e-resource on panel research design (videos)
Steps to firm up on academic research project's research questions: a note
From time to time, some students, having attended my brief lecture session on research methods, come to me and ask whether their research topics as well as preliminary research objectives/ questions are good enough or not. Most of the time, those research topics and questions are not good enough. The problem is, it is important to do some preliminary research efforts and learning reflection before a reasonably proper research topic and research objective/ question can be formulated. Here, I offer the following steps for students to employ in order to do so properly for research projects that are academic in orientation:
Step 1: Come up with a broad research theme (e.g. for housing studies, research themes could be homelessness, housing affordability, etc.; for accounting and finance students, research themes can be capital structure, dividend policy, etc.) that is associated to your field of study: for accounting and finance students, the research theme needs to be related to accounting and finance; and for housing studies students, the research theme needs to be associated with housing studies.
Step 2: Perform a research gap analysis (as a preliminary literature review exercise) as well as a preliminary desk research to identify some of the main research gaps as well as practical concerns as related to your chosen research theme.
Step 3: Informed by your additional knowledge gained from step 2, start to formulate your specific research topic, research objective and research questions. To do so, consider your personal intellectual strengths and interests. You also need to contextualize your preliminarily formulated research topic, research objective(s) and research question(s) so as to further refine them. The research context comprises the (i) time (e.g. Spring of 2023), (ii) place (e.g. Hong Kong) and (iii) people (e.g. certain stakeholder group for a particular business sector with specific concerns) dimensions
Step 4: Roughly review whether you are able to employ specific research methods to investigate your chosen topic, objective(s) and question(s).
After performing these four steps, you should be in a good position to determine whether your research topic, research objective(s) and research question(s) are proper or not (e.g. being clear in meaning and having some concrete research topic originality). Now, you could also ask your research methods lecturer and research project supervisor for their opinion on the appropriateness of your project topic, objective(s) and question(s).
The main point is: do not start to formulate research objective and questions without some preliminary literature review and desk research efforts.
e-learning resource on "evaluation research"
1. Evaluation research: a briefing
2. Evaluation as a research design.
A note on the abstract structure for Research Methods assignment for Accounting and Finance students
The generic abstract structure:
Title
Purpose
Design/methodology/approach
An example: (Re: Liang Song. International Journal of Accounting & Information Management. ISSN: 1834-7649 Article publication date: 5 October 2015)
Title: Accounting disclosure, stock price synchronicity and stock crash risk: An emerging-market perspective
This study aims to examine the effects of firms’ accounting disclosure policies on stock price synchronicity and stock crash risk, using a sample including 13 emerging markets. Furthermore, this research investigates how these relationships are affected by country-level investor protection and firm-level governance rankings.
This paper uses accounting disclosure measures constructed based on survey questions by Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (2001, CLSA). The accounting disclosure measure is used to explain the two dependent variables, stock price synchronicity and stock crash risk. The stock price synchronicity measure is defined as the logistic transformation of R2 following Hutton et al. (2009) and Jin and Myers (2006). R2 is taken from the estimation of an extended market model. The stock crash risk variable is measured as the frequency difference between extremely negative and positive stock return residues following Jin and Myers (2006). These stock return residues are taken from the estimation of an extended market model. Because the CLSA firm-level disclosure data are from 2000, this paper matches other data taken from the same year, for consistency. The final sample includes 204 observations in 13 emerging countries.
This paper finds that firms’ stocks are less synchronized with the entire market and have less crash risk if firms have superior accounting disclosure policies. These results suggest that the cost to collect firm-specific information may be decreased for investors if firms are more transparent. Thus, these firms’ stocks have more firm-specific information content. These results also suggest that management is less likely to hide some negative information and release such negative information suddenly in the future if firms have higher levels of accounting disclosure. Thus, these firms’ stocks are less likely to crash. In addition, the influences of firms’ accounting disclosure policies on stock price synchronicity and crash risk are more significant for firms with superior country-level investor protection and firm-level governance rankings. These results imply that external investors place more value on accounting disclosure by well-governed firms because firms with superior governance standards are less likely to intentionally disclose misleading information. Thus, these firms’ stocks can incorporate more firm-specific information and have less crash risk.
