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CASE STUDY
AMINA’S STORY
Amina was a diligent student who had worked very hard on her MBA. Her research had been on the marketing
strategies of UK main car dealerships in the wake of the trend for UK new buyers to import their vehicles from conti-
nental Europe. She had submitted her draft project report, and was awaiting the comments of her supervisor with quiet
confidence. She anticipated that there would be some more work to do on the report, but she thought that this would be
minor amendments. She was sure that the main thrust of the report was fine. However, when Amina went to see Dr
Wang, her project advisor, she was disappointed to learn that he was not impressed with what she had written. In fact
Dr Wang told Amina that as it stood her report was some way from MBA standard, and that if she wanted to obtain the
degree she had a lot of work to do to improve it.
Amina was taken aback to hear this news, but she listened carefully to Dr Wang’s explanation and made notes. His
main criticism was that the report was too ‘rambling’ and insufficiently succinct. The context of the research was ex-
plained clearly. Indeed Dr Wang though that Amina had spent far too much time on her description of the UK retail
motor market. Her statement of the problem facing UK retail dealers was also clear. However, he was critical of the
way in which Amina had used the literature. He thought that there was too much on the car industry and too little on
marketing theory. Dr Wang had emphasized to Amina in all their meetings that her project was about how organizations
develop their marketing strategies in the light of unexpected competition. In that sense Amina’s project could be about
any organization in any market. However, Amina’s interest in cars had dominated her consideration of the theory of
marketing strategy.
Amina had conducted with senior sales managers in a sample of dealerships representing the main manufacturers.
She had explained how she did this, but there was little about any alternative data collection methods that could have
been pursued. Dr Wang was critical of this, but his main criticism concerned the final third of Amina’s report. In this
she had described the results of the interviews in great detail. But after this detailed presentation of the findings were a
mere two pages of conclusions. Even these were little more than a summary of the findings.
Dr Wang thought Amina’s report was well written and very interesting, but not what was needed for a successful
MBA project report. His overall comment was that ‘it tells a very interesting story, Amina, but your job as a manage-
ment Master’s degree student is to use theory to help to explain and even solve management problems. Leave the story-
telling to the business journalists.’
At first Amina was bitterly disappointed, and she complained incessantly to the friends with whom she shared an
apartment about Dr Wang’s unfairness. However, as the days passed she became more reflective – so much so that this
was what she admitted to her friend Gisela:
‘I suppose I am to blame. The tutors told us that we should start the writing process early and write separate sec-
tions on each aspect of the research, keeping in mind the purpose of each aspect and ensuring that there was a logical
flow to the report and it fitted together as a coherent whole. But I got so involved in the research interviews, and all the
other course assignments, that there never seemed to be time to write. Then when the deadline approached I panicked
and wrote the whole thing in less than a week, using days and nights. I can see now that I should have built it up, read it
and reread it and amended it, but I never had time.
‘I can also see what Dr Wang means about telling the story like a business journalist. That’s much easier than aca-
demic work. It’s less rigorous. As long as it reads ok I suppose that’s all there is to it.’
Oh well back to it!
11. Answer the questions:
1. What did Dr Wang mean by ‘your job as a management Master’s degree student is to use theory to help to ex-
plain and even solve management problems’?
2. How might Amina improve her findings section?
3. What do you think Amina has to do to get Dr Wang’s full approval for submission of her MBA project for as-
sessment?
4. How would you suggest Amina now approaches the rewriting of her report?
PROGRESSING YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT
Deciding on the appropriateness of data collecting
and analyzing techniques
• Return to your research question(s) and objectives. Decide on how appropriate it would be to use observation/
secondary data/ sampling/ interviews/ questionnaires as part of your research strategy. If you do decide that some of the
technique is appropriate note down the reasons why you think it will be sensible to collect at least some of your data in
this way?
• If you decide that using observation/ secondary data/ sampling/ interviews/ questionnaires is suitable, decide
which of the types of these methods will be more appropriate. Note down your choice and the reasons for this choice.
