Table of content template for MBA academic-oriented dissertation projects

Table of content template for MBA academic-oriented dissertation projects (suggested report length: 12,000 words)

Dissertation project title

Statement of originality and authenticity

Executive summary

Acknowledgement

Table of contents

List of figures and tables

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature review

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

Chapter 4: Presentation of research findings

Chapter 5: Discussion of findings

Chapter 6: Conclusions and recommendations

Chapter 7: Reflections on developing your personal competence

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References

Appendix

Dissertation proposal (approved version)

MBA Dissertation Report Chapter 3: Research Methodology (for academic-oriented project type)

MBA Dissertation Report Chapter 3: Research Methodology (for academic-oriented project type)

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction on the research methodology of the dissertation project

3.2. An overview of the research methods employed with reference to the project research gaps and research objectives

*** insert the theoretical framework-B here. Alternatively, insert the academic literature review tree-b.

3.3. A description and justification of the research methods used.

3.3.1. Primary research methods used

3.3.1.1 Research method 1

3.3.1.2 Research method 2

3.3.1.3 Research method 3

3.3.2 Secondary research methods used

3.3.3. A flow-chart view of the research methodology

3.3.4. A discussion of the research methodology in terms of the research onion framework

** insert the table of research methods and research approach tasks involved.

3.3.5. A brief discussion of the theory-building effort with the chosen research methods

3.3.6. An evaluation of the research methods in terms of research method quality criteria

3.4. Concluding remarks of the chapter

MBA Dissertation Report Chapter 2: Literature Review (for academic-oriented project type)

 MBA Dissertation Report Chapter 2: Literature Review (for academic-oriented project type)

Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

2.2. A brief description of the theoretical framework with research gap indication for portraying (i) the literature review scope, (ii) literature search strategy, and (iii) literature review approach

*** insert the theoretical framework-A here.

2.3. An account of the literature review findings with reference to the theoretical framework-A.

*** insert the academic literature review tree here.

2.4. Concluding remarks for Chapter 2

*** reference: A collection of notes on ALRA (academic oriented type).

MBA Dissertation Report Chapter 1: Introduction (for academic-oriented project type)

 MBA Dissertation Report Chapter 1: Introduction (for academic-oriented project type)

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1. A brief introduction of the topic theme, project background, the researcher's positionality and the triggering point of intellectual curiosity.

*** insert the research gap-translation diagram here.

1.2. A description of the research gaps and the corresponding research objectives of the dissertation project, with specific reference to specific real-world business and managerial phenomena in mind.

*** insert the research gap-objective table here.

*** describe the overall research objective profile.

1.3 An overview of the dissertation report structure

*** Reference: A collection of notes on ALRA (academic oriented type).

On the theory measurement unit in the theory-based research gap-translation process

The first diagram produced in the academic-oriented dissertation project (of the agile literature review approach) is the research gap-translation diagram. There are three component in the diagram, for the MBA students' project work:

Component A. The real-world business domain

Component B: The theory-based research gap translation process

Component C: The academic literature domain.

The research gap translation diagram template is as follows:

This note focuses on component B; specifically it is on the theory measurement unit of the process (Component B). To illustrate the concept of the theory measurement unit, I would like to make use of the academic literature of Organizational Behavior. The examples of five theory measurement unit types as follows:

Theory measurement unit type	Examples in Organizational Behavior
Type 1: One single theory	Maslow’s theory of motivation
Type 2: One single approach (comprising a number of theories of the same approach)	The contingency approach of leadership (with more than 1 contingency theory of leadership)
Type 3: Two or more theories which are incompatible	Maslow’ theory of motivation (hierarchical) vs Alderfer’s ERG model of motivation (non-hierarchical)
Type 4: Two or more approaches which are incompatible	The scientific approach of management vs the contingency approach of management
Type 5: The overall academic theme in Organizational Behavior study	The organizational behavior’s academic theme of employee engagement has a number of academic issues related to conceptual clarity, conceptual obsolescence, theory adaptation and empirical finding adequacy with regard to the context of Hong Kong in 2023.

Note 1: the theory measurement unit decided on this case will also be reflected in the research gap statements of the dissertation project study, thus also explicitly indicated in Component C study (re: the research gap-translation diagram).

