Business Plan

Hi, please help me to build a business plan. This can be any kind of business and anywhere in the world. The total project approximately will be 35 pages. For the first half, I will give one week and the second part will be a couple of days later. Please find the attached file for the requirements. Any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you!

FORMAT:

Research paper will be approximately 35 pages, including references; 12-point font; double-spaced; 1” margins on all sides.

Images, charts, maps, graphs, etc. should be placed in appendices (these should be in addition to the 35 written pages).

Paper must have a cover page with the following: title of research; name of this course (BUS700 Business Research), student name & id#; and submission date.

Paper must have a finalized bibliography in proper MLA or APA format.

A final paper is not a note summary but a real logical description of the topic. Final deliverables are a summary in power point format and the final research paper along with your oral presentation.

Example of an unfocused research topic: What were the impacts of structural discrimination and early immigration laws on American society? In the case of business plan – unfocused example would be: How to open a pizza shop?

Example of a more focused research topic: How did the Eugenics movement of the 1920’s and the Immigration Acts of 1924 and 1965 impact education and political thought during these periods, and to what degree do they continue to have an impact on education and political thought today? In the case of business plan – more focused example would be: Opening a healthy pizza shop in Fairfax, VA.

STEP ONE: SELECTING A TOPIC.

Although the topic of the project will be of your choosing, the instructor must approve it.

Your research topic or business plan should be related to business or business economics.

You are to submit a research proposal that includes: Tentative Research Topic, the reasons for your topic choice, initial bibliography, and expected outcome from your research. The endnotes may include web-based resources, but you must pay careful attention to the quality and reliability of on-line material. Your review of the literature must include scholarly books and/or articles appearing either in print or as e-books or e-journals available through the library website. However, we urge you to go to the library in person to examine print materials because not everything is available on-line!

STEP TWO: DEVELOPING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL—PLANNING YOUR

RESEARCH

Once you have found a topic that interests you, your research proposal or business plan may include the following five parts.

1. The Problem: What problem in the American/global business/economy do you want to work on? Perhaps you are interested in a problem in the global economy and thus multilateral economic policy challenges. You move from a broad topic to a narrow one. Then ask your topic questions! What do you want to know about this topic? Can you ask ten questions? To move from a topic to questions and then to a research problem, you need to address these two points:

* some condition of incomplete knowledge or understanding and

* the consequences of not fully knowing or understanding.

For example: The public does not understand how Social Security works, how private accounts would work, and the current state of the Federal Government’s budget. Consequently, they cannot join the public debate about the important issue of partial privatizing of Social Security as President Bush is proposing.

Try filling in the blanks:

Topic: I am studying ____________________________________

Question: because I want to find out what/why/how____________

Significance: in order to help my readers to understand______________

Potential Practical Application: so that readers can _____________

One more suggestion for moving from a topic to a research problem: Create a working title for your research paper. You may change your title often as the semester progresses and as you get a deeper understanding of your problem and your hunches about solutions.

Note: While your topic is your personal interest, a research problem is a public interest

2. Your Hypothesis: What is your hypothesis about the problem? Do you have a hunch about its causes? Do you have a hunch about its effects? Hypotheses are specific statements or explanations about why or how certain things exist or change. A hypothesis is a claim! It is a “candidate for a plausible answer to your research question” Try to write a single sentence that formulates your claim.

3. Theory: What does economic or business theory imply for your topic? Look at microeconomics and macroeconomics, or management theories.

4. Your Research Design: How will you test your hypothesis? Will you use a cost/benefit analysis? Will you develop a case study? Will you analyze the pros and cons of a debate in economic policy or in business practice? This is your methodology. In this day and age in the field of economics and business, you need to be quantitative. If you claim that the income distribution in the U.S. is getting more unequal, then demonstrate this with data.

Another way to think of your research design is to develop arguments for your claims, arguments for your hypothesis. You should have reasons for your claims. You should have evidence for your reasons. Summaries, paraphrases, quotations, facts, figures, graphs, tables, etc. constitute evidence.

One more suggestion on formulating a research design: Write a Table of Contents for your report. What are the sections of your report? The subsections? You will not prove your hypothesis.

You will confirm or reject your hypothesis. You will work to support it and to challenge it. If you are really a good researcher, you may have to reject your hypothesis, which is a contribution to knowledge!

