IOM208
2nd SEMESTER 2023/2024 GROUP PROJECT
BA Marketing – Year 3
BA Business Administration – Year 3
BA Human Resource Management – Year 3
BSc Economics – Year 3
MARKET RESEARCH
Group Project
(40% of module marks)
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: week 12
GROUP ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTION:
The group project is a ‘live ’marketing research project to be undertaken by groups of 5 students of IOM208 in semester 2 of 2023/2024 academic year. Each group of students is asked to conduct a market research project for one selected company or non-for-profit organization in China or overseas.
Each student group must work as a market research project team to
(1). Select a target commercial or non-for-profit organisation that was impacted by the COVID- 19 pandemic Students will have opportunities in week 2 tutorials to discuss the choice of target organisation and submit the company by the end of week 2.
(2). Discuss and identify the key marketing challenges and questions for the organisation to resume and develop the business in the post-pandemic era,
(3). Apply market research methods (i.e., mainly quantitative method supplemented with the qualitative one) to collect primary data and analyse the data. Each group will have an opportunity to submit their draft surveys in week 7. Formative feedback from tutor will be provided for each group during week 8 lab session.
(4). Generate a market research report in Powerpoint slides that can address the specific research questions identified in the earlier stage. Slides must be in English and be submitted on Learning Mall Online (LMO) by week 11 by each group leader.
In week 12, each group will have 13 minutes to orally present the research project plus 2 minutes Q&A with the appropriate use of graphical representation, tables of data etc. The report should be presented in the following format:
• Title page: include the report title, names and student numbers of all contributing team members, date of submission as well as the total word number of the report.
• Executive summary: Make sure you include three practical recommendations for the target organisation to adopt
• Table of contents
• Introduction: give background and overview of this project
• Objectives: describe the objectives and key research questions
• Methodology and research design: explain how you went about the research.
• Data analysis and research findings
• Conclusions and recommendations
• References: make sure you include full details for all sources used, in Harvard style.
• Appendices (your full surveys and other information if needed)
[The overall report structure and slide design quality will have 25% of total group project mark]
For the selected target company or organisation, each group need to conduct desk research and use secondary data or qualitative research to define the marketing research problem and the research questions. The marketing research questions should be based on either problem identification or problem-solving research, and be able to support the management decision making for resuming and developing the business after the pandemic. The research questions should be closely related to the defined marketing research problems. [Marketing research problems, and research questions will account for 20% of total group project mark]
Each group should consider the combination of secondary and primary data collection and analysis. You should design a quantitative research instrument (i.e. a questionnaire) and decide on the survey method(s) to be used. Each group should decide the sampling method and get a reasonable size of sample. Once the survey data is collected, each group should start the data analysis. The sample responses should be analysed using techniques introduced and illustrated in the lectures. The data analysis should inform. the suggested marketing strategies for the target organisation to tackle the identified problems. [Research design (such as the selection of survey method, questionnaire design, sampling method, sample size etc.), data analysis and results will account for 35% of total group project mark]
Each member should speak during the presentation with approximately same amount of time. Presenter should confidently present the project aided by the slides with engaging body language. Presenter should not use script, but to remember the presentation by heart. [The individual oral presentationskill will account for 15% of total group project mark]
Each group will have 2 minutes for Q&A. The length of the presentation is 13 minutes. This time is an absolute upper limit and no ‘leeway ’ is given for students who exceed these limits. It’s not acceptable to deviate by 2 minutes above the limit. The time exceeding the limit will take up the time for Q&A and will lower the mark for this part.
[Q&A and time control will account for 5% of total group project mark]
Instruction for Submitting the Questionnaire
Only the group leader needs to submit
The questionnaire must be submitted on LM before 23:59 Friday 12th April (week 7)
Cover page for the survey should be included. See LM for template.
The filename should be “IOM208 Survey_###_%%%” where “###” is your tutorial number (e.g. T1, T2 and etc) and “%%%” is your group number(e.g. G1, G2 and etc.)
The questionnaire could be bilingual if you plan to collect data in a region that participants are not native English speakers
The file format should be MS Word
Instruction for Submitting the Slides
Only the group leader needs to submit
The slides must be submitted on LM before 23:59 Friday May 10th (week 11)
The presentation and slides must be in English. The survey in the appendix could be bilingual.
The filename should be “IOM208 Report_###_%%%” where “###” is your tutorial number (e.g. T1, T2 and etc) and “%%%” is your group number(e.g. G1, G2 and etc.)
The file format should be PPT or PPTX or PDF.
ABOUT GROUPS:
Students are allowed to propose 5 members in each of their own groups by Friday of Week 2, while the module leader reserves the rights to approve or adjust the group membership. All proposed student groups should meet following conditions:
Each proposed group consists of 5 members in the same tutorial/lab session;
Each proposed group should nominate one member as the group leader, who will be the main contact person with the module leader and teachers;
Each proposed group should have at least 2 students who took the module IOM121 (Statistics for Business) or ECO101 (Introduction to Statistics) in Year 2.
It is desirable for each proposed group to include one international student.
The approved group membership will be released by the end of week 4.
Group meetings should be properly recorded on the group meeting record form. in
Appendix 1. Any instances of a malfunctioning group, e.g. repeated non-engagement by an individual(s) within the group should be brought to the attention of the Module Leader as early as possible. A student failing to contribute to the group task will be issued one warning letter (yellow card) via an email by module leader. Further non-contributions will result in a second warning (red card) via another email and then the student will be dismissed from the group to work alone on the coursework. See Appendix 2 for the illustration of Yellow Card and Red Card.
Student who work alone on the coursework will receive 20% penalty
Frequent Questions & Answers
Q1. Could we reply more on secondary data found on the internet as the data support for this project? Is this feasible?
Answer: The conclusions from the group projects should mainly come from the survey data you are going to collect. If you rely on the secondary data to give recommendations, it does run into the problem that the survey plays a minor role there.
Q2. Does this submitted questionnaires in week 7 count? And, can we amend it after submission?
Answer: The questionnaires you submitted in week 7 will not be marked. We will give you feedback on this version. You could amend it after receive the feedback. The questionnaires should be included as appendix in presentation slides. The marking on Research Design(35% of final marks) will take account into the questionnaire design
Q3. Do we have limitation about the specific number of questions in the survey?
Answer: There are no specific limitation regarding the number of questions you can include. However, too many questions resulted in that your participants get really tired and you are able to present the findings within the 13-minute time limit. If there are too few questions, you simply do not have enough data to present the report.
Q4. Could we change the company we choose after submitting?
Answer: You could change the company if you want. But you are not encouraged to do so, as it may waste much of your time.