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Topic 3: How to structure the Project
This section of the materials describes the structure of the Project.
The broad structure and key sections of the Project are as follows:
• Title/Topic page
• Executive summary
• Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Orientation
3. Data collection and analysis
4. Key findings
5. Key implications
6. Conclusion
• References
• Appendices
The total length of the Project should be 4,500 to 6,000 words. Please observe the words limit because you will be penalised, as per the AIB Style Guide, if you go under or over this limit. This word count limit does not include your cover page, the executive summary, table of contents, list of references, or appendices. So, you may place any supporting material that exceeds this word limit into appendices. However, a reader should not have to look at an appendix to understand the main thrust of the points you are making in your Project. Make sure all your main points are in the body of your Project. You should refer to the appendices that will support the points you are making in the body of your Project, because the reader may not look at the appendices otherwise. (Note that relevant supporting material in these appendices that demonstrates thoughtful application of concepts could help your mark.)
The contents for each section of your Project are explained in detail next.
For each section of the Project, we have provided examples with comment annotations by an assessor on the right hand side to alert you to issues involved in the examples. A full example Project is provided in Appendix E with an assessor’s comments included.
Title/Topic Page
The title of the project may be similar to the title of the Project Proposal but you may wish to modify it after feedback is provided from the assessor so that the title is a better explanation of what is intended by the research.
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The title itself should capture the essence of the research, perhaps by drawing on parts of the research question(s) or the intended impact of the Project. The title should also not be too long and 10 words or less is usually quite sufficient.
Executive summary
The executive summary is written after the first draft of the Project is completed. It is about 200 words long and should cover the following:
• a short theme sentence to orient the reader
• what was the purpose of the Project?
• why did you do it, why is it important?
• the research methodology (data collection and analysis) – what did you do and what happened?
• what were the results or findings (patterns or correlations in the data)?
• what are the implications, what is your work good for (for example, how does it confirm or disconfirm the literature, and what are the recommendations for management practice or government policy)?
For your Project, the final implications in the executive summary can often be summarised in one short sentence, for example, that managers in your local country or region can use your Project to improve their practices.
Here is an example executive summary. It is an appropriate 195 words long and correctly has no citations (but please note citations should be frequent in the rest of your Project). To save space in this and subsequent examples, the font and line spacing are reduced to 11 point and single line spacing, but the original complied with the requirements in the AIB Style Guide. The example is based on a former student’s Project.
EXAMPLE – Executive Summary
Performance management is central to gaining competitive advantage because performance management is the process through which managers ensure that employees’ activities and outputs are congruent with the organisation’s goals.
Thus the purpose of this research is to develop and implement a SME’s performance management system to ensure correct skills and competencies are developed. This was important because there has been little research about performance management in SMEs and because new Australian government regulations require this.
This research examined how one Australian SME training organisation introduced these concepts into the business. Three stages of data collection and analysis were carried out: a review of existing data, interviews and focus groups with 10 organisations and 15 individuals, and an online survey of 250 registered training organisations from around Australia. Ten organisations provided data for analysis and fifteen individuals were interviewed.
The major finding was that introduction of performance management has been difficult for many
Comment [CRP1]: a short theme sentence to orientate the reader
Comment [CRP2]: what was the purpose?
Comment [CRP3]: why did you do it, that is, why is it important?
Comment [CRP4]: what did you do and what happened (that is, the research method)?
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other SMEs but that the focal case had successfully gone through the transition using an action learning approach.
The case report will benefit managers in the training industry as well as other managers in other industries tasked with developing performance management systems.
1. Introduction
The Introduction should be no more than 1.5 pages of your Project (using the line spacing and font required by the AIB Style Guide) and should cover five core ideas that are different from what the executive summary was about:
1. establish the background field (the aspect of your degree studies that this Project will focus on), and assert its significant position in theory or practice;
2. summarise previous research (only one or two brief paragraphs at the most);
3. indicate gaps, inconsistencies or controversies, and why they are important;
4. state the purpose of the present research (to address point 3), state briefly the main aspects of how data was collected and analysed, and conclusions of the research (and advanced students may add a sentence about their contributions (related to point 3));
5. outline of the Project.
