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MKT3001 Marketing Research Assignment 2
Developing a research proposal for the underperforming brand
The assignment is due on the 8
th of May 2018 and will be marked out of 100.
Assignment weighting is 40% of your overall grade.
Your task
You are to design and construct a research proposal. The research proposal is for the
company (brand) you selected in Assignment 1 (i.e. Under Armour, DHL or Alibaba). You
may use information (and feedback) that you gained from completing the first assignment
to help you to develop the rationale for the research problem and the rationale for the
research and sample design. You may find yourself having to undertake further digital
research to help you with your decision-making (and rationale) when developing the
research proposal.
You may present your research proposal using MS Word. Please limit your assignment to
2500 words (excluding the reference list).
Your research proposal should contain a Cover Page, an Introduction, the Management
Decision Statement (MDS), the Business Research Objective (BRO), two or three
Research Questions, an ethical and robust well-argued Research Design, and the Sample
Design (with rationale).
You may like to investigate different ways to develop, construct and present a research
proposal. Investigating different types of research proposals is likely to help you with your
design, structure and headings. We will judge your research proposal on the extent to which
you demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills, your ability to compose, design,
justify, prioritise and produce a research proposal as well as your demonstrated
understanding of the research process.
Please remember to reference all of your information using the Harvard AGPS referencing
guide (http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing/harvard-agps-referencing-guide). There
is no limit on the number of sources for this assignment. Given that, you are likely to
undertake some digital research to help you to develop and construct the research
proposal. I am expecting you to use at least six references, possibly more.
Please ensure you check your assignment against the Marking Criteria when
developing, constructing and editing and before submitting your assignment.
More than likely you will need to undertake further digital research to complete Assignment
2. Any digital research undertaken will help you to make decisions to do with your research
design, and will help you to develop, construct (and present) a rationale for those decisions.
Remember to reference any research used.
The digital research you undertake is also likely to help you to develop some research
questions for this assignment. The proposal is to be general (over-arching). The purpose of the
proposal is to give the manager an idea of what you are planning (and to give you practice at
developing a research proposal).
We are not expecting you to develop a timeline or budget with your research proposal. We
are more interested in having you go through the process of developing a research
proposal and making the various decisions (and providing a rationale for them) that occur
when undertaking research. The purpose of this assignment is to give you confidence about
the research process, and understanding of what goes on, should you ever engage in
research yourself.