Some common defects of MBA dissertation reports: a note

Some common defects of MBA dissertation reports: the main points

1. Executive summary: a. content structure not proper; b. missing information and information not concrete about the case study itself; c. read like a report introduction, not an executive summary.

2. Chapter 1: Introduction: a. too lengthy on background and company description, often with a lengthy SWOT analysis [not supported by explicit research methods findings]. b. No clear statements of management concerns and no clear statements of research objectives; c. relationship of the student to the client organization not clear; d. discussion is focused on the industry concerns while the dissertation project is on a specific company [industry concerns are not the same as a company's management concerns.]; e. the research objectives have major blind spots and are not clearly responding to the management concerns chosen to tackle in the report; f. the research objectives propose simplistic intellectual responses to a set of complex management concerns.

3. Chapter 2 - Literature review: a. not clear how the literature review approach responds to individual research objectives; b. literature review content reads like annotated bibliography; c. the literature review only briefly introduce academic articles and some of the empirical findings of them; d. unclear how the analytical ideas (e.g. theories) from the academic literature are to be employed in the dissertation project; e. unclear how the analytical ideas (e.g. theories) "discussed" can be compatibly used together to guide the research design and, subsequently, to analyze the research findings.

4. Chapter 3: Research methodology: a. not clear how the individual research method is related to specific research objective; not clear how the literature review findings (e.g. analytical ideas to use) inform the research method design; b. not clear when the research method was conducted and by whom; c. unclear on the overall research methodology and unclear on the evaluation of the research methodology and its constituent research methods in terms of the concepts of the research methods subject (e.g. Saunders et al.'s onion model).

5. Chapter 4: Findings: a. lack of labels on specific research findings, e.g. finding 1, finding 2, etc... 

6. Chapter 5: Analysis: a. unclear on theory-driven analysis; unclear "chain of evidence" in the analysis (from specific research objectives, to specific literature review findings to specific research method findings); b. missing overall assessment and unclear emphasis on the critical (and related factors) involved; c. unclear labelling (and expression) of analysis findings, (e.g., in the form of analysis finding 1, analysis finding 2, etc.).

7. Chapter 6: Conclusion and recommendations: a. the evaluation of the outcomes of the dissertation report with regard to the research objectives is not clear; the evaluation of the practical and academic value of the dissertation project is not clear; b. unclear in recommendation formulation, e.g. [should be]: recommendation 1, recommendation 2; c. the recommendation details are not clear: who to do what, with whose support, with what resources; when to start; d.  the justification of the recommendations is unclear "chain of evidence" (i.e. based on which research method findings and which specific analysis viewpoints).

8. Chapter 7: reflection on personal development: a. chapter not provided. b. too much discussion on the external environment and theories about MBA education in general (i.e. not sufficiently focused and concrete on the student's personal development and learning experience per se).

Besides, one common problem [problem 1] is dissertation report cloning: using the management concerns diagram and the theoretical frameworks of a specific finished dissertation report from a previous student; the adoption of the diagrams includes also grammatical errors in those previous diagrams. A single prior dissertation report has also been very popularly cloned by subsequent dissertation students. 

Another common problem [problem 2] involves "spelling mistakes", e.g. "unclear customer requirements" becomes "nuclear customer requirements" and "the supervisor's recommendation" as  the justification.