[
Firstly, state what the background field is – it is usually one of the topics in one of your degree subjects such as ecotourism, entrepreneurial characteristics or financial reports.
Secondly, very briefly summarise previous research about that established topic that was noted in the textbook and possibly referred to in some articles.
Then you point out that there is a gap, inconsistency or controversy about an issue within that established field. For your Project, the gap usually appears where there has been little research about how managers in your country or region actually apply the concepts. For example, the gap could be how ecotourism is done in Singapore or South Australia, the characteristics of entrepreneurs in a manufacturing industry in Ghana, or how financial statements are used in Vietnam. If you can, you might mention that this gap is an important one because the area is significant, with supporting statements such as ecotourism is growing in Singapore; entrepreneurship is critical for the development of Ghana; free enterprise is growing fast in Vietnam.
Then at about the third or fourth paragraph of the Introduction, start a new paragraph by stating your research purpose. For example, ‘The purpose of this research is to explore how one ecotourism operator in Singapore actually manages a small entrepreneurial business’, or ‘The purpose of this research is to find the four main characteristics of entrepreneurs in Ghana’. Then, briefly describe some key aspects of your research; and in one sentence, what your main findings were (to entice the reader to keep reading on).
Comment [CRP5]: what were the results or findings (patterns in the data)?
Comment [CRP6]: The implications can usually be summarized in one short sentence that says managers in your local country or region can use the report to improve their practices.
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The final paragraph of the Introduction then outlines the Project, starting with the sentence, ‘This report has five sections after this Introduction’. Then, in that paragraph you should give a brief summary of the sections – no more than one sentence per section.
Here is an example of an Introduction. It covers each of the five core ideas that need to be presented in an Introduction.
EXAMPLE – 1. Introduction
Performance management is central to gaining competitive advantage because performance management is the process through which managers ensure that employees’ activities and outputs are congruent with the organisation’s goals (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright 2006). A foundation of performance management is a quality management system. To remain competitive, it is necessary for an organisation to develop a quality system that will ensure not only compliance with quality standards but also foster continuous improvement.
This importance of these quality management systems applies to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as to large organisations. Governments can enforce this coverage. For example, the government in Australia requires all registered training organisations (RTOs), large or small, to have a quality management system (The Training System 2008). In order to check this compliance, state and territory registering authorities may conduct regular audits of a registered training organisation’s systems, processes and practices. However, the SME registered training organisations could find it difficult to compete with the large training organisations because their resources are limited and the costs of compliance and change are high.
While some research about their quality management systems has been undertaken within large government-owned registered training organisations like Technical and Further Education (TAFE) bodies in Australian states, independent SME registered training organisations have been given little research attention even though they are expected to meet the same standards as larger ones. The lack of information about human resources in these SMEs is problematic for theory, research, and practice. Current theory is often developed and tested in large organisations. Little information exists on benchmarking by smaller organisations, including financial or non-financial performance data relative to competitors. As a result, little is known about the extent to which the theory extends to smaller entrepreneurial organisations (Wright & McMahan 1992).
Thus the purpose of this research is to develop and implement a SME’s performance management system to ensure correct skills and competencies are developed. This is achieved in a case of the successful management of a small registered training organisation within the Vocational Education and Training sector complying with Australian Quality Training Framework 2007’s (AQTF 2007) standards (DEEST 2007a). Electus established a system-wide approach to continuous improvement known as the registered training organisation Quality Framework™ (Chalkport, 2007). Electus reviewed AQTF 2007 (DEEST 2007a) requirements, researched the characteristics and behaviours of stakeholders through interviews, focus groups and a survey of managers of similar organisations within the nationally accredited training sector. The case report will benefit managers in the training industry as well as other managers in other industries tasked with developing performance management systems.
This report has five sections after this Introduction. First, a review of the literature is provided. Then data collection and analysis are described. Then key findings are discussed. Next, key implications are described. Finally, the report concludes.
Comment [CRP7]: 1. This paragraph fulfils the requirement of the first paragraph to set the scene in the established fields of performance management and quality management.
Comment [CRP8]: This short sentence at the start of a paragraph is a theme sentence and nearly all your paragraphs should have one. The theme sentence summarises what the whole of the following parts of the paragraph will cover.