5. Potential Sources. Where do you expect to find your data and evidence? You need to find some books and articles on your topic. These are true bibliography items, as “biblio” means books. But you may use non-“biblio” sources such as interviewing policy analysts or policymakers, attending congressional hearings, seminars, etc. You will be using pamphlets and reports from think tanks (public policy research organizations). Nowadays, you will use online sources, but be careful with them. No academic authorities have vetted them. You need to evaluate all sources.

What departments and agencies of the executive branch of the federal government work on your topic? What committees and subcommittees in the House of Representative and in the Senate work on your topic? Which think tanks in town work on your topic?

You should start a working bibliography. From the very start, use the correct style. See an APA (American Psychological Association) writing style book as a reference.

Avoid biases in collecting evidence. Do not create a straw man for your opponent’s views.

Don’t just use sources from conservative think tanks such as American Enterprise Institute,

Heritage Foundation, and Cato. Don’t just use sources from liberal think tanks such as Brookings

Institution, Economic Policy Institute, and Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

STEP THREE: DEVELOPING YOUR STYLE OF CITATIONS AND

DOCUMENTATION OF SOURCES.

You plagiarize when, intentionally or not, you use someone else’s words or ideas

but fail to credit that person, leading your readers to think that those words are

yours.

To avoid the serious problem of plagiarism, you must cite your sources, be they for

quotations, facts, summaries, or paraphrases. You must carefully document, or record, your

research. To repeat: it is important in research to document your claims and to cite your sources.

There are two reasons for this: First, intellectual property rights require that you give credit

where credit is due. Second, research is a public endeavor. Other researchers may want to test

your findings. Thus, they must be able to find your sources. Do not wait until the end of the

semester to document your sources. Using and citing sources is part of the process of research.Try to see where the information in the website is really from. For example, the AFL-CIO may have a home page on a topic of interest to you. They may provide statistics on the hourly earnings. You should know that hourly earnings are collected by the Census Bureau and analyzed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The AFL-CIO is not the source of this data; it is just where you got it. You need to evaluate your sources.

Here are two websites that may be helpful for your citations and bibliography.

www.Citation.Machine.net

www.easybib.com

When you cite a website, you must put the date that you accessed it. After the citation, write:

“Accessed ________.” Fill in the blank with the date you accessed it. This is for footnotes,

works cited, and for bibliographies.

A note on Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia. This is the largest encyclopedia in the world. Be

very careful with it. Double-check anything you learn from it and consider Wikipedia as only

one source. Errors have been found on it. I suggest you look at www.wikipedia-watch.org

STEP FOUR: DO YOUR RESEARCH

Start carrying out your research. Collect the information, data, and evidence that you

need to test your hypothesis. Interview people. Attend hearings. Ask questions of speakers in

various seminars and workshops that are addressing your topics and issues. Summarize and

paraphrase your readings. Collect quotations, facts, figures, etc.

STEP FIVE: WRITING A DRAFT OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE RESEARCH

PROJECT PAPER.

When you hand in this to me, you must have a Table of Contents because I need to see

how much of the project you have completed and how much more to be completed further. I need to see the structure of your argument in the titles of the sections or chapters. Consider

having subsection titles or sections of chapters with titles. You should also include text so that I

can check your citations and documentations, be they in parentheses, or in the form of footnotes.

I also need to see your list of Works Cited, your Bibliography, or your list of Sources Consulted.

STEP SIX: FINISH YOUR RESEARCH, REVISE DRAFTS, AND FINISH WRITING

THE WHOLE REPORT.

You should have an Introduction. It should “frame your argument in a way that makes it

seem worth reading” (Booth el al., 222-40).

The centerpiece of your research project is where you test your hypothesis and/or report

your findings. This is where you may have a table of facts or statistics that you explain. Explain

and analyze the data you have collected as it relates to your hypothesis. The tables, figures, and

charts may be put in an Appendix.

You should have a Conclusion. It should “emphasize the significance of your research”

(Booth el al., 220-40). Because this is a research project on business or economy, the conclusion

should include some suggestions or policy recommendations. How can you or others expand upon your work? When you propose some suggestions or policy recommendations, you may want to address the following points:

* It is feasible; it can be implemented in a reasonable time.

* It will cost less to implement than the cost of the problem it solves.

