Research Methodology and Ethics in Business Studies

This assignment provides a comprehensive overview of the research methodology and ethics used in a business study. The researcher has employed qualitative research to gather expressive information about beliefs, motivations, feelings, and values that underlie behaviors. A thematic analysis was conducted on survey outcomes using questionnaires from Zara managers. Probabilistic sampling with simple random sampling was used, ensuring all finance, sales, and operations managers were included. Ethical considerations such as informed consent, potential vulnerability of participants, risk to participants and researchers, confidentiality, anonymity, disclosures/limits to confidentiality, and data storage and security are also addressed.

Section 1: Basic details:
Project title:
To determine benefits and risk of outsourcing- A study on Zara
Student name:
Student ID number:
Programme:
College Name:
Intended research start date:
Intended research end date:
Section 2 Project summary
Please select all research methods that you plan to use as a part of your project:
 Interviews Yes No
 Questionnaires Yes No
 Observations Yes No
 Use of personal records Yes No
 Data Analysis Yes No
 Action Research Yes No
 Focus Groups Yes No
 Others (Please specify) :
Section 3: Participants
Please answer the following questions, giving full details where necessary.
Will your research involve human participants?
Who are the participants? Tick all that apply:
Adults:
How will participants be recruited (identified an approached)?
Simple Random Technique
Describe the processes you will use to inform participants about what you are
doing:
Email

How will you obtain consent from participants? Will this be written? How will it
be made clear to participants that they may withdraw consent to participate at
any time?
BY taking written consent from the respondents and describing them to withdraw
their concern from research.
Studies involving questionnaires: will participants be given the option of omitting
questions that do not wish to answer?
No
If no please explain why below and ensure that you cover any ethical issues
arising from this
As the participants will not be having any right to omit the questions rather they
can miss the question which they do not want to answer.
Studies involving observation: Confirm whether participants will be asked for
their informed consent to be observed.
No
Will you debrief participants at the end of their participation (i.e give them a
brief explanation of the study)?
No
Will participants be given information about the findings of your study?(This
could be a brief summary of your findings in general)
No
Section 4: Data Storage and Security
Confirm that all personal data will be stored and processed in compliance with
the Data Protection Act (1998)
Yes
Who will have access to the data and personal information?

Only the researcher
During the research:
Where will the data be stored?
USB
Will mobile devices such as USB storage and laptops be used
Yes
If Yes, please provide further details:
After the research:
Where will the data be stored?
Laptop
How long will the data and records be kept for and in what format?
2 years in digital format
Will data be kept for use by other researchers? No
Section 5 : Ethical Issues
Are there any particular features of your proposed work, which may raise ethical
concerns? If so, please outline how you will deal with these:
It is important that you demonstrate your awareness of potential risks that may
arise because of your research. Please consider/address all issues that may
apply. Ethical concerns may include, but are not limited to the following :
 Informed consent.
 Potentially vulnerable participants.
 Sensitive topics
 Risk to participants and /or researchers
 Confidentiality/anonymity
 Disclosures/ limits to confidentiality
 Data storage and security, both during and after the research (including
transfer, sharing, encryption, protection).
 Reporting
 Dissemination and use of your findings.
Section 6: Declaration
I have read, understood and will abide by the institution’s Research and
Ethics Policy: Yes No
I have discussed the ethical issues relating to my research with my Unit

Tutor:
Yes No
I confirm that to the best of my knowledge:
The above information is correct, and this is a full description of the
ethical issues that may arise in the course of my research
Name: Date:
Please submit your completed form to your supervisor and also attach to
the Research Proposal when submitting to Turnitin.
Research Proposal Form
Student Name: ______________________ Student ID:
____________
Centre Name: _____________________
Tutor: ________________ Date:
___________________
Unit: ____________________
Proposed Title: To determine benefits and risk of outsourcing- A
study on Zara
Section One: Title, objective, responsibilities
Title or working title of the research project (in the form of a
question, objective or hypothesis)
Aim
To identify benefits and risk related to outsourcing the business
operation- A study on Zara
Research question
 Research question

