Business Dissertation: Guidelines, Format, and Assessment Criteria

This document provides a detailed guide for students undertaking a business dissertation. It outlines the aims of the dissertation, emphasizing its role in intellectual and personal development through a significant practical unit of activity. The guide covers crucial aspects such as topic selection, distinguishing between topic and title, and the importance of relevance to the field of specialization. It offers advice on planning, including establishing the precise focus, formulating objectives, and creating a dissertation plan to guide the research process. Detailed instructions are provided on keeping records, including source documentation and accurate quotation practices. The document specifies the required dissertation format, including the front page, table of contents, abstract, acknowledgements, and chapter structure. It also provides guidelines for referencing, including the required details for journal articles and books. Finally, it outlines the assessment criteria used by faculty guides, focusing on the clarity of objectives, analytical framework, data collection, analysis techniques, conclusions, and the overall layout of the written report. This resource is ideal for students seeking a structured approach to their business dissertation.

DISSERTATION
The Aims of the Dissertation
The aim of the dissertation is to provide you with an opportunity to further your intellectual and personal
development in your chosen field by undertaking a significant practical unit of activity, having an educational value
at a level commensurate with the award of your degree
The dissertation can be defined as a scholarly inquiry into a problem or issues, involving a systematic approach to
gathering and analysis of information / data, leading to production of a structured report.
The Dissertation Topic
It is usual to give you some discretion in the choice of topic for the dissertation and the approach to be adopted. You
will need to ensure that your dissertation is related to your field of specialisation.
Deciding this is often the most difficult part of the dissertation process, and perhaps, you have been thinking of a
topic for some time.
It is important to distinguish here between ‘dissertation topic’ and ‘dissertation title’. The topic is the specific area
that you wish to investigate. The title may not be decided until the dissertation has been written so as to reflect its
content properly.
Few restrictions are placed on the choice of the topic. Normally we would expect it to be:
relevant to business, defined broadly;
related to one or more of the subjects or areas of study within the core program and specialisation stream;
clearly focused so as to facilitate an in-depth approach, subject to the availability of adequate sources of information
and to your own knowledge;
of value and interest to you and your personal and professional development.
Planning your dissertation
This will entail following:
 Selecting a topic for investigation.
 Establishing the precise focus of your study by deciding on the aims and objectives of the dissertation, or
formulating questions to be investigated. Consider very carefully what is worth investigating and its feasibility.
 Drawing up initial dissertation outlines considering the aims and objectives of the dissertation. Workout various
stages of dissertation
 Devising a timetable to ensure that all stages of dissertation are completed in time. The timetable should include
writing of the dissertation and regular meetings with your dissertation guide.
The dissertation plan or outline
It is recommended that you should have a dissertation plan to guide you right from the outset. Essentially, the
dissertation plan is an outline of what you intend to do, chapter wise and therefore should reflect the aims and
objectives of your dissertation.
There are several reasons for having a dissertation plan
 It provides a focus to your thoughts.
 It provides your faculty-guide with an opportunity, at an early stage of your work, to make constructive
comments and help guide the direction of your research.
 The writing of a plan is the first formal stage of the writing process, and therefore helps build up your
confidence.
 In many ways, the plan encourages you to come to terms with the reading, thinking and writing in a systematic
and integrated way, with plenty of time left for changes.
 Finally, the dissertation plan generally provides a revision point in the development of your dissertation report in
order to allow appropriate changes in the scope and even direction of your work as it progresses.

Keeping records
This includes the following:
 Making a note of everything you read; including those discarded.
 Ensuring that when recording sources, author’s name and initials, date of publication, title, place of publication
and publisher are included. (You may consider starting a card index or database from the outset). Making an
accurate note of all quotations at the time you read them.
 Make clear what is a direct a direct quotation and what is your paraphrase.
Dissertation format
All students must follow the following rules in submitting their dissertation.
 Front page should provide title, author, Name of degree/diploma and the date of submission.
 Second page should be the table of contents giving page references for each chapter and section.
 The next page should be the table of appendices, graphs and tables giving titles and page references.
 Next to follow should be a synopsis or abstract of the dissertation (approximately 500 words) titled: Executive
Summary.
 Next is the ‘acknowledgements’.
 Chapter I should be a general introduction, giving the background to the dissertation, the objectives of the
dissertation, the rationale for the dissertation, the plan, methodological issues and problems. The limitations of
the dissertation should also be hinted in this chapter.
 Other chapters will constitute the body of the dissertation. The number of chapters and their sequence will
usually vary depending on, among others, on a critical review of the previous relevant work relating to your
major findings, a discussion of their implications, and conclusions, possibly with a suggestion of the direction of
future research on the area.
 After this concluding chapter, you should give a list of all the references you have used. These should be cross -
references with your text. For articles from journals, the following details are required e.g.
Draper P and Pandyal K. 1991, The Investment Trust Discount Revisited, Journal of Business Finance and
Accounting, Vol18, No6, Nov, pp 791-832.
For books, the following details are required:
Levi, M. 1996, International Financial Management, Prentice Hall, New York, 3rd Ed, 1996
 Finally, you should give any appendices. These should only include relevant statistical data or material that
cannot be fitted into the above categories.
Guidelines for the assessment of the dissertation
While evaluating the dissertation, faculty guide will consider the following aspects:
Has the student made a clear statement of the objective or objective(s).
If there is more than one objective, do these constitute parts of a whole?
Has the student developed an appropriate analytical framework for addressing the problem at hand.
Is this based on up-to-date developments in the topic area?
Has the student collected information / data suitable to the frameworks?
Are the techniques employed by the student to analyse the data / information appropriate and relevant?
Has the student succeeded in drawing conclusion form the analysis?
Do the conclusions relate well to the objectives of the project?
Has the student been regular in his work?
Layout of the written report.