For a management student, writing a research report is a crucial part of the course. For many students, this might be the first instance of conducting research. Moreover, there are many approaches for doing research and students can easily be confused between them. Here are some tips that will help MBA students conduct a research that is impressive and unique.
- Plan your work: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Make a schedule of the work that you are about to do and set deadlines, which must be followed religiously. Since time available for research is limited, you must make sure that the project is carried out in a planned way.
- Choose research approach: The research for management subjects can be done using many techniques. You can do case studies, surveys, purely quantitative research or literature based research. You must select the approach depending on the subject that you are studying and the objective of the study. Discuss the best approach with your supervisor and then go ahead.
- Identify sample: If you are doing a case study, you will need to pick an appropriate ‘case’ for studying. For a qualitative research, a participant group is identified, and consent is taken from members for the study. In a survey, a target population is chosen, with the most suitable sample size.
- Search for resources: You will need to search for reliable resources for research, which will include reference books and journals. You will also have to look for data which you can use for analysis. Gathering valid data that has the least issues is tough and you must take some guidance from experts.
- Do not copy: This should be your mantra while making the research report. With the availability of a number of research papers online, many students are tempted to copy some parts of the research report, to save time and effort. However, plagiarism is the worst risk that can take with your work. Stay away from duplication and write a strictly original report.
If you follow these steps, completing the research and preparing the report will be easier than you can imagine.