Chapter 2 Summary

Generating a Research Idea and Developing Your Research Proposal

Overview
This chapter explains how a broad interest becomes a focused, researchable project. It moves through four stages: generating
and refining a research idea, expressing it as a clear overarching research question with an aligned aim and objectives,
grounding the study in theory, and packaging all of this into a structured, coherent, ethical and feasible research proposal.

2.2 Characteristics of a Good Research Idea

A strong research idea satisfies three conditions simultaneously:
Appropriateness: fits the programme's rules and assessment criteria, connects clearly to academic literature and theory,
allows a clear question/aim/objectives to be stated, and offers fresh insight (findings should be valuable whether or not the
expected relationship is found).
Capability: the researcher realistically has the skills, time, finance, access and resources/equipment needed to complete it.
Fulfilment: the topic genuinely interests the researcher and supports future career or academic goals, since projects run for
months.
Note: originality does not require an entirely new topic — applying an established theory to a new sector, population, place
or period is a legitimate, realistic contribution.

2.3 Generating Research Ideas

Two complementary approaches are used together:

Rational thinking techniques

• Examine your own strengths and interests
• Examine academic staff research interests
• Look at past project titles
• Discuss with tutors, peers and practitioners
• Search existing literature (review articles and "limitations/future research" sections are especially useful)
• Scan the media for context, then verify with academic sources
Gap spotting (finding an under-examined area) and problematisation (questioning assumptions existing studies take for
granted) are two ways literature review generates ideas; most student projects rely on a well-justified gap.

Creative thinking techniques

• Keep an idea notebook
• Explore personal preferences using past projects you liked/disliked
• Explore the business relevance of ideas found in the literature
• Use relevance trees (broad topic narrowing into specific branches)
• Brainstorm — generate ideas first, evaluate them separately afterward

2.4 Refining Research Ideas

Delphi technique: iterative, anonymous rounds of expert input, summarised and fed back until views converge on a focused
priority.
Preliminary inquiry: early literature search, document review and informal conversations used to test wording, theory,
access and sensitivities before commiting to the full study.
Integrating ideas (working up/narrowing down): move from Area → Field → Aspect → Context → Question (e.g.,
accountancy → financial accounting methods → activity-based costing).
Employer-provided ideas: should be narrowed to a component that meets both academic and organisational needs, while
protecting the researcher's independence and managing the extra ethical/political sensitivities of researching one's own
organisation.

2.5 The Overarching Research Question

The overarching research question is the single central question the whole project must answer. It directs the literature
review, design and conclusions.
Type Purpose Typical wording
Descriptive Portray characteristics, frequencies or conditions What? Who? Where? When? How
much?
Exploratory Discover how people understand/experience an How? What?
issue
Explanatory Explain relationships and reasons Why? How and why?
Evaluative Judge effectiveness, value or consequences How effective? To what extent?

Three tests help focus a question:

Goldilocks test: checks whether the question is too big, too small, too hot (ethically/politically sensitive), or just right.
Russian doll principle: strip away unnecessary wording (broad intentions, repeated phrases, method detail) until only the
essential question remains.
AbC rule: a focused question should contain one or two Abstract concepts (linking to theory) plus a Context (the
setting/population). Example: "How does perceived supervisor support influence turnover intention among newly hired retail
employees?"

2.6 Research Aim and Objectives

The research aim is a brief statement of overall purpose, using the same core concepts and context as the question — it
should not point in a different direction.
Research objectives (or investigative questions) operationalise the study into connected, actionable steps. Good objectives
meet six criteria: transparency, specificity, relevance, interconnectivity, answerability and measurability. An objective states
knowledge to be produced, not just an activity (e.g. "To assess the relationship between service quality and customer
loyalty," not "To distribute questionnaires").

2.7 The Importance of Theory

Theory is a systematic, evidence-grounded body of knowledge used to explain or predict relationships between concepts.
Whetten's framework describes four elements:
Element Central question
What Which concepts or variables are included?
How How are the concepts related?
Why Why should the relationship occur? (most important — provides explanation, not
just description)
Who/where/when What limits the scope or applicability of the explanation?

Theory is NOT: references/citations alone, raw data, a list of variables, a diagram alone, or hypotheses/propositions alone —
each needs the underlying explanatory logic to count as theory.
Theory can be developed deductively (theory → data → test), inductively (data → patterns → theory), or abductively
(repeated movement between a surprising observation and theory to find the most plausible explanation).
Contributions in student research are usually substantive (bound to a specific context), rather than middle-range or grand
theory, and can be incremental (applying existing theory in a new context) or, more rarely, revelatory (a new way of
explaining a phenomenon).

2.8 The Need for a Research Proposal

A research proposal is a structured plan covering literature, theory, philosophy, design, access, ethics, sampling, data
collection, analysis, time and resources. Institutions typically assess it on three grounds:
Coherence: the question, aim, objectives, theory, design, data and analysis must tell one consistent, aligned story.
Ethics: informed consent, voluntary participation, privacy/confidentiality/anonymity, data storage/retention/disposal, and
protection of vulnerable participants.
Feasibility: realistic time, access, participants, data, finance, skills and scope — narrowing an overambitious project is good
judgement, not weakness.
Research must be designed to find out, not to manufacture support for a conclusion already decided in advance.

2.9 Structuring the Research Proposal

A standard proposal structure (always check institutional requirements) includes:
• Title — concise statement of core concepts and context; avoid empty phrases like "A study of..."
• Background — introduces the problem, rationale, literature and theoretical basis (not a full literature review)
• Question, aim and objectives — stated explicitly and aligned
• Method — philosophy/approach, design, data sources, population, sampling, data collection, analysis, data quality,
ethics
• Timescale — tasks, dependencies and milestones, often shown as a Gantt chart, with contingency time built in
• Resources — finance, access, equipment/software, skills and assistance needed
• References — a short, accurate list of key sources, not a padded list

Key Takeaways
• A good research idea is appropriate, capable of being completed, and personally fulfilling.
• Combine rational techniques (literature, discussion, past titles) with creative techniques (mind maps, brainstorming,
notebooks) to generate ideas.
• Refine ideas using the Delphi technique, preliminary inquiry, and step-by-step narrowing (Area → Field → Aspect
→ Context → Question).
• Test the overarching question with the Goldilocks test, Russian doll principle and AbC rule.
• Ensure the question, aim and objectives are tightly aligned and each objective is measurable and specific.
• Theory must explain WHY relationships occur, not just describe or list variables.
• A proposal must be coherent, ethical and feasible, and typically includes title, background, question/aim/objectives,
method, timescale, resources and references.