Comment [CRP9]: 2. This second paragraph summarises what has been done in the field identified in the first paragraph.
Comment [CRP10]: 3. Good point – the gap is noted in this sentence – no one has done any research into SMEs.
Comment [CRP11]: This advanced student makes the good point that the gap identified in the first sentence of this paragraph is important.
Comment [CRP12]: 4 Now the aim or objective is pointed out.
Comment [CRP13]: A brief summary of the research to make it interesting to make the reader want to keep reading on.
Comment [CRP14]: This advanced student points out why the research should be important.
Comment [CRP15]: A good short overview of the Project is provided here.
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2. Orientation
The second section of your Project will orient the reader by describing the background of the research Project. There are two parts of this section:
• some more information from a review of the literature about the background field – to establish the concepts and issues underpinning this Project;
• some more information about the subject organisation(s) – to establish the research problem and related issues, the associated research questions and the significance of the Project outcomes to the organisation.
The first part provides some more of the literature about the background field like ecotourism, entrepreneurial characteristics or financial reports. You provided one or two paragraphs about this in the Introduction. But here you provide more evidence that you have read the literature (especially the textbook) and some journal articles and articles from the Internet. This discussion of the literature does not need to be very long – about half a page may be sufficient although advanced students might go up to about two pages. A definition of the core terms would be a minimum; and then a very brief description of some of the main themes in the literature about the field, usually starting at a very broad level and then narrowing it down. For example, if the field was ecotourism, start by defining the term and selecting the definition you prefer for your project from among the various alternatives. Then, start at a broad level by saying that the term of ecotourism covers a wide range of tourism from reef activities through bushwalking to nature-based attractions like zoos. Finally, describe the narrow aspect of ecotourism explored by your project, like reef activities, for example.
The second part of this section describes the subject organisation that is the target of the study. Discuss its origins, how it became involved with the business issues in question (the research problem), what it needs to address (the research questions), and why the focus of the study is important to this organisation (the significance of the Project). For example, this section may describe how a reef resort was established and how it has grown, how casinos are being developed in Singapore, how a small software company was established in Adelaide, or how a hotel is operating in Ho Chi Minh city.
This whole section will take about three or four pages. In the example Project about Electus noted above, there were two paragraphs explaining what performance management and quality management were and why they were important based on a review of the literature. Then the example section oriented the reader about the Electus case study, as shown below. In the example below, the first part that elaborated on performance management and quality management is skipped. It starts with the second part about the case study. Some other parts of the section are also skipped so that you are not overwhelmed by detail, and these excisions are shown with an ellipsis (…).
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EXAMPLE – 2. Orientation
2.1 Literature review
…
2.2 Case study: Electus
…The Australian government recognised the need to ensure quality in the national training sector and released the Australian Quality Training Framework essential standards in 2005, revising it again in 2007 to include voluntary excellence criteria for continuous improvement. All registered training organisations are required to focus on quality outcomes rather than compliance with regulations; a big shift in thinking for some of them. Electus is one of the few SMEs able to make the shift. Furthermore, performance management measurements are the core of its required change in strategy.
…
Electus is a computer application and professional development training provider, located in Adelaide, South Australia. It has been operating for over twenty years and is dominant in its market. As an SME, Electus has been dedicated to designing customised information, communication and technology training solutions to meet skills development requirements for corporate and government personnel, and for many years has been recognised as a ‘best practice’ provider. Systems and procedures have been designed to ensure clients receive quality training. However, until 2007 when it made a strategic change, Electus was not a registered training organisation and therefore, while providing its clients with a good service in single topic technology training, it could not offer a training pathway for national accreditation. Also affected by other changes in the workforce because of a national skills shortage, Electus identified itself as being in an unsustainable position and had to craft a new strategy in order to compete in the vocational education and training sector.
