INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
College of Business Management
Department of Accounting & Finance
Strategic Financial Analysis and Design – FIN601
General Guidelines For Coursework Project- Spring 2020
Lecturer: Dr. Muhammad Yahya Ghazali
PURPOSE OF COURSEWORK:
This coursework will help students to develop a critical awareness of the
current issues in the corporate environment and will provide them with
hands-on experience of how theoretical construct in finance apply in the
practical corporate world.
Through their coursework, they will test whether the theoretical constructs
(which they learned in their lectures) applies in a different institutional
environment, such as Pakistan. This will be achieved through empirical
research, using data available from the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) firms.
They will learn how to critically review empirical research related to their
coursework topic, and how to apply research methodologies in their
coursework.
Page 1 of 8
OBJECTIVE OF COURSEWORK:
To conduct a detailed analysis of any one topic included in the module
outline, using historical data from various sources. Detailed analysis requires
students to follow the format of an empirical research paper.
This coursework requires students to choose any industrial sector and
investigate their topic, using data on all non-financial firms listed within their
chosen sector (quantitative study only, no qualitative work will be
accepted).
o For instance, if the cement sector includes 16 listed firms, then the
coursework should focus on all those firms’ data.
o Students can examine any time period, but the minimum time period
their coursework should examine is 6 years, and the maximum is 8
years of data.
WORD LIMIT: 4000 words min (excluding tables, graphs and bibliography. You must
include the word count on your title page)
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 04th-April-2020
SUBMISSION GUIDANCE: You are required to submit two copies of coursework: one
online through email (std_6844@[Link] in MS Word format) and one hard
copy (spiral binding).
PRESENTATION OF COURSEWORK PROJECT: 14th and 15th session
PLAGIARISM: page 127 of IoBM Catalogue 2019-2020 provide the details on
plagiarism.
Page 2 of 8
STRUCTURE OF COURSEWORK:
Your coursework MUST strictly follow the prescribed structure as mentioned below:
Title of your project
a) The first page should include the title of your project, along with the
names of all group members, ID’s and your Module Convenor name.
Abstract (5% weight)
a. This is usually a small paragraph which provides a summary of your
coursework project. It includes the motivation of your study, your
research question, your findings and future implications of your study.
i. Review the research papers and understand how they prepare
an abstract.
Section I: Introduction (10% weight)
a) This section MUST specify your research question. When you choose your
topic, you must think about and include your research question, along with
your research objective, i.e. what are you are trying to test in that particular
topic?
b) This section MUST also clearly convince the reader why this topic is
interesting and why you want to do it, i.e. your motivation for choosing this
particular topic.
c) This section should also include the background on the institutional
environment of Pakistan.
d) The introduction must also summarize your findings and your paper’s
contribution to the research world.
Page 3 of 8
e) You should outline the structure of the coursework report in this section.
a. Look at prior empirical papers how they mention the structure in the
introduction.
Section II: Literature Review and Development of Hypotheses (25% weight)
a) This section includes a discussion of the theory and critical review of the
empirical research papers relevant to your topic.
b) There is no limit on how many research papers you can include in the
discussion, as long as you can clearly explain the relevant arguments. BE
MORE CRITICAL!
c) The discussion should be properly structured coherently.
d) It is your responsibility to find the research papers related to your topic.
e) This section MUST also include your reasoning for a particular prediction,
followed by hypotheses.
Section III: Methodology (25% weight)
a) This section MUST specify your data source, the time period of your study,
description of your variables (along with how they are calculated).
It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to search for the data. If there is no
data, there is no coursework!
b) You should provide your regression model, followed by a detailed
explanation of your chosen regression model and how you will test your
hypotheses.
Page 4 of 8
This will test your judgements in selecting the variables (dependent
variable and independent variable) and the regression model you have
included.
Look at how existing research papers compose this section.
c) You can use any statistical software which you learned earlier (SPSS, STATA,
etc).
Section IV: Discussion of Results (25% weight)
a) Descriptive statistics (tables, graphs)
Explain the main features of the data, and describe any interesting pattern
and correlations.
o The tip here is to follow existing research papers. Look at their
descriptive statistics section and follow that structure.
o Only including tables and graphs with no explanation is not
acceptable!
Look at existing research papers and how they have
explained any graphs or tables included.
b) Regression analysis
This should include the regression result table, showing the coefficients
and significant level of each variable.
o Look at existing research papers for the structure of the regression
table.
You must provide a critical discussion of your regression results.
o You must provide supporting evidence, i.e. relate your findings to
existing research papers.
Page 5 of 8
Section V: Conclusion and Limitations (10% weight)
a) A summary of the main findings
b) Any limitations
c) The implication for future research.
d) Any significant contribution to existing research. You will earn extra
points if you can uncover an interesting perspective through your
research.
Section VI: References (Harvard style)
Page 6 of 8
SOME HELPFUL TIPS:
A review of journal articles relevant to your coursework topic will greatly
help you in terms of:
o The structure of your coursework
o Presentation of the findings (including descriptive stats table, graphs,
regression table format). SPSS/STATA regression output snapshots
will NOT be accepted.
o An understanding of how empirical research papers have previously
tested the topic you are interested in.
o Will provide you with an idea on which variables you should be
including in your model (this is your responsibility to search the
literature to identify the variables, and the available data to calculate
such variables) and the measurement of the variables.
It is your responsibility to backup all your work, which includes your report
and the data on variables which you collected. There is NO EXTENSION to
the submission deadline (DEADLINE OF COURSEWORK SUBMISSION:
04th-APRIL-2020).
You are also required to keep a backup of your data. If I need to review your
computations, I will ask for it.
Allow yourself sufficient time to prepare for your coursework.
Empirical papers published in the following journals will provide you with
an idea on how to best present your findings, tables, graphs and organize
your empirical study:
o Abacus
o Journal of Accounting and Economics
o Journal of Corporate Finance
o Journal of Business, Finance and Accounting
Page 7 of 8
o Corporate Governance: An International Review
For the literature review, you must consider whether the flow of your
arguments is making any sense. Coherently organize the arguments which
will help the reader follow it.
o Applications like Mendeley Desktop will help you take notes when
you do your literature review (this application is for free).
SOME MORE IMPORTANT POINTS
Font size should be 12, with 1.5 line spacing, ‘normal’ margin setting in
Microsoft word. The font style should be “Book Antiqua”.
You are not allowed to resubmit your coursework. It is, therefore, your
responsibility to carefully check your work for any errors or omission before
submission.
DETAILS ON REFERENCING
Everything included in your coursework project should be properly
referenced.
The reference style should be a Harvard style.
The report must also include a bibliography (this does not include the word
count).
Page 8 of 8