject
should not limit itself to a descriptive history of tablet devices]
Reference: Anderson, J.E., Schwager, P.H. & Kerns, R. (2006) The drivers for acceptance
of tablet PCs by faculty in a college of business. Journal of Information Systems Education.
Winter, 429-440.
Numeracy Skills and Graduate Employability (HRM Topic)
Several commentators have pointed to numeracy skills as being among the abilities sought
by graduate employers. There may be differences between different sub-cohorts in the
abilities of business and management graduates in this area. This research proposal should
outline all the steps necessary to carry out research on whether there is an employability gap
between those business and management graduates with and without numeracy skills. The
report should also focus on the reasons why employers hold their current evaluation of
quantitative skills.
Reference: Durrani, N. & Tariq, V.N. (2011) The role of numeracy skills in graduate
employability. Education & Training. 54(4), pp. 419-434
Lean thinking: The move to the service sector.
Lean thinking (and Just-in-Time) originated within large scale, automotive manufacturing
firms in Japan, building on quality and efficiency tools and techniques that were already
available at the time. Since then the innovation has moved to other manufacturing sectors
and has started to be diffused among the service sector. This research proposal aims to
answer the questions of how applicable is this concept to the new service environments that
are trying to adapt it, and what are the major barriers to its implementation.
References: Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T., (1994). From Lean Production to the Lean
Enterprise Harvard Business Review, March-April, 93-103.
Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T., (2003). Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your
Organisation. London, Simon & Schuster.

Hines, P. and Lethbridge, S., (2008). New Development: Creating a Lean University. Public
Money & Management. February. 53-56.
Improving the success rates of project management
The success of a project is traditionally judged on whether this one-off, complex operation
reaches quality targets, is produced on deadline and under budget (Slack et al, 2007 in
James et al, 2009; Slack et al, 2013, pp 497, 504-505). This research project sets to find out
what percentage of projects fail to reach these three targets and outline suggested
measures to increase the rate of success in projects.
[You may wish to suggest measures that lie within the HRM literature]
References: Slack, N., Chambers, S., and Johnston, R., (2007). Operations Management.
5th ed. London: Pitman Publishing.
James, P., Rowland-Jones, R. and O’Brien, L. (eds.) (2009). Operations and Business
Systems Management. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson.
Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. & Johnston, R., (2013). Operations Management. 7th ed.
Harlow: Pearson.
Creating New Products or Services
The final year dissertation option ‘Enterprise Project’ requires students to prepare a
professional quality business plan, detailing the potential demand, capacity and other
operations issues, and costs and revenue for a new product or service. Your research
proposal is to understand the connection between the product/service that is finally provided
by the business and the predictions made about how the product/service in the initial
business plan. Your proposal is also to cover why there may be differences.
Reference: Karlsson, T. & Honig, B. (2009) Judging a business by its cover: An institutional
perspective on new ventures and the business plan. Journal of Business Venturing. 24(1),
pp. 27-45.
Culture and International Business (An International Business Topic)
Due to mass globalization and other factors the level of international trade is at an all-time
high. One of the many challenges that are faced by companies that work with international
partners is that of differences in cultures. Some differences remain clouded by a shared
language or by geographical proximity but cultures and ‘the way we do things here’ still
cause difficulties. Your research proposal is to prepare for a project that looks at what UK
companies have done to both recognise and understand that to work effectively with
overseas partners is not simply limited to speaking the same language but to be aware of
difference in cultures. You will look at both how the companies address this issue and to
what extent have they been successful in addressing it.
References: Carté, P. & Fox, C. (2008) Bridging the Culture Gap: A Practical Guide to
International Business Communication. 2nd ed. London, Kogan Page.
Hofstede, G. (1983) The cultural relativity of organizational practices and theories. Journal of
International Business Studies. 14(2), pp. 75-89
Total Quality Management and Empowerment of Employees (HRM Topic)
Much research has been carried out on companies that have carried out aspects of Total
Quality Management (TQM) or related strategic approaches to quality. Other research has
looked at the subject of empowerment of employees. One relative gap in the academic
literature is what effects the extra responsibility of empowerment has on employees. Your
research proposal looks to see to what extent empowering workers adds to the daily stress
of work and what steps can be taken to enable workers to take on this increased
responsibility.
Reference: Barker, J.R., (1993). Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-
managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, pp408-437.

Working across functions: International differences (An International Business
Topic)
As companies may interact with those from differing countries, they may present different
experiences as to how readily people work across different business disciplines, within a
company (e.g. operations staff working with those from marketing or finance). This presents
a potential clash in the decision making process that may impact on the very existence of an
international business relationship. Your research proposal is to focus on why, and to what
extent, such differences occur.
References: McDonough III, E.F. (2000) Investigation of factors contributing to the success
of cross-functional teams. The Journal of Product Innovation Management. 17(3), 221-235.
Team leadership in academia: The limitations of a top-down approach (An
Organisational Studies Topic)
There is a debate in academia about the best ways to lead academic staff. You are to
propose research on the limitations of adopting a ‘top-down’ leadership style as opposed to
a more adaptive leadership style. You should also research why there may be resistance to
such a ‘top-down’ approach.
References: Randall, L.M. & Coakley, L.A. (2007) Applying adaptive leadership to
successful change initiatives in academia. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
28(4), 325-335.
Heifetz, R.A., Kania, J.V. & Kramer, M.R. (2004) Leading boldly. Stanford Social Innovation
Review. 2(3) pp. 20‐32.
Consumption rituals of Christmas Day
In a paper employing in-depth, qualitative data collection, Wallendorf & Arnould (1991) look
to see how individuals and groups both behave and consume during Thanksgiving Day in
the USA. Basing your research on that paper, write out a proposal for carrying out a
comparative study on how Christmas Day is celebrated. You are free to carry out the
research in the UK or to compare celebrations between several countries.
Reference: Wallendorf, M. & Arnould, E.J. (1991) “We gather together”: Consumption rituals
of Thanksgiving Day. Journal of Consumer Research. 18 (June), pp. 13-31
[This paper is covered in detail in Workshop 3]
The resource-based view in differing industry sectors.
In a paper employing in-depth, largely secondary, quantitative data collection, Miller &
Shamsie (1996) were among the first authors to look at the resource-based view of the firm.
It studies which type of resources within a firm lead to success in different market situations
(i.e. stable vs unstable periods). While Miller & Shamsie’s paper addressed the issue by
looking at historical data from the US film industry, your proposal is to outline how you would
replicate and test the study in a different industry sector today. In addition, your proposal is
looking to address how resources may interact together.
Reference: Miller, D. & Shamsie, J. (1996) The resource-based view of the firm in two
environments: The Hollywood film studios from 1936 to 1965. Academy of Management
Journal. 39 (3), pp. 519-543