Through a SWOT analysis, Electus saw an opportunity. Government incentives for increased training opportunities and the strength of existing best practice reputation for delivery of non-assessed courses required a change in strategy which would include the use of management systems that would ensure compliance. After reviewing its position, a new strategy was crafted (Thompson et al. 2006). Work was undertaken to align courseware with the national standards for accredited training and apply for registration as a registered training organisation… Electus also chose to move beyond compliance and aspire to the voluntary ‘excellence criteria’ that are based on a set of validated best practice management principles contained in the AQTF 2007 to provide a set of guidelines designed to accommodate diversity and innovation. The criteria define the ways that registered training organisations may operate to achieve high quality outcomes (DEEST 2007b).
Initially, Electus’ administrative, support and sales teams were confused about expectations and found it difficult to proactively take on new tasks. Trainers were afraid the added complexity of compliance records would create an additional workload for which they would not be remunerated. By engaging all stakeholders in group sessions to assist in gaining an understanding of the impact change will have on each role and gain organisation wide culture of ownership, Electus was able to defuse much of the angst and encourage a mindset ready for change.
In brief, performance management is key part of implementing a strategy. The challenge for Electus was to be able to continue offering a best practice service while also gaining ‘street-cred’ as a quality provider of nationally recognised training by building institutional status in a sector dominated by government-run Technical and Further Education bodies. New performance measurements congruent with strategic goals had to be set to align with the government mandated standards in the AQTF (2007)…
Comment [CRP16]: A broad picture of the background fields of performance management and quality management have already been given in the first part of this section – a definition, various types and so on – but it is skipped in this example. This paragraph in the example is just the final part of that start of the section. There is mention of performance management in this paragraph because that is what the research is about. The paragraph leads from that discussion of the literature into the case.
Comment [CRP17]: A good amount of specific details here.
Comment [CRP18]: This is a good, short theme sentence at the start of a paragraph that summarises what the whole paragraph will be about. Excellent writing technique.
Comment [CRP19]: A citation to the text – good work.
Comment [CRP20]: Another good theme sentence. This paragraph will be about the initial steps taken by Electus.
Comment [CRP21]: This has been a long section so this summary paragraph at the end (starting with ‘In brief,’) is handy. The reader now has the background understanding required to read on.
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3. Data collection and analysis
This section describes your research methodology, that is, how you collected your information, for example, through interviews or case studies. You must provide precise details of this methodology, for example, how many interviews were done and who was involved; and you must describe the data collection methods used (such as how the interviews were done) with some references to the textbook and other sources to show that the methods were applied correctly. Explain how your interview or survey questions are related to the focus and objectives of the Project. You must include a copy of the interview questions or the survey questionnaire in an appendix.
As well, describe how your data was analysed. When reporting what the data showed, start with the overall picture first and then go into the details; that is, give the forest before describing the trees in the forest, as shown below. When describing information from interviews, first give the main finding in your own words and then occasionally give a quotation from an interviewee to prove to the reader that your interpretation is correct. Here is an example from the Electus Project of how the forest is described before the trees in the forest, and a quotation is added:
EXAMPLE
Discussions with managers of registered training organisations, in particular compliance managers, illuminated three significant issues of cost, change and benchmarking. The first issue concerns financial restraints on a small business. Implementing change in order to comply with government changes creates financial stress in the organisation. Many respondents said that finding the resources to train all staff in the new approach is impossible. In particular, trying to remunerate professional staff for their time to learn about AQTF requirements, when they are paid to train rather than for administration, is a problem. One manager participating in a focus group session talked about his situation said, “Time and money for inviting trainers to go to professional development is our biggest constraint”.
As well, ethics considerations should be covered, for example, explain that the AIB Research Consent Form (see Appendix C) was used for interviewees to give their informed consent, and that copies of these are included in an appendix.
If you use just one case, you should justify doing so. Having only one case is unusual but can be justified if it meets just one or more of these three criteria (Yin 1994):
• the case is a critical one for confirming, challenging or extending a theory because it is the only one that meets all of the conditions of the theory;
• the case is rare or extreme and finding other cases is so unlikely that research about the situation could never be done if the single case was not investigated (for example, a clinical psychology case sometimes fits in this category);
• the case provides unusual access for academic research, and unless the case is investigated, an opportunity to investigate a significant social science problem may be
Comment [CRP22]: Note how well organised everything is. This blocking of everything into three blocks is very easy to follow.