* It will not create a bigger problem than the one it solves.

* It is cheaper and faster than alternative ones—a claim that can be extremely

difficult to support (Booth et al., 128).

In your conclusion, you should give ideas for further research on this topic in the future.

The last thing to do is to write an abstract of your research project. “…an abstract presents the main point and summarizes its support” (Booth el al., 194), which will be placed in your paper after the title page. This should be single-spaced and double indented and centered on the page vertically.

MANDATORY Term Project: [*You cannot use the project for your other courses.]

In addition to the major research project, each week on Tuesdays, you are required to email me a 250 word review/summary of any articles from recent Business/Economy/Finance publications (such as Business Week or Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New York Times, Money, Economist, etc.) that are preferably directly related to your business research/plan or to general business/economics issues. You are required to submit a minimum of twelve (12) articles’ summaries. The 250 words review means your review is within one full page. You continue to do this article review up to the total minimum of 12 articles. Article reviews are to be emailed to be before the beginning of the Tuesday class. The review should start with, of course your name student id#, the title of the article, the publication source, and date of the original article; and should be divided into 3-4 paragraphs. You should also include your thoughts or opinions on the article in the last paragraph. *Before submitting assignments, term projects or any other documents, make sure that another copy be set aside for you to keep for later reference.

* All the projects are to be submitted (before the beginning of class) on the due date. Late submission will be unacceptable or penalized.

Other than the first day of the class on Tuesday, August 25, we will have two more meetings for your research-related discussions.

August 25

Introduction and Explanation of the research projects

September 8

Research Proposal and article reviews & discussions.

You are to submit a research proposal that includes:

Tentative Research Topic, the reasons for your topic

choice, initial bibliography, and expected outcome from

your research.

October 13

No meeting but
First Half of the research paper is to be submitted via email.

December 8

due Final Research Paper and PPT presentations.

Your final paper should include the Research Paper Title,

Abstract [or Executive Summary], Table of Contents,

Introduction, main parts, and Conclusion.

** This syllabus and its schedule is subject to change with due notice to the students enrolled in the class.

Suggested Bibliography:

Saunders and Lewis, Research Methods for Business Students, 2015, Prentice Hall, 7th ed.

Hair Jr. and Celsi, The Essentials of Business Research Methods, 2015, Routledge, 3rd ed.

Bryman and Bell, Business Research Methods, 2015, Oxford University Press, 4th ed.

Anderson and Sweeney, Quantitative Methods for Business, 2015, South-Western, 13th ed.

Gadsen, Business Plan: Best Proven Techniques to Writing a Successful Business Plan to Maximize a Profitable Business, 2015, Create Space Independent Publishing.

Kennedy and Covey, Business Plan: Business Tips How to Start Your Own Business and to Master Simple Sales Techniques, 2015, Publisher: money management.

Polonsky and Waller, Designing and Managing a Research Project, 2014, SAGE, 3rd ed.

Adams & Khan, Research Methods for Business & Social Science Students, 2014, SAGE, 2nd ed.

Blumberg and Cooper, Business Research Methods, 2014, McGraw-Hill, 4th ed.

Harvard Business Review, Creating Business Plans, 2014, Harvard Business Review Press.

The Staff of Entrepreneur Media Entrepreneur, Start Your Own Business, 2015, Entrepreneur Media Entrepreneur Press, 6th ed.

Galvan, Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015, Pryczak Publishing, 6th ed.

Shelton, The Secrets to Writing a Successful Business Plan, 2014, Summit Valley Press, 1st ed.

Abrams, Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies, 2014, Planning Shop, 6th ed.

McKeever, How to Write a Business Plan Paperback, 2014, Nolo Publisher, 12th ed.

Zikmund and Babin, Business Research Methods, 2012, South-Western, 9th ed.

Cooper and Schindler, Business Research Methods, 2013, McGraw-Hill, 12th ed.

Sekaran and Bougie, Research Methods for Business, 2013, Wiley, 6th ed.

Quinlan, Business Research Methods, 2011, Cengage, 1st ed.

Saunders, Research Methods for Business Students, 2012, Pearson, 6th ed.

Booth and others, The Craft of Research, 2008, Univ. of Chicago, 3rd. ed.

Turabian and others, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 2013, Univ. of Chicago, 8th ed.