Question 1: Developed a description of the researchable topic that is suitable for being addressed through the collection and analysis of data?

Question 2: Clear and coherent outline of the aims and objectives of the research that are going to be addressed through the collection and analysis of data. You are required to specify what it is you want to find out and why. You will need to consider the question; what will we know once you have completed the research that we do not know now? You need to explicitly address the following items:

• Provide a comprehensive background to the research objectives, identifying the relevant issues underlying the research you intend to undertake;
• A developed justification for doing the research that needs to be embedded in the literature and not just based on personal motivation;
• Place the research focus in the relevant business discipline(s) and academic area(s) that relate to the research to indicate where you will access relevant theories and frameworks that you can use to operationalize the research.

Question 3: Provide a critical, rather than just descriptive, review of the peer-reviewed literature pertinent to the focus of the research objectives. It is important that this is more a critical review than a summary of relevant literature. The literature review should address the following:

• A review of the relevant contextual literature for your topic (covering the development of ideas central to your research focus, recent developments, etc.)
• Identification, description and review of the relevant conceptual literature (theory/models/frameworks related to the research objectives;
• Relevant empirical research(data-based) completed on the research focus;
• Identification and review of the debates within the literature;
• A commentary on the nature of the literature; theory, research, policy, prescriptive;
• An indication of the implications of the literature you have reviewed for your research objectives.

Question 4: Critical Analysis of a peer-reviewed, scholarly text to be completed for a single text significant to the proposal (the piece of literature which has been most insightful to date).

Question 5: A sample bibliography of at least 20 ADDITIONAL good quality sources that represent key literature to the topic being researched.