Comment [CRP23]: The overall picture of the finding is given at the start and then the details and proofs are given. That is, give the forest before describing the trees in the forest.
Comment [CRP24]: This insertion of quotations into the report helps to convince the reader that you have actually found what you are saying you found. This is an important point.
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lost. An example may be the access to his or her own firm provided to a researcher to show how strategic marketing planning is actually done in the real world (with all its confidential information, power politics and human weaknesses that usually prevent academic researchers from finding out the real story about it).
Give citations for your research methodologies. Your textbook for the Project is the bare minimum reference:
• Saunders, M, Lewis, P and Thornhill, A 2009, Research Methods for Business Students, FT Prentice Hall, Harlow, England.
You should cite some other sources of information about how to collect data. These three sources are excellent references about case research.
• Carson, D., Gilmore, A., Perry, C. and Gronhaug, K. 2001, Qualitative Marketing Research, Sage, London. (The manuscript of the chapter in this book that covers interviewing to collect information about a case is in Appendix F)
• Perry, C 1998, ‘Processes of a case study methodology for postgraduate research in marketing’, European Journal of Marketing, vol.32, issue 9/10, pp. 785-802.
• Yin, R 2008, Case Study Research – Design and Methods, 4th edn, Sage, London. (Earlier editions are adequate, too).
Here is an example of the research method (data collection and analysis) section in the Electus Project. Note that some quotations are correctly included to verify and illustrate the findings from interview data. Again, some parts of the section are skipped so that you are not overwhelmed by details, and these excisions are shown with an ellipsis. By the way, do not refer to the literature from section 2 while you are analysing the data in this section above – the linkages back to literature and the findings are identified in the key implications section, not in this section.
EXAMPLE – 3. Data collection and analysis
The framework for an action learning implementation of a performance management system at Electus merged from three different but related processes. Stage one was a thorough understanding of the requirements for AQTF 2007 standards and voluntary excellence criteria. This stage used secondary data. The second stage involved the collection of primary data from interviews and focus group meetings with managers and staff of Electus and other registered training organisations (Saunders,Lewis & Thornhill 2003). Ten organisations provided data for analysis and fifteen individuals were interviewed. Each interviewee signed the AIB Individual Consent form. The third and final stage also collected primary data. It was an online survey presented in the form of an opportunity for all registered training organisations to benchmark their performance. Quantitative data collected was analysed and returned to each participating registered training organisation for in-house monitoring of the effectiveness of their management systems.
The research methodology was single case research (Perry 1998; Saunders,Lewis & Thornhill 2003; Stokes & Perry 2007; Yin 1994) involving Electus, a small registered training organisation. Having only one case was justified because, firstly, it provided unusual access for academic research, and unless the case was investigated, an opportunity to investigate a significant social
Comment [CRP25]: This section has a brief summary of the three stages and then it will go into some details of each stage in later parts of the section that have their own sub-heading.
Comment [CRP26]: This student really is quite advanced. A good student will justify the methodology and this is done in this and in the next paragraph.
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science problem may be lost. The researcher was the managing director of Electus and access to her own firm provided information that academic researchers can miss from a real story about a situation (like commercial-in-confidence information, power politics and human weaknesses).
A second justification for the single case is that a small registered training organisation in Australia provides a rare chance to investigate a SME successfully using performance management for a strategic purpose. The Australian government recognised the need to ensure quality in the national training sector and released the Australian Quality Training Framework essential standards in 2005, revising it again in 2007 to include voluntary excellence criteria for continuous improvement. All registered training organisations are required to focus on quality outcomes rather than compliance with regulations; a big shift in thinking for some of them. Electus is one of the few SMEs able to make the shift. Furthermore, performance management measurements are the core of its required change in strategy.
Stage one – initial reconnaissance
Secondary research from three sources was the first step of data collection. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research is Australia’s principal provider of vocational education and training research and statistics. It undertakes study of practitioners in order to determine levels of competence and identify skills gaps. It also provides guidelines and tools that can be used to develop managers and leaders to deliver higher quality training services nationally.
As well, the Australian Bureau of Statistics along with the Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations provided information on: labour market characteristics, skill shortages, vacancy trends, future directions of various occupations, and vocational education and training participation.