The current study is the first to show that the effects of accounting disclosure on stock price synchronicity and crash risk are more pronounced for firms with superior country-level investor protection and firm-level governance standards. Thus, this research extends the literature by providing a comprehensive picture of the influences of accounting disclosure on stock markets. In addition, the existing literature (Chen et al., 2006; Durnev et al., 2004) shows that firms with lower stock price synchronicity are associated with higher investment efficiency because managers invest based on the information in stock prices. Obviously, higher stock crash risk is highly related to higher bankruptcy risk for firms. Thus, examining the effects of accounting disclosure on stock price synchronicity and stock crash risk is of obvious importance to policy makers.
A report structure template for the research methods assignment of Accounting & Finance students: an example
Final Project Structure
Title
(should be concise –short in words)
Abstract (briefly describe what you have done and the main
conclusions/contribution(s) of your work) to the current literature.
Acknowledgements
Contents
1. Introduction (state
the objectives of your research, summarize your motivations for having chosen
the topic, talk briefly about your sample and the reasons for choosing that
sample, briefly state 2-3 articles on which you based your research and the contributions
you intend to give to the current literature –be clear, coherent and concise)
2. Literature Review (review at least 10-15 articles related which support
theoretically and or methodologically the topic chosen. When possible relate those
articles findings with your research.
3. Data and Methodology
4.1 Data (describe the sample used: time
period, variables, sources where you got the data, etc)
4.2 Methodology (introduce
your model and respective variables. If you use (multi-regression models state
the regression equation(s) and describe in detail all the regression variables)
4. Results (present your results and interpret your findings)
5. Conclusions (state the main conclusions from your research –focus on the
most important results only; be short in words and concise)
6. Recommendations and Limitations (state a few recommendations for
further work (i.e. possible extensions for your research, ideas, etc) and the
limitations of your research (such as time constrains, too small sample, etc).
Appendix
How to refine a business theme for a business sector for MBA project work: a note with regard to the agile literature review approach (ALRA).
A common query from my MBA students doing dissertation projects is as follows:
Student A: my topic is "A study of the impact of covid-19 on the catering sector in Hong Kong". Is my topic too broad? Could you give me some advice?
My advice:
The theme, with the organizational unit of analysis for investigation at the business sector/ industry level, is quite acceptable for your dissertation project work. It is very likely that your project type is consulting/ management-concerns-oriented. It may also be feasible to work out an embryonic ALRA diagrams based on rough project ideas like yours.
To further refine your ideas in terms of clearer project contextualization and management concerns, you need to conduct some preliminary investigation using exploratory desk research and and interview research. By doing so, you aim at producing a proper set of ALRA diagrams, initially on the management-concerns diagram and the theoretical framework level-0. Some preliminary ideas on academic ideas and research methods to use are also needed to produce a proper synopsis form and dissertation proposal document. The concern of the project idea being "too broad" is thus addressed in this way.
Even if a proper synopsis form is not able to be produced by the submission deadline, it is still not a serious problem; it just means that your appointed dissertation supervisor will ask you questions that are essentially useful to refine your proposal ideas.
My last question for you to consider: are you able to come up with 1 to 2 primary research methods to be employed at the core-focus-domain of your project at the business sector/ industry level?
e-resource for Housing students doing final year dissertation projects:
Quality of academic references to use for literature review: a note for MBA students.
When doing literature review for an MBA dissertation project, students need to use academic references that are directly relevant to the research task on hand. For example, if your research task is: to evaluate the strategic management policy of ABC Ltd, the top priority is to consider references from the strategic management literature and use specific strategic management theories and models.
The issue I want to raise is that, all business management subjects are interdisciplinary in nature. In particular, strategic management theories could consider academic theories from some other disciplines, including some foundational disciplines, such as Economics. Thus, for a student to do literature review to address a research task that is about strategic management, using a reference from the foundational discipline of Economics is acceptable, BUT this is not the most preferred choice for such a literature review task.
More generally, for a marketing research task not to use marketing references and for a human resource management research task not to use HRM references would constitute a material quality weakness of the student's literature review endeavor.
Last question, what do you mean by "marketing reference"? For example, the reference comes from academic journal on marketing. Another example is that the reference is from a business journal with an article title that explicitly mentions a specific marketing theory, such as XXX marketing model, YYY marketing tactic framework, etc..
How to refine a rough research theme for dissertation proposal formulation: an illustration
The query from MBA student A is as follows: About topic of my dissertation topic, I would like to propose as follows:
Impact of the catering industry under the epidemic and changes in business models
Please can you give me your comments and suggestions how to refine the idea for preparing dissertation proposal?
