BUSM4450 Business Research Design

School of Business and Management – Master of International Business

Assessment 1: Individual Reflection

Assessment type Essay (Individual)

Word limit 1500 words (+/- 10%)

Due Date Friday, end of Week 6, 19:00 (Vietnam time)

Weighting 20%

Purpose: The purpose of this assessment is for you to provide a response to the following essay
statement: “how does business research enable Organisations to deal with changing
business environments and uncertainty?”.
Description: In this assessment, you are required to write a reflective essay. You are required to come
up with three (3) major arguments to justify the above statement. Remember to elaborate your
reasons/justifications by answering the “how” question in a clear, concise, and consistent manner.
You are expected to provide at least five (5) peer-reviewed references for this essay to support your
arguments and justifications. You may use the references provided in the course.
An essay presents a well-argued discussion or response to a question or proposition, using analysis
and critique of relevant literature. It establishes a proposition and presents a point of view. You can
use 'first person' narrative essay writing style for this assessment.

You will be assessed based on the following criteria:

• Constructed persuasive, evidence-based and engaging essay (15%)

• The strength of your first justification on how business research design benefits your chosen
organisation with a critical link to the concepts and theories (25%)
• The strength of your second justification on how business research design benefits your
chosen organisation with a critical link to the concepts and theories (25%)
• The strength of your third justification on how business research design benefits your chosen
organisation with a critical link to the concepts and theories (25%)
• Modelled clear, logical academic writing and referencing skills (10%)

Course learning outcomes

This assessment is relevant to the following course learning outcomes:

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CLO 2 Identify and synthesise research designs to explore relevant aspects of a complex and
ambiguous business problem
CLO 3 Critically evaluate and synthesise options for innovative business research design
Assessment Details
In this assessment, you are required to write an essay using the following topic statement:

“how does business research enable organisations to deal with changing

business environments and uncertainty”

An essay writing style is to be used to complete the assignment. An essay presents a well-argued
discussion or response to a question or proposition, using analysis and critique of relevant literature. It
establishes a proposition and presents a point of view. Be clear about which Business Research
Design concepts that are the focus of your essay, why and how they support your justification. The
topic statement of the essay must be clearly stated at the beginning of the essay. Therefore, you are
required to come up with three (3) major arguments to validate the above topic statement.
Remember to elaborate your reasons/justifications by answering the “how” question in a clear,
concise, and consistent manner.
Please refer to RMIT's Learning Lab resources on Essay writing to assist you in planning,
researching, writing and reviewing your essay before submitting.

!!! At least five (5) peer-reviewed references are required in this essay to support your arguments
and justifications. You may use the references provided in the course and other peer-reviewed
materials outside of the course to help you.
Please check out below some resources to help you to navigate the RMIT library database:

• Videos
o Academic/Peer-reviewed articles

• Links
o Business College Liaison Librarians: If you’re having trouble acquiring an
article/paper, please seek the assistance of one of the Business Liaison Librarians.

Suggested Format

Your essay will consist of:

Structure Details
1. Cover page  Include your lecturer’s name on the cover page

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 (not part of the Word
count)
2. Introduction Paragraph
(not part of the Word
count)
 Only 1 short opening paragraph
 A brief general statement setting the context of the
essay
 Mention the topic statement
 Indicates the areas and perspectives discussed in the
essay

3. Body of the essay  Argument 1

(part of the Word count)
4. Conclusion Paragraph
(not part of the Word
count)
o Contains your point of view
o Relevant to chosen context
o Supported by academic references
o Clear link to BRD concepts and theories
 Argument 2
o Contains your point of view
o Relevant to chosen context
o Supported by academic references
o Clear link to BRD concepts and theories
 Argument 3
o Contains your point of view
o Relevant to chosen context
o Supported by academic references
o Clear link to BRD concepts and theories
 Only 1 short concluding paragraph
 A brief summary of the main points above

5. References  Following RMIT Harvard referencing style

(not part of the Word
count)

You can also download RMIT’s essay writing resources here.

To find a common essay writing structure, click here.
To read more about the differences of essays vs reports vs a reflective writing, please click here.

Referencing guidelines

Use RMIT Harvard referencing style for this assessment.

You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.

Refer to the RMIT Easy Cite referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the
appropriated style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote,
referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.

Submission format

The assessment will be submitted in Canvas as a Word file upload.

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Academic integrity and plagiarism

Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the
work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge and ideas.
You should take extreme care that you have:
• Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have
quoted (i.e. directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your
assessment through the appropriate referencing methods

• Provided a reference list of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if
necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites

If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because
you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they
were your own.
RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.
Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including:

• Failure to properly document a source

• Copyright material from the internet or databases

• Collusion between students

For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website.

Assessment declaration

When you submit work electronically, you agree to the assessment declaration

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RMIT Classification: Trusted