These sources helped Electus embed a quality system of continuous improvement as required by AQTF 2007 and take advantage of market trends and opportunities. But note that this research project about Electus is different from some of the research from those sources because most of The National Centre for Vocational Education Research’s target is large public providers such as Technical and Further Education bodies, universities and large private registered training organisations.
Stage two – interviews
The second stage of data collection was interviews. Each interview was conducted by the researcher who ensured all ethical issues of informed consent were observed. Approval was granted by those quoted within the report.
Data analysis of this stage. Discussions with managers of registered training organisations, in particular compliance managers, illuminated three significant issues of cost, change and benchmarking. The first issue concerns financial restraints on a small business. Implementing change in order to comply with government changes creates financial stress in the organisation. Many respondents said that finding the resources to train all staff in the new approach is impossible. In particular, trying to remunerate professional staff for their time to learn about AQTF requirements, when they are paid to train rather than for administration, is a problem. One manager participating in a focus group session talked about his situation as follows: “Time and money for inviting trainers to go to professional development is our biggest constraint”. Danny Harmer from Access Training Centre expressed his frustration at having to implement a new system in order to comply with the AQTF 2007 standards but not being given enough information about how to both fund and deploy such a system. He said, “The irony is training organisations do not train their people well enough because they are under-funded”.
The curriculum and compliance manager from one of the registered training organisations said
Comment [CRP27]: As noted above, it would have been acceptable for this heading to have had 4.1 in front of it.
Comment [CRP28]: A good knowledge of secondary and primary data sources is given here.
Comment [CRP29]: It is helpful to use linker words in the first sentence of a paragraph like: As well,… Similarly,… In addition,… In contrast,… On the other hand,…
Comment [CRP30]: Note how well organised everything is. This blocking of everything into three blocks is very easy to follow.
Comment [CRP31]: The overall picture of the finding is given at the start and then the details and proofs are given. That is, talk about the forest before describing the trees in the forest.
Comment [CRP32]: This insertion of quotations into the report helps to convince the reader that you have actually found what you are saying you found. This is an important point.
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that they were in the enviable position of successfully winning external funding from the government’s Reframing the Future program, which enabled them to provide remuneration for their professional staff to undergo training. Rose Vallen of the Australian Institute of Management South Australia went on:
It would otherwise be very difficult to include these people because they are contractors who are not happy to take time from paid work to engage in team building or organisational development sessions without compensation. The funding from Reframing the Future enabled them to be paid and provided a unique opportunity for all our staff to be involved in training sessions
The second significant issue was that it is necessary to provide correct channels for people to learn, accommodating their various styles, the culture of the organisation and demands on time. The majority cited these change management issues as their biggest challenge….
The third issue was benchmarking…
Stage three – survey
In the third stage, some of the tools developed by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research for identifying, building and sustaining the learning and development needs of managers and leaders were used to create an online survey was created and hosted by Chalkport (2006). The online survey was presented to participating registered training organisations as a benchmarking opportunity which would gather data to assist registered training organisations compare their performance. They were encouraged to participate to comply with the AQTF Users’ Guide, ‘Strategies to monitor the effectiveness of your management system could include benchmarking management systems and organisational performance with other registered training organisations’. A simple questionnaire contained five questions and took about 10 minutes to complete. One response per registered training organisation was permitted. In return for completing the survey, which was only open for three days, each responding registered training organisation was emailed a one page analysis of the quantitative data including their individual response for in-house discussion. Confidentiality was guaranteed with no registered training organisation being identified to anyone else at any time.
Fully 250 registered training organisations from around Australia provided insight into how registered training organisations could achieve the AQTF 2007- required outcomes and how difficult it is for them to do so.
Data analysis of this stage. Analysis of the survey results indicates that while the majority have a good understanding of the AQTF 2007 standards and their requirements they are struggling to deploy and implement them in an effective way. For example, responses to Question 4.1 showed 69.1 percent of respondents thought that a high level of management attention is required to keep a systematic approach in place…
4. Key findings
In this section, you take a step back and look at the data to try to identify the key findings, which are the activities, processes and events going on. Some students would have already done some of this step when they were doing their data analysis in the previous section and so may not have to write much in this section. But others might have been too close to their data in their earlier data analysis and so they do not step back and get an overall picture
Comment [CRP33]: This quotation is more than 30 words long and so is placed into an indented block of its own, and is not inserted into the text like the quotations above.
