How to refine research objectives for a research proposal for Accounting and Finance study: a note

How to refine research objectives for a research proposal for Accounting and Finance study: a note

The proposal information provided by the student (L) are as follows:

Topic: The effect of the Crisis (Covid-19) on the share price of different industries in HK

Objectives:

O1: Suppose all crises hurt the share price

O2: Evaluate the effect of the crisis on different industries

O3: Evaluate the effect of the unemployment rate among different industries

Research rationale:

Reserve value during Crisis 

Regression model: 

y: Share price float (among different industries (Medical, Tourism, Finance))

x1: Covid-19 severity (Infected numbers)

x2:Performance of those industries (ROA, GOP) (P/E ratio) (EPS)

x3:unemployment rate of each industry

So there are three models for this research.

Review comments are as follows:

First of all: "O1: Suppose all crises hurt the share price": delete it; it is not a research objective at all.

Now, specify two related main research objectives, probably:

Main research objective 1: to evaluate the impact of covid-19 on the share prices of three industries in HK in 2022.

Main research objective 2: to evaluate the impact of corporate financial performance on the share prices of three industries in HK in 2022.

These two main research objectives justify the study of the following three research questions in the form of hypothesis statements:

hypothesis statement 1: the number of yearly reported covid-19 cases (x1) has no effect on the share prices (y) of three industries (ie., industry 1, industry 2 and industry 3 in HK in 2022)

hypothesis statement 2: the financial performance of ROA (x2) .... has no effect on the share price of three industries (ie., industry 1, industry 2 and industry 3 in HK in 2022

....etc  [up to three hypothesis statements covering 3 x variables and 1 y variable]. 

Note: There could be other  control variables (e.g. control variable 1: industry 1; control variable 2: industry 2; control variable 3: industry 3, to consider in the multiple regression formula formulation.

The revised proposal title is: The effect of the Crisis (Covid-19) and corporate financial financial performance on the share price of three industries in HK in 2022

Final comment: Student (L) needs to justify the whole research topic, research objectives and research questions via a  preliminary literature review (including a research gap analysis) and a preliminary desk research.