Note 2: for the MBA dissertation project students doing literature review on these theories, I suggest that your literature review should examines at least 9 direct academic references (academic textbooks, academic articles, academic conference papers, university white papers and dissertation reports) on these theories. Together with the indirect references on these targeted theories, the number of academic references at least reach 19. The full reference list of the dissertation report should at least reach 45 (which could also include professional journal articles, academic references on topics such as research methods, newspaper articles, policy and empirical reports of various kinds in the public domain, etc.).

Note 3: When deciding on the theory measurement unit to use for a student's dissertation project, the student should discuss with his/her dissertation project supervisor to assess whether such measurement unit selection indicates an adequate level of intellectual complexity for the Degree project requirement (notably at the Master Degree level, for the MBA programme).

Related readings: 

Reading 1: illustrative examples on the four deliverables of academic-oriented dissertation report (ALRA).

Reading 2: on research gap analysis.

On the task of extracting practical value from the researching findings of an academic-oriented dissertation project

Academic-oriented dissertation project is primarily focused on responding to specific research gaps, which in turn derive the project's research objectives. Moreover, the recommended practice is to identify 2 main research objectives so derived to constitute the core-focused domain of the project. And they, together with 1 to 2 minor research objectives (also derived from research gap statements), should be mapped onto a theoretical framework to express a coherent dissertation project theme. Nevertheless, it is still important to extract some practical and actionable knowledge from the research gap-oriented research findings. As such, there needs to be a research objective (a major one or minor one) that explicitly endeavor to do so. My suggestion is a follows:

Formulate a research objective such as: to explore the practical and actionable knowledge from the researching findings as related to research objectives 1 to 3 [the research gap derived ones] via the employment of the research method of [e.g. semi-structured interview research, focus group, etc.]

In short, including a practical oriented research objective is to acknowledge that, even for an academic-oriented dissertation project [that is interested in producing research findings with academic value], it remains valuable to also extract some practical value from the research gap-oriented dissertation project endeavor. In the case of MBA dissertation projects, that means to explore how the project research findings can be relevant for improving the real-world business practices in a particular contemporary situation.

Related reading: the four academic-oriented dissertation project.

Illustrative examples on the four ALRA deliverables for an academic-oriented dissertation project

Drawing on my study note on the research gap-translation exercise to firm up on a research gap idea, I present an example on each of the four agile literature review approach (ALR) deliverables for an academic-oriented dissertation project as follows:

Deliverable 1: a research gap-translation diagram:

For component C, the gross research gap position statement could be expressed in a clearer style as follows: the existing academic theories on the topic of innovation barriers, notably on AI adoption, do not offer a sufficiently usable set of conceptual tool to examine the observed AI adoption barriers in the HK BBB sector [as indicated in component A]. Such gross research gap position statement subsequently supports the formation of a number of research gap items as stated in the research gap-objective table (Deliverable 2).

Deliverable 2: a research gap-objective table:

Research gaps	Corresponding research objectives
Research gap item 1 (main): an inadequate empirical study of the internal innovation barrier of "owner/ manager characteristics" with regard to the HK BBB sector on AI applications.	Research objective 1 (main): to conduct empirical research in HK to gain more understanding on the internal innovation barrier of "owner/ manager characteristics" with regard to the HK BBB sector on AI applications.
Research gap item 2 (main): a lack of conceptual agreement in the academic literature on the internal innovation barrier of "firm characteristics", especially with regard to the HK BBB sector on AI applications.	Research objective 2 (main): to conduct empirical research in HK to gain more understanding (including conceptual agreement) on the internal innovation barrier of "firm characteristics", especially with regard to the HK BBB sector on AI applications.
Research gap item 3 (minor): Unclear academic methodologies for investigating the internal innovation barrier of "innovation project] cost/ ROI [evaluation]" especially with regard to the HK BBB sector on AI applications.	Research objective 3 (minor): to conduct empirical research in HK to inform the development of a methodology for investigating the internal innovation barrier of "[innovation project] cost/ ROI [evaluation]" especially with regard to the HK BBB   sector on AI applications.

Note: the core-focus-domain comprises the two main research objectives of 1 and 2.

Deliverable 3a: theoretical framework-A

Note: the illustrative example of theoretical framework makes use of the diagram obtained via Google search (re: the source). In actual practice, a customized theoretical framework should be the output of the idea synthesis effort from the research project student.

Deliverable 3b: the academic literature review tree

Deliverable 4: theoretical framework-B

A related reading: on the theory measurement unit of the theory-based research gap-translation process.