The Structure of the Research Report:
The report should have the following sections:
Assignment Cover Sheet – as per CBLG requirements.
Table of Contents
Executive summary – should provide a standard executive summary which covers the reasons for the research, the core points of the methodology, the main results and key conclusions. It should be presented as paragraph with relevant sub-headings but should not be more than one page. (100 words)
Introduction – introduction to your research report, including the aims, objectives and the key element you identified you identified for further report. (100 words)
Background – descriptions of some background to the organization. Provide a brief description of the business, i.e. brief history, organisation structure (e.g. restaurant, hotel chain, locations). Here you will mention the single element of Hospitality, Cultures, & People which you will be exploring. (100 words)
Literature Review – Identify, research and discuss the element of Hospitality, Cultures & People you will be exploring (e.g. employee rewards, empowerment, culture). You will need to search through the academic literature for this material. It is worth noting here that there is literature in the academic texts and journals relating to some of the more well-known organizations, e.g. Ritz-Carlton.
In this section, you should report on the steps you have taken to search for existing information about the element you identified. For each step, you must summarize the information found and any key conclusions you can draw from that information relevant to your identified element. At the end, you should have a section summarizing the gaps and limitations in the information you have found and a few sentences describing your overall conclusions and what these mean for conducting further research to fill in the gaps and limitations. (600 words)
REPORT BODY
Discussion/Analysis–your analysis of the current situation and any underlying problems/issues in relation to the element you are exploring, e.g. employee motivation, organizational culture, training, empowerment, etc. This must be supported by concepts, frameworks, and other material from the literature which relate to the element you are exploring. (800 words)
Recommendations–provide recommendation for ways in which the organization could improve on its practices. Your recommendations need to be appropriately supported and take into account resources, environment and other factors which will contribute to their success. (300 words)
References – Reference list giving details of any sources used in the research. The APA referencing system is to be used throughout. Using the APA referencing style, you must provide appropriate theoretical support for what you write. That is, you must clearly distinguish between your ideas, other’s ideas adapted to your own, and ideas taken from the literature as verbatim quotations. Literature citations must be relevant.
Appendices-Appropriate appendices need to be properly linked to the detail within the report.
Remember: Overall length of report is 2000 words (excluding Table of Contents, References and Appendices).
Research Report: Does not exceed 2,000 words, excluding Cover Page, Table of Contents, References and Appendices (if any). 1. Choose a real company in the hospitality industry – this can also be a tourism related company: Examples: Hotels (Not booking platforms), Airlines, Travel Agencies (Not OTAs or booking platforms), Cruises, Restaurants (high-end or mid-range. Not fast-food chains). 2. Identify One key element (topic) of Hospitality, Cultures and People is enacted in the chosen company (key elements are the topics of our lectures, browse through the lecture slides to find an element that you are most interested in for writing this report). Then you search on the employee reviews through websites such as: Glassdoor, Indeed, Yelp, Complains Board and etc., to explore and identify issues / problems that this company is facing in relation to the element (topic) that you have chosen. If there does not seem to be any issues or problems for the element (topic) that you are interested in, change the element (topic), or change the company and do your research to identify the issues / problems of the chosen company. 3. Do thorough research on the chosen company website and business reviews, journals or articles to gain a good understanding of the chosen company: Background, mission and vision statement, interesting press releases of its latest development etc. 4. Literature review, this must be relating to the element (topic) chosen, and issues / problems identified. 5. Make recommendations on how the chosen company can improve on its delivery and management of the element and solve the issues / problems. 6. Do NOT write based on your assumptions that there maybe or must be some issues or problems in the chosen company without evidence. The issues or problems of the company must be identified with evidence through research, with in-text citation on the source of information and in References. 7. When developing the Research Report in writing, follow the Structure of the Research Report as in the Subject Outline for this assignment. Number of suggested words for each Section / Heading can be slightly more or less by 5%, as long as the Report is 2,000 words, excluding the aforementioned. Make sure each Section / Heading is in the Report, missing any one Section/ Heading will result in no marks for that Section. 8. Read the Rubrics fort this assignment in the Subject Outline. 9. References: Must be in APA style referencing for both in-text citations and References. 10. Minimum 6 reliable and relevant academic references excluding web references of chosen company, employee review websites, any other media websites. Total number of references at least 8. 11. Do NOT use Wikipedia, Slideshare, UK Essay, Blogspot or any unreliable sources for references. 12. Fonts and font size: Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman – 12 size. 13. Line spacing at 1.5. 14. Do NOT re-cycle any of your previous submission of assignments of similar subject or any other subjects, this will lead to zero mark for this Report. 15. Do not miss due date and time for submission as this will incur penalty of 5% of total marks available per day. 16. Ensure electronic submission via SafeAssign on Learn JCU. No grading if not submitted via SafeAssign. No hard- copy is required for this Report. 17. Do a re-check of your Report if the similarity on SafeAssign is more than 20%. You may have to re-write and do proper referencing prior to final submission. 18. There will be 2 attempts for this Assessment, grading will be on your last entry. 19. Assessment Link in Learn JCU will be open for submission as of Friday,17 August 2018. Please keep up with your excellent work and studies. Best wishes and happy writing,