FORMULATING RESEARCH AIMS

AND OBJECTIVES

Formulating research aim and

objectives in an appropriate
manner is one of the most
important aspects of your thesis.
This is because research aim and
objectives determine the scope,
depth and the overall direction of
the research. Research question is
the central question of the study
that has to be answered on the
basis of research findings.
Achievement of research
aim provides answer to the
research question. Research
objectives divide research aim
into several parts and address
each part separately. Moreover,
research aim specifies WHAT
needs to be studied and research
objectives comprise a number of
steps that address HOW research
aim will be achieved.
As a rule of thumb, there would be
one research aim and several
research objectives to facilitate
the achievement of this aim.
The following is an example:
Research title: Effects of
organizational culture on business
profitability: a case study of
Virgin Atlantic
Research aim: To assess the effects
of Virgin Atlantic organizational
culture on business profitability
The following research objectives
would facilitate the achievement of this
aim:
Analyzing the nature of organizational
culture at Virgin Atlantic by September
1, 2018
Identifying factors impacting Virgin
Atlantic organizational culture by
September 16, 2018
Analyzing impacts of Virgin Atlantic
organizational culture on employee
performances by September 30, 2018
Providing recommendations to Virgin
Atlantic strategic level management in
terms of increasing the level of
effectiveness of organizational culture
by October 5, 2018
Figure below illustrates
additional examples in
formulating research
questions, aims and
objectives:
COMMON MISTAKES IN THE FORMULATION
OF RESEARCH AIM RELATE TO THE
FOLLOWING:
1. Choosing the topic too broadly. This is the most common
mistake. For example, a research title of “An analysis of
leadership practices” can be classified as too broad because the
title fails to answer the following questions:
a) Which aspects of leadership practices? Leadership has many
aspects such as employee motivation, ethical behaviour, strategic
planning, change management etc. An attempt to cover all of
these aspects of organizational leadership within a single
research will result in a poor work.
b) An analysis of leadership practices in which country? Leadership
practices tend to be different in various countries due to cross-
cultural differences, legislations and a range of other region-
specific factors. Therefore, a study of leadership practices needs to
be country-specific.
c) Analysis of leadership practices in which company or
industry? Similar to the point above, analysis of leadership
practices needs to take into account industry-specific and
company-specific differences, and there is no way to conduct a
leadership research that relates to all industries and
organizations in an equal manner.
Accordingly, “A study into the impacts of ethical behaviour of a
leader on the level of employee motivation in US healthcare
sector” would be a more appropriate title than simply “An
analysis of leadership practices”.
2. Setting an unrealistic aim.
Formulation of a research aim that
involves in-depth interviews with Apple
strategic level management by an
undergraduate level student can be
specified as a bit over-ambitious. This is
because securing an interview with Apple
CEO Tim Cook or members of Apple
management board might not be easy.
This is an extreme example, but you got
the idea. Instead, you may aim to
interview the manager of your local Apple
store and adopt a more feasible strategy
to get your dissertation completed.
3. Choosing research methods
incompatible with the timeframe
available. Conducting interviews with 20
sample group members and collecting
primary data through 2 focus groups when
only three months left until submission of
your dissertation can be very difficult, if not
impossible. Accordingly, timeframe available
need to be taken into account when
formulating research aims and objectives and
selecting specific research methods.
Moreover, research objectives need to be
formulated according to SMART objectives,
where the abbreviation stands for specific,
measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.
Analyze consumer behaviour in catering Ineffecti SMART research objectives
industry ve
(incomple
te) resear
ch
objectives

Recommend Toyota Motor Corporation management Study To study the impacts of management
on new market entry strategy employee practices on the levels of employee
motivation motivation at Coca-Cola US by
of Coca- December 5, 2018
Cola

Analyze the impact of social media marketing on Assessing

business impacts of
integration
of social
media into
marketing
strategy
on the
level of
brand
awareness
by March
30, 2017
Finding out about time management principles used by Identifying
Accenture managers main time-
managem
ent
strategies
used by
managers
of
Accenture
France by
December
1, 2017