MGT675: Capstone Project

Credit Hours: 3
Contact Hours: This is a 3-credit course, offered in a 14 week format. The exact number of hours
per week that you can expect to spend on each course will vary based upon the
weekly coursework, as well as your study style and preferences. You should plan to
spend 8-12 hours per week in each course reading material, writing papers,
completing projects, and doing research.
Faculty Information
Faculty contact information and office hours can be found on the faculty profile page.
Course Description and Outcomes
Course Description:
The course is required to be undertaken in the form of a research program in which the candidates will pursue
rigorous applied research on a self-selected topic or problem under the guidance of a faculty member. Essentially,
the project needs to be practical, relevant, and address a problem of great interest to practitioners (corporate),
local or global economy while simultaneously contributing to the body of academic literature. Therefore, while the
project helps to integrate prior MBA courses, and develop students’ research skills, it challenges students to
critically reflect, develop, implement, and analyze the business research methods appropriate to any business
setting using a sound scientific approach.
Course Learning Outcomes:
• Developing sound solutions and recommendations to business and social problems by researching, analyzing,
synthesizing, and evaluating information using qualitative and quantitative analytical reasoning.
• Developing the skills to independently identify a research problem, formulate research designs, and develop
research questions, and a corresponding research strategy or general line of approach.
• Developing proficiency in conducting literature review & proposing a theoretical/conceptual framework.
• Developing necessary skills to gather, analyze and interpret scientific data.
• Developing effective and persuasive written and oral communication skills in expressing ideas, research
findings, and recommendations etc. using a variety of communications skills and tools.
Student Anticipated Actions
The students will:
1. Strictly follow the Approved Guidelines related to preparing and filling the Research Project.
2. For formatting of the thesis, please use the suggested template provided to you at beginning of semester.
The instructions on how to use the template is available within the approved guidelines manual.
3. Develop the proposal for their research project and submit to their supervisors for approval. The approved
template for constructing a research proposal is supplied separately.
4. Perform an extensive review of pertinent literature on a particular topic using both online and offline
scientific sources of literature.
5. Once started, it is advised to timely submit the sections of your report to your designated supervisor. The
supervisor will check your progress and keep you as well as the College informed of whether you are
performing satisfactorily.
6. Check their final thesis for plagiarism by submitting to Plagiarism Software. Students have the utmost
responsibility to adhere to this principle of academic integrity and honesty by ensuring that their report is
plagiarism free. Regarding the rules on plagiarism, please refer to the approved guidelines manual.
7. Develop and present a power point presentation on the selected project to ‘Project Assessment Committee
of the Department’ at the agreed dates and stages.
8. A signed hard bound copy of final project report has to be submitted to the department/supervisor at
agreed deadlines.
9. The project work will be graded through a comprehensive assessment rubric. In order to have a prior
knowledge about the different evaluation criteria, you can review the assessment rubric within the
approved guidelines manual.
10. To know further about the course aims and objectives, course overview, rationale and the quality
requirements of the course/project work, please refer to the approved guidelines manual.
Recommended Materials
1) American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American psychological association
Washington. DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN-13: 978-1-4338-0561-5
2) CreswellJ. W. (2012). Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th
ed.).Boston,MA:Pearson.ISBN:978-0-13-136739-5.
3) Dawidowicz, P. (2010). Literature reviews made easy: A quick guide to success. IAP.
1) Bell, E., Bryman, A., & Harley, B. (2018). Business research methods. Oxford university press.
Further Recommended Online Sources
1) www.apastyle.org : The American Psychological Association publishes the APA Publication manual.
2) https://www.jstor.org/ not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies
to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.
3) https://www.emerald.com/insight/ : A Global Publisher which actively advances the research and practice of
business and management. Log on to learn how to compose a structured abstract.
4) https://www.onlinemba.com/resources/writing-guide/ Writing Guide for MBA student
Weekly Course Schedule
Week Activity Subject
1 Intro /
Familiarization
• The week is about orientation to the course. The students will develop
contact and rapport with their corresponding supervisors.
• Timetable meetings with your supervisor at the start of your
project/research.
• Students need to acquaint themselves with the applied nature of the
research project, the bylaws and requirement of the course like ‘the
approved guidelines manual’, APA referencing manual, plagiarism
policy etc.
• The supervisors will assist the candidates in clearing their doubts
about the bylaws and course requirements.
2 Topic Selection • Students will provide a brief introduction about their field of interest
to the supervisor. The introduction must cover your educational
background, work experiences and the research area which are of
most interest to you.
• Preposition the research problem, developing the research questions,
rationale and purpose of the study.
• Supervisor will assist the candidate in finalizing the research topic.
3 Proposal
Development
• The candidates will develop the research proposal of their project.
• Supervisor will assist in ensuring that the proposal contains all the
required sections as mentioned in the approved format.
4 Review of
Literature
• The students will conduct the literature review under the supervision
of their supervisors.
• The supervisor will ensure that the students adhere to the scientific
strategies of writing the literature reviews.
5 Literature Draft • The students will prepare their first draft of literature review.
• The supervisor will evaluate the quality of review and will advise his
comments and suggestions.
• At the end of the week, the students will finalize the hypotheses of
their study.
6 Literature
Presentation
• The students will give a power point presentation on their literature
review to their supervisors.
• The supervisor will critically evaluate the presentation and/or provide
constructive feedback.
• The student will incorporate the comments in order to finalize his
literature review.
7 Research
Methodology
• The students will revise the objectives and hypothesis of their work.
• The supervisor and student will jointly decide upon the research
design of the study.
• The students will develop the questionnaire and submit it to the
concerned supervisor for approval.
8 Field
work/methods
• The student will prepare for collecting the primary data (if any) and
the approach of secondary data synthesis.
• The supervisor will ensure that the approach of data collection is
appropriate to the nature of study.
9 Analyze • The students will organize the collected data and decide the suitable
techniques of analysis in consultation with their supervisor.
10 Analysis Drafting • The student will create the first draft of their analysis.
• The supervisor will review to finalize the results and analysis section.
11 Summarizing • Draft the chapter 5 under the predefined sections and format as per
the supplied guidelines.
• The supervisor will ensure that the required sections like discussion
and conclusion as well as their contents are as per the scientific
standard.
12 Referencing • Check and learn with your APA reference guidance on the appropriate
referencing and citation method to use.
• Plagiarism check
13 Final Draft • Drafting and re-drafting each section/chapter.
• Revise your title, abstract. Are all your chapters and sections relevant?
Does each section flow into the next? Anything missing?
• Correct order and numbering of tables and figures as per the approved
formatting guidelines.
• Seeking comments from your supervisors on each draft section/chapter
revising each draft section/chapter in light of the supervisor’s
comments.
• Preparing a complete final draft.
• Supervisors need to schedule time at the end of writing to proof-read
the whole document.
14 Submission • Final Hard Copy Submission
• Power Point Presentation