Comment [CRP34]: Good. Now we know where the questions in the survey came from – an important point.
Comment [CRP35]: A survey and an interview should explain to the respondents what are the benefits to them, of their being involved in your research.
Comment [CRP36]: All these details were good work, including the concerns about confidentiality.
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until they write this section. You might use an analysis of critical incidents to derive this overall picture.
In the Electus example Project, the data analysis had been quite thorough and so this fourth section had to merely identify the five or so main findings from all three batches of data collection and analysis in the third section, to give an overall picture about what had been found.
5. Key implications
What were the three or four main learning points or principles that you and the reader can take away and apply in other situations in the future? In this section, you look at the implications of your findings for three different targets:
• the literature, that is, ideas in your textbooks and articles
• managers in the case
• other managers in your country or region (the implications for these other managers may sometimes be much the same as for the managers in the case, and then they do not need to be listed twice).
First, take another step back and explain how your findings relate back to the literature, that is, to your textbook or some articles that you have cited earlier. Do they confirm or disconfirm what those references say? How and why?
Second, what do you recommend that managers in your case(s) do in the future?
Finally, what are the implications of all that you have done, for other managers and policy makers in your country or region? These implications for other managers may often be the same as for the managers in the case(s) you investigated, but if the case is in an unusual industry or has an unusual structure or strategy, you may be able to develop some additional recommendations. Remember that the assessor will look at the recommendations and their justification in your Project, so we strongly suggest that you clearly set out in this section what are the future actions you recommend should be done by managers and policy makers in your country or region.
In the Electus example Project, the following points were included in this section:
• that the research had investigated performance management in SMEs for the first time;
• details of how the findings made a contribution to the literature;
• one clear set of recommended actions about performance management for Electus and for other SME managers, based on the findings, together with justifications for each of them. These recommendations were set up around a management consultant’s software program that Electus had adopted as a result of the research project.
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6. Conclusion
In this final section, you should cover challenges or issues that remain unresolved. Then you should give a summary statement about the organisation or entrepreneur and the contribution of their experience, and a final tying up of the whole package to show that the purpose as set out in the Introduction has been achieved.
Note that apart from the challenges or issues that remain unresolved, there should not be any new concepts or ideas suddenly introduced in the Conclusion. The Conclusion merely ties everything that has gone before into one short package. Thus, the Conclusion section is rarely longer than one page or so in length.
Here is the Conclusion from the Electus example Project:
EXAMPLE 6. Conclusion
In summary, performance management can be an important part of a strategy but its use in SMEs is under-researched. The single case of a small, Australian registered training organisation, Electus, provided an unusual opportunity to investigate this use of performance management. Three stages of data collection found that the government’s AQTF 2007 standards have been in place for almost twelve months but most registered training organisations have found it difficult to implement a quality system that consistently delivers the required outputs and outcomes. Most organisations found that financial constraints dominated their ability to engage the appropriate people within their organisations to make a transition from mere compliance to continuous improvement within a quality system. While most indicated little difficulty in understanding the requirements of AQTF 2007, they found it difficult to get their people to take ownership and embed the quality standards into their performance as a quality system. They did not understand the importance nor the implications of not doing so. As the Electus case showed, being able to produce evidence that the cycle of continuous improvement is embedded into the organisation will ensure that registration audit requirements are met.
In conclusion, this research project showed Electus how and why to develop performance management system within a strategic situation. Its RTO Quality Training Framework™ underpins all of the AQTF 2007 standards and allows Electus to put in place a balanced performance management system that ensures it attains best practice in the national training sector.
Finally, list your references using the AIB Style Guide and include your appendices (information on referencing and plagiarism is also summarised in Appendix G).
Comment [CRP37]: This whole paragraph merely summarises the report and is based around the aim of performance management is an SME.
Comment [CRP38]: This final paragraph tries to tie everything together with its links back to the aim and its uplifting tone of completeness. Nice work.
