6BUSSW001 Contemporary Issues in BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Formative Assessment

Proposal

FIRST SEMESTER – 2025/ 2026

MODULE CODE: 6BUSS01

MODULE TITLE: Contemporary Issues in Business Management

SUBMISSION DATE: 20^th Oct 2025 1pm (formative- 0%, no MC will be applied)

SUBMISSION METHOD: Turnitin

DATE AND FORM OF FEEDBACK: Week 7 in class, and brief feedback over Turnitin 10 Nov week 8) (note: if the submission is not met on the due, the feedback may be delayed, I highly recommend seeing your seminar tutor.)

ASSESSMENT FORMAT: Research proposal.

ASSESSMENT WEIGHTING: 0% (although it’s 0%, students who did not submit this tend not to be able to complete this module)

WORD COUNT / LENGTH OF PRESENTATION: 1000 words in word document

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:

LO2 Identifies principles and concepts underlying theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

1. ASSESSMENT SUMMARY:

The Proposal (which is entirely a formative component, 1000 words) is designed to assess if students have presented a feasible and concise research topic within one of the ‘issues’. Its structure is designed to mimic that of the dissertation itself, with a short literature review and a well-developed framing of the proposed research approach, while the submission deadline (the end of Week 6) sets a milestone which must be reached.

2. DETAILED ASSESSMENT GUIDE AND STRUCTURE:

6BUSSW001 Contemporary Issues in BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Dissertation Proposal

Name:

Student number:

Business Theme:

Working title:

_______________________________________________________________________________

Format of the Dissertation Proposal:

The Dissertation Proposal is an outline of what you hope to achieve, providing information on the “What, Why and How” of your research idea. It requires you to think clearly about your research objectives, methodology and relevant literature.

You are expected to structure your proposal as follows (with indicative word count):

Introduction-Background (100 words)

This section should describe your broad research focus and explain the rationale and the context for this. You should provide sufficient background information on the issues you want to research for the reader to be able to understand the rest of your Dissertation and why it is worth undertaking.

Brief Literature Review (400-500 words)

This should review some key sources (including at least three journal articles), which are relevant to your topic, identifying how your dissertation will build on these.

Specific Research Objectives and Research Questions (50-100 words)

Your specific research objectives should make it clear to the reader exactly what is being planned by the proposed research. They should not be vague or too general; restrict your research objectives to three or four at most.

NB: The research objectives will be used to judge the rest of your proposal, so make sure that your proposed research design, data collection and analysis fit with the objectives. Specific research questions should be easily identifiable in your Dissertation Proposal.

Methodology, including approach(es) to data collection and analysis (150-200 words)

You should provide an overview of the approach and methods chosen to achieve your research objectives, as well as a justification for these choices (for instance case study, survey, interviews, secondary data gathering etc). Think carefully about the data you want or need to gather, and how you would analyse it. Are there any particular practical or ethical issues that you anticipate?

Time scale

Give a rough schedule (as a Gant chart, perhaps) of the tasks to complete between the submission of the Dissertation Proposal and the submission of the Dissertation. Include time for proof-reading before submission!

Reference list (Harvard standard)

All references should be in Harvard standard. For guidance on this, please download the library booklet: http://home.wmin.ac.uk/library/documents/Referencing-your-work.pdf

_________________________________________________________________________________

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

You also need to submit the research ethics form in the ethics form submission link. (all are required to submit this under the university regulation). Please check the assessment detail folder and download the form and copy and paste the relevant parts from your proposal.

This module is not anonymous marking – it’s exempt from the university regulation. Please include your name or student number within the file name and seminar tutor’s name.

4. MARKING CRITERIA:

Content

· Adequate proposed topic/title of research and proposal summary

· Objective(s) and justification of the proposed research clarified

· Effective refinement process in narrowing down the topic of research

· Relevant and critical literature review

· Clear expression of research questions/hypotheses

· Awareness of methodological framework relevant for business management research

· Details of methodology (type of research, design, participants, data collection, proposed analysis of data)

Ethical considerations

· Relevance of intended research for the chosen business management (can be HR/Marketing/etc) topic

· Preparation and time management

Presentation

· Adequate grammar and spelling

· Appropriate referencing

· Acceptable writing style

· Reference List (complete, correctly formatted)

Structure

· Clear introduction

· Headings used appropriately to organise the material

Organisation

· Arguments presented in a coherent and logical way

· Arguments constituting a development of research question(s)

5. TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH SUBMISSION:

If you have a financial hold situation a hardcopy plus electronic version will be accepted via the WBS Registry Coursework Lobby before the deadline. Please contact the Marylebone Registry to clarify how you should submit assessment in this situation: Marregistry@westminster.ac.uk

Please do not email your module leader (k.kondo1@westminster.ac.uk) or your seminar leaders your coursework unless you have been asked to do so. The Registry does not accept

If you do not submit the coursework on time log a call via the IT Service Desk that can be found on this webpage: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/current-students

Please make sure that your message is very specific. The Service Desk will then email you confirmation that you will be able to use as supporting written evidence for your MC claim.

6. PENALTIES FOR LATE SUBMISSION:

This is a formative assessment, there will be no marks given for this. Consequently there is no penalty rule ( i.e. minus 10 marks).

As stated above, non-submission may cause the failure to produce a successful dissertation (pass). If you have any issues submitting the proposal in time, please consult with your seminar and personal tutors. In the past, students who did not submit tend to fail or retake this module next year.

7. AVOIDING PLAGIARISM:

Your assignment must demonstrate your own work and ideas. You may use graphs and clipart as appropriate. All written work must be the work of the individual student. Similarities between the work of students will be reported as collusion.

Any quotations and references that you include in your assignment will be identified by the Plagiarism detection programme as being similar to other sources. Therefore it is vital that you reference correctly.

Please check information about Westminster Harvard Referencing style here: https://libguides.westminster.ac.uk/referencing

Westminster Harvard Referencing Style booklet can be downloaded here:

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/sites/default/public-files/general-documents/referencing-your-work.pdf

Any evidence of plagiarism will be reported to the Academic Standards team. A similarity content of 0% will be investigated by the Academic Misconduct Panel as it is regarded as being an indicator of an attempt to circumvent the plagiarism software. Since your document should have several different references the plagiarism detection programme should identify them.

Please see more information about plagiarism here: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/current-students/guides-and-policies/academic-matters/academic-misconduct/plagiarism

Generative AI in your Studies

The University insists on original work from students, requiring independent thought and proper source citation. Outsourcing assignments to machines or third parties constitutes cheating, undermines critical thinking skills, hinders student development, and diminishes their potential contributions in both the academic and professional world.

The University recognizes that students may legitimately use GenAI in a number of ways including for example: Assisting with grammar and spelling, utilizing it as a search tool for researching assignment topics, helping with planning and developing the outline structure of a written assessment, generating ideas for graphics, images, and visuals, obtaining explanations of concepts, debugging code, overcoming writer’s block. These specific applications of GenAI can support students in their academic endeavours.

However, it’s important to note that while these uses are permissible, students must still adhere to the principles of academic integrity and properly cite any sources or references derived from the assistance provided by GenAI. For more information on the University’s position on the use of AI, please check the Student Hub.

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