Deriving research objectives from the theoretical framework in the ALRA: an illustration

Deriving research objectives from the theoretical framework in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) is illustrated in the following example. First of all, the researcher should have a properly formulated Level 0 theoretical framework, such as:

The theoretical framework has 3 zones with 6 components. Zone 1 is  Influencing factors. Zone 2 is Core-focus domain. Finally, Zone 3 is Outcome factors. In this regard, Zone 1 and 3 constitute the non-core-focus domain of the dissertation project. The six components of the theoretical framework are:

Component 1: strategic human resource management practices of ABC Ltd. [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 2: strategic management activities of ABC Ltd. [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 3: Evaluate staff retention of ABC Ltd. [Serious descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 4: Evaluate team leadership of ABC Ltd. [Serious descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 5: Evaluate business impacts [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 6: Evaluate existing improvement efforts on staff retention and team leadership [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]


With the core focus of the study on Evaluate staff retention of ABC Ltd (component 3) and Evaluate team leadership of ABC Ltd (component 4), the research objectives can now be derived as follows:


Research objective 1: To evaluate staff retention status of ABC Ltd and its business impacts on ABC Ltd.
Research objective 2: To evaluate team leadership status of ABC Ltd and its business impacts on ABC Ltd.
Research objective 3: To evaluate existing  improvement efforts on staff retention and team leadership by ABC Ltd and make further improvement recommendations on them, based on research findings on Research objectives 1 and 2.


In total, there are three research objectives, which are derived from the Level 0 theoretical framework. Note that Theoretical framework components 1 and 2 are not explicitly mentioned in the three research objectives as they will be covered when research objectives 1 and 2 are examined.


As a side topic, the report title in this case could be:  

An investigation on staff retention/ turnover and team leadership at ABC Ltd: a cases study