] Ejiro A EsohwodeResearch question. This should start by identifying the research question that your future disserta-tion intends to answer. It sho

] Ejiro A EsohwodeResearch question. This should start by identifying the research question that your future disserta-tion intends to answer. It should go beyond merely stating the research question and should elaborate on the following: the intellectual legitimacy of the research question; how the research question addresses a practical problem of international business; how the research question ad-dresses a theoretical problem of international business; and, the intermediate steps to answering the research question in full. Illustrating the intellectual legitimacy of the research question can be done by identifying the knowledge gap and showing that the research question has not been al-ready answered, while answering the question enables to make a meaningful contribution to the knowledge (both practical and theoretical) of international business.

[10:05] Ejiro A EsohwodeAims of the research. This section of your research should identify the areas of knowledge that your future dissertation contributes to advance. The section should illustrate at least two areas of knowledge, respectively on the practical problem of international business and the theoretical problem of international business that your dissertation is concerned with

Methodology

Chapter 3 - Methodology should identify and discuss the methods of data collection and data analysis that you have used to answer the research question. It is important that you specify your methods of data collection and analysis, discuss why their use was needed to answer the research question (this requires discussing the chosen research methods in relation to your choice of research design) and evaluate their soundness (how confident are you that the chosen methods are suitable to produce a meaningful answer?). This chapter should also contain a sub-section detailing how you have addressed the ethical requirements of your research. After reading the chapter, your supervisor (and other academics who may mark and evaluate your work) should have a very clear idea of the concrete steps that you did take to (ethically) collect and analyse data with a view to answering the research question. In elaborating on your methods and data, you must refer to and engage with the literature on the merits and limitations of the chosen methods. The literature reviewed here may also contain examples of how the chosen methods have been used to answer similar research questions, or a discussion of why the chosen methods have not been used before to answer the chosen research question.

[10:06] Ejiro A EsohwodePlease note that Chapter 3 - Methodology must not contain a broad overview of research meth-ods in business studies and/or the social sciences. A common error that you must avoid is to de-vote entire paragraphs and sub-sections to discussing the general features of e.g. research philos-ophy, research design/strategy, research approach, etc. Those who commit this error will be penal-ised because the Dissertation is not an exam on the content of your textbook. Instead, the Disser-tation is an independent research project and we will want to clearly understand why you chose specific methods of data collection and analysis and how you set out to use these methods in or-der to answer your research question.

If you collected primary data, your methodology section must explain:

- How you defined and selected your sample.

- How you identified and recruited relevant subjects.

- How you approached them.

- How many you approached, and how many actually responded.

- What are the sample characteristics (in terms of gender, age, geographic location etc.).- Whether you used questionnaires or in-depth interviews or focus groups etc., and why.

- Whether you surveyed/interviewed your participants face-to-face, or by phone, mail, email etc.

- When and where you distributed the survey (or did the interviews, focus groups etc.).

- Whether you obtained participants consent.

- Whether you experienced any difficulties (e.g. due to non-response) and what you did to address this difficulty.

[10:06] Ejiro A EsohwodeIf you collected secondary (quantitative) data, your methodology section must explain:

- What database(s) you selected.

- How you accessed them (for example, if freely online or through ESDS registration, or through the University Portal).

- What are the main characteristics of the database (you can refer here to the metadata provided by the authors of the study).

- Whether you extracted parts of the database, and which ones (for example, financial information on one particular company instead of a whole group of companies, or on one particular year in-stead of a number of years).

- Which variables you used, what they represent, and how they are measured.

- Whether you modified any of the variables and/or added new variables built from existing ones (for example, if you built indices or rates of growth based on a succession of quarterly GDP fig-ures).

- Always remember to cite the data and the metadata.

[10:06] Ejiro A EsohwodeMethodology should also contain a sub-section on data analysis. Here, you should elaborate on whether or not you succeeded in deploying the chosen methods as intended, on what difficulties you encountered and how you addressed these difficulties in order to answer the research ques-tion. You should think of the methodology section as a set of instructions you are giving to read-ers so that they can replicate your work exactly as you did it. Think of it as a sort of recipe which needs to be very precise on the ingredients, the combination of them and the timing so that someone else can reproduce the results of your research (of course, bearing in mind that replica-bility is easier to obtain for quantitative than qualitative analysis). You may want to have a look at the methodology section of peer reviewed articles available from the Library portal Electronic Journals, to see how they have presented their methods and to draw inspiration from them.

The final sub-section of Chapter 3 Methodology should be devoted to Ethics. Please note that this sub-section should not offer a philosophical or general discussion of ethics in research. Also, it should not stop at paraphrasing the content of the Moodle thematic section on Research integrity, honesty, and ethics. You are in fact expected to know the University policy on ethical research. Instead, this sub-section must (succinctly) discuss how you have followed the University policy on ethical research and put the principles of research integrity, honesty and ethics into practice. For those who analyse primary data, this discussion will summarise and refer to the content of their Epigeum Research Ethics online module

[10:07] Ejiro A EsohwodeThe final sub-section of Chapter 3 Methodology should be devoted to Ethics. Please note that this sub-section should not offer a philosophical or general discussion of ethics in research. Also, it should not stop at paraphrasing the content of the Moodle thematic section on Research integrity, honesty, and ethics. You are in fact expected to know the University policy on ethical research. In-stead, this sub-section must (succinctly) discuss how you have followed the University policy on ethical research and put the principles of research integrity, honesty and ethics into practice. For those who analyse primary data, this discussion will summarise and refer to the content of their Epigeum Research Ethics online module

This discussion must outline the concrete steps you have taken to ensure that the collection and analysis of data were conducted ethically. For those who analyse secondary data only, this discus-sion will summarise and refer to the content of their Epigeum Research Ethics online module (a copy of which must be included in the Appendix on ethics requirements). Please note that whether you analyse primary or secondary data writing this sub-section on Ethics will not exempt you from writing an Appendix on ethics requirements. Failure to write this Appendix will be penal-ised, not only because it is a failure to evidence that the research was conducted ethically, but also because it is a failure to corroborate the findings of the research.