 What is outsourcing pertaining to UK fashion industry?
 Does outsourcing offer benefit to fashion sector companies like Zara?
 What are challenges faced by Zara with context to outsourcing?
Research objectives (e.g what is the question you want to answer?
What do you want to learn how to do? What do you want to find out?):
Objective
 To articulate the term outsourcing in the context of fashion sector.
 To assess advantages of outsourcing with regards to Zara.
 To extract challenges faced by Zara related to outsourcing.
 To give recommendations to Zara on the basis of expansion of
business with reference to global scale.
Section Two: Reasons for choosing this research project
Reasons for choosing the project (e.g links to other subjects you are
studying, personal interest, future plans, knowledge/skills you want to
improve, why the topic is important):
This study has been performed to enhance knowledge about recent trend like
(customer preference in international market, production cost is reduced
because cost of labour is less) and for purpose of academic instructions. This
research is highly concerned with recent term in everybody's mind and
especially for business perspective to attain success and competitive
advantage. In the present scenario, globalisation has impacted distribution,
marketing and production side of entire fashion industry. There is increment
in availability of information which had affected through every cultural
dimension of globalization in fashion industry. In the similar aspect, this will
help to other researcher as well and especially to fashion retailer companies
like Zara, H&M, Mango for improving their financial performance and to
adopt strategies. This topic is highly related to my interest as it has
enhanced skills and knowledge like data analysis and skills.

Section Three: Literature sources searched
Use of key literature sources to support your research question,
objective or hypothesis:
According to Guggilla and et.al., (2018), outsourcing is defined as act of getting
finished and semi finished product or services through an outside company if
these particular tasks were performed internally with traditional aspect. It is
buy or make decision for getting necessary supplies of services and materials
for purpose of productions of services and goods. However, Zhang and et.al.,
(2018) stated that provision of external vendors of human and physical
resources link with user company's structure of information technology.
Outsourcing comprises conducting organizational activities with application
of external agents.
According to Zamagni (2018), Moss Bros and Ben Sherman does not have
technical people in-house so it was outsourced by Nottingham based e-
commerce agency. They have various customers who had attained benefit
through shared learnings instead of isolating internal teams. Fashion retailer
could evolve at very rapid pace, rather than slow, difficult and sluggish pace
for employing right person to set and drive team internally. Hence, there
approach is at very fast track process and considering this e-commerce
function at Ben Sherman has driven uplift of 34% in its online sales.
Section Four: Activities and timescales
Activities to be carried out during the research project
(e.g research, development and analysis of ideas,
writing, data collection, numerical analysis, tutor
meetings, production of final outcome, evaluation,
writing the report):
How long this
will take:
Milestone one: Collection of data in 2 weeks

Target date (set by tutor): ____________________
Milestone two: _______________________
Target date (set by tutor): ______________________
Gantt Chart
Week
Act
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ies 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
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Section Five: Research approach and methodologies
What type of research approach and methodologies are you likely to use
and why? What your areas of research will cover:
Research type
In this study, researcher has used qualitative research as it reflects
expressive information which is not conveyed through quantitative data
regarding beliefs, motivations, feelings and value which underlie
behaviours (Niknejad and Amiri, 2019).
Research approach
The researcher has used inductive approach because it undertakes
particular observations and forms general conclusion and it moves
through particular instances.
Research philosophy
In this study, researcher has used Interpretivsim approach because
it traces actual human behaviour and influence for measuring

phenomena (Eisend and Kuss, 2019).
Data collection:
In this study, researcher has used questionnaires for identifying
actual human influence and various other information through scholarly
articles, journals and newspapers.
Sampling:
There are two types of sampling probabilistic and non probabilistic
sampling as in this researcher has used probabilistic sampling with its 20
managers of Zara which includes all finance, sales and operations
managers with simple random sampling
Data Analysis
It is referred as process of cleansing, modelling, transforming and
inspecting data with objective for discovering useful information, supporting
decision making and informing conclusions (Martinez-Mier and et.al., 2019). The
researcher has analysed data with reference to survey outcome through thematic
analysis.
Ethical Consideration
1. Informed consent.
2. Potentially vulnerable participants.
3. Risk to participants and /or researchers
4. Confidentiality/anonymity
5. Disclosures/ limits to confidentiality
6. Data storage and security, both during and after the research (including
transfer, sharing, encryption, protection).
Comments and agreement from tutor
Comments (optional):
I confirm that the project is not work which has been or will be submitted
for another qualification and is appropriate.
Agreed: ________________ (name)_______________ Date ______________
Comments and agreement form project proposal checker( IV sampling)
Comments (Optional):
I confirm that the project is appropriate.
Agreed /Disagree: (Name of the IV)
Date