Skills for Business & Management Students in Dissertation

In this globalized and digitalized business world, management students need to improve many skills to have a successful career.  And the best way to develop it is by writing excellent dissertations on many business and management topics. It is the reason that management institutions worldwide want their students to write dissertations. But for students, it is a challenging task to write dissertations because of the vast scope of business and management studies or too much academic work and others. However, writing dissertations is mandatory for students to get good grades  to develop skills for business and management for having a fantastic future career.  Only with the right skills, students can excel both in the academic performance and in applying it for the real-time business world to be successful (1).

Skills for business and management dissertations

Until writing the dissertation, students must have experience in writing essays and other small project work. But the dissertation is the first most substantial piece of independent work by students running into many pages, which needs a lot of skills. The dissertation’s sole aim is to write an original research work on any topic in the subject. It will be making it more challenging for the students in business and management but also the most rewarding work.  It could lay a solid foundation for their future career by developing many skills for business and management.

Fig.1. Management Skills (CorporateFinanceInstitute.com)

Fundamental skills for business and management dissertations

Unlike writing essays where students only need to evaluate others’ ideas critically, it is a different ball game for the dissertation.  Although student study a wide range of topics during the course (e.g., Business transformation, digital economy, finance and accounting, marketing and retail management, people and organization and strategy and entrepreneurship) but dissertation would certain your choice. You can choose any topics that you’re strong and linked to your future career.

need a range of planning and research skills.  It is to form a theoretical framework from others’ ideas and by offering opinions and interpretations for their own research. Only then the students can write on the many theories, concepts, definition like Theories X & Y, Systems, beureacratic, Scientific management, among other theories. Concepts like planning, organizing, directing and controlling among others

Hence the students must develop some fundamental skills for business and management dissertations that include.

Planning skills

As per Benjamin Franklin’s words, “by failing to prepare, you prepare to fail,”, planning skills are 56pthe fundamental need for any business and management student. It is the primary cognitive skill that forms part of any executive function.  Planning is the ability to think about the future for mentally expecting the right way to achieve a specific goal.  It is one of the essential skills for business and management dissertations and future career.

The research and dissertation report writing effort can be divided into a number of phases separated by milestone events where products from the previous phase are reviewed and approved before continuing on to the next phase. The Research Milestone Schedule indicated in Figure 1 depicts the recommended phases and how the review milestones (in blue and red) separate them.

The Milestone Deliverables Matrix indicated in Table 1 also indicates the phases and milestones for preparing a dissertation report, but also lists the work products that should be reviewed at each milestone event, and the participants at each event.

Using the Research Breakdown Structure (RBS) to Manage Information

The recommended management approach contained in this paper includes the use of a new concept referred to as a Research Breakdown Structure (RBS). As indicated in Figure 2, the top of the RBS diagram contains business areas the researcher is interested in pursuing.

Research skills

One thing common for business and management dissertation and work is research skills.  Only with in-depth research on the topic and its relevant information, students can write excellent dissertations. The skills include ability to search for and select relevant qualitative and quantitative data, analyze and interpret data, and transform data into useful information to conduct research on business issues. For instance, Gephart and Saylors (2020) reveal that case study research is used and studied in different management areas such as operations management  (Barratt,  Choi  and  Li,  2011),  industrial  marketing  (Piekkari  and  Welch,  2011) information systems (Johnson,Adkins and Chauvin,2020) and finally supply chain management (Flynn, 2008).

Organizing skills

Organizing time and the work to complete achieving the aim applies for writing dissertations in business and management and its working environment. Planning, Communication, Decision making, delegation and problem solving are few organizing skills to tackle a management. Lacking organizing skills will devastate for time and work to complete it to get good grades or have a prosperous career.

Problem-solving skills

Writing dissertations will have challenges that the students need to overcome for completing them successfully in time.  Hence, they need to develop problem-solving skills that will make the students more adaptable and initiative. Cause and effect analysis, Root cause analysis, active listening, dependability, creativity and team-building are the few skills of problem solving.  These skills will also be crucial for their future business and management career wherein they have to deal with real-time issues daily.

Drafting skills

To write dissertations, students must develop drafting skills to structure them properly, as per the specifications to avoid rejections.  From the first paragraph of the introduction until the conclusion, they need to draft each word to be in place to make it easy for the readers to understand.  Also, redrafting the written dissertation draft to polish it without errors is vital for submitting the final dissertation.

Writing skills

Many of the problems faced by students when attempting to communicate complex ideas in a language other than their mother tongue are predictable. Having a limited vocabulary, needing a longer time to write, and being restricted to a simplistic writing style can impair students’ ability to express themselves adequately and may have a negative effect on their self-efficacy. Majority of the students, lacked confidence in their academic writing ability due to limited familiarity with terminology, referencing, and understanding how to organize ideas according to the formalized structure that is typically required by English-language academic journals. Focusing on these issues, Connor (2002) stresses that, while writing requirements for journals typically lean heavily toward English norms in terms of clarity, linearity, and straightforward language

Developing writing skills is to write an excellent dissertation and write letters, reports, and other communications. One should: Clearly state the purpose of dissertation, use concise language, organize the ideas thoughtfully, use active voice and write the content that is free of errors. Hence students have to build the following writing skills.

Keep the readers’ need to write excellent dissertations to reach far from the approving authorities like the journals.

• Follow the basic rules of good written English to do the dissertation with accurate spelling and correct grammar and punctuation.
• Write in the active voice to show the expertise on the topic and the field to appreciate the supervisors.
• Avoid using long sentences and difficult words to understand while writing with the proper sentence and paragraph structure.
• Write the dissertation critically to demonstrate the ability to confidently refusing to accept the conclusions of other writers without evaluating their arguments and evidence.
• Write the arguments clearly with evidence to lead to the readers’ finding in conclusion to understand easily.

The process-oriented approach

Although there is no standardized model for the process-oriented approach, four basic stages can generally be identified, namely:

1. Prewriting, in which students conceptualize their topics, take notes and collect data,

2. Drafting, which involves structuring their ideas and creating an initial composition,

3. Revising, or re-working the content and organization based on feedback from peers or instructors, and

4. Editing, or making final corrections concerning the form, layout and mechanics of the writing (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Hyland, 2003).

The above skills for business and management dissertation writing will not only help to get good grades but will also help for future career. And for developing more such skills it is best to seek help from the best dissertation writing services.

References

1. Exploration of employability skills in business management studies within higher education levels
2. ijibm.site666.com
3. journals.co.za
4. eric.ed.gov