My suggestion is to provide a rough draft of a management-concerns diagram [an embryonic management-concerns diagram] as follows: [note: (i) the organizational unit of analysis under investigation is the HK catering industry and (ii) research type: consulting]
With reference to this embryonic theoretical framework level-0, the proposal title is: An investigation on the existing business models' competence of the HK catering industry under covid-19.
The two main research objectives, based on the core-focus-domain, are:
Main research objective 1: to evaluate the existing business models' competence of the HK catering industry under covid-19
Main research objective 2: to find out how to adapt the business models of the catering industry in Hong Kong under covid-19
One minor research objective: to evaluate the impacts of covid-19 on the HK catering industry.
For the two main research objectives, the researcher needs to do some literature review on the topic of "business models". For the minor research objective, the notion of systemic PEST analysis is useful.
As to research methods, there are quite a number choices to consider: interview research, questionnaire survey, observation research, focus group and desk research.
This note introduce the idea of embryonic diagramming for the agile literature review approach (ALRA). Embryonic diagramming is useful for kickstarting the ALRA employment by the researcher.
The main "reasons" on the plagiarism problem: a note {this note includes quite a number of e-learning resources [videos]}.
Over the years, students contacted me for advice on their plagiarism problem; they have also offered the main reasons of why the plagiarism problem has arisen:
Reason 1: Nobody has told me what is plagiarism. Now, my turnitin report indicates that my similarity index is 45%, and the university admin informs me that my dissertation report has plagiarism. ...What should I do?
Reason 2: I have provided clear referencing, but the turnitin report stills show a very high similarity index at 45%. Nobody told me that I need to add quotation marks on the content.
Reason 3: I am not familiar with the topic of plagiarism because I think this is not an important consideration. ...
Reason 4: I tried more than 8 times to revise my dissertation report and submitted the report after the "revisions". Every time, I submitted my report, the similarity index dropped a few percentages; after repeated submission of my report, the university system refused my report submission. Now, what can I do? Time is running out ... I still need to reduce my report similarity index...
After learning these reasons from the students, the academic staff of the university in UK requested the teaching and admin. staff in Hong Kong to spend more effort to explain and remind students on the topic of plagiarism....
Further readings:
1. How to quote (video).
2a. On plagiarism (video).
3. Harvard referencing (video).
4. How to paraphrase (video).
5a. Understanding Turnitin's report (video).
5b. Similarity report (Turnitin report) (video).
5c. How to read your Turnitin Report Screencast (video).
5d. Turnitin: Similarity Reports and Filtering Options (video).
e-resource (videos) on Research Method Protocol in Research Methods study
1. What is a Research Method Protocol.
2. What is and how to use a research protocol.
3. Research protocol [online briefing]: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Class discussion: to discuss how to adopt research method protocol practice in Business Management/ Housing Studies dissertation projects (including the discussion on the two types of MBA dissertation projects and the two types of Housing studies projects).
Reference
1. How to write a research study protocol (pdf download).
A list of evaluation tasks to perform on MBA dissertation samples in Research Methods class:
1. Does the dissertation report provide an executive summary and is it properly written?
2. What type of dissertation project is it?
3. Is the "organizational unit of analysis under investigation" clear? Does it also mention its containing unit?
4a. Are the research objectives explicitly and adequately justified as a response to a few research issues that have been identified from a research gap analysis?
4b. Are the research objectives explicitly and adequately justified as a response to a set of management concerns for a specific "organizational unit of analysis under investigation" and a few concerns for its containing unit?
5a. Did the researcher state explicitly why he/she is interested in the dissertation research topic?
5b. Did the researcher state explicitly his/ her relationship with the client organization under investigation?
5c. Did the researcher state explicitly how he/ she could gain access to the research participants and respondents and "informed consent" from them?
6. Was the literature review done in an explicit way to respond to "each" of the research objectives, and their associated underlying research gaps and management-concerns.
7a. Have the research methodology and its ingredient research methods been reviewed in terms of (i) the layers of the research onion model and (ii) the research methods quality criteria?
7b. Is the research method protocol sufficiently clear?
8. Did the line of reasoning and discussion include specific pointers such that the overall chain of evidence of the report is clear, organized and focused?
*** there could be other evaluation tasks to study MBA dissertation samples, but the ones above (1 to 8) are adequate for class exercise purpose.
