The thesis is the splization in Luxury management. The first draft is due on 24th 11:50 AM including the part of introduction(1000 words), literature review(2500 words) and 3 objectives (out of 3500 words), and 10 acdamic journal article per each objective, around 3500 words:The core sections of the Introduction chapter are as follows:
1.1. Background
1.2. Rationale for the Study
1.3. Aim and Objectives
Relevant background information (a summary) and some references to existing literature are expected to be presented in the section on Background.
In the section of Rationale for the Study, it is crucial that you can demonstrate the importance of a topic chosen with your rationale (relevance and/or justification). A good way to start and prepare this section is to check systematically through the literature relating to your subject area to see what has already been researched and published. An intensive reading will allow you to discover current trends in your chosen area and will ensure that your work is original (not a repetition/duplication of someone else’s work). Reviewing the current trends in the topic area and identifying any gap in the existing literature will lead to discussion and argumentation on how your research is positioned about the identified gap. Most of the literature must be found in the Glion library database.
Your Aim and Objectives need to be carefully thought through, coherent, evaluative, and achievable. Three objectives are recommended.
· Carefully thought through.
If the aim and objectives are not well defined, your research might not be focused and may be disjointed, and thus you may end up not achieving your research goals. Once the aim and objectives are set, they should not be changed. If major changes are made, you might need to start all over again and a lot of additional work is required.
· Coherent?
The aim and objectives need to be well aligned. The aim is considered as the product of the research and the objectives as the various elements to be investigated to achieve the aim. Your aim and objectives must therefore be coherent and connected. For example, if you aim to build a house but your objectives are to investigate the various components required to build a sailing boat, in the end, these would not enable the house to be built.
· Evaluative?
To carry out original research, critical evaluation is required. A mere description of known facts would not allow you to contribute to the knowledge base.
· Achievable?
The aim and objectives might be clearly defined, but too complicated and therefore not achievable within the time available. Or it may be that the related literature is very limited or that relevant data is not available or cannot be collected. KISS principle? Keep It Simple, Students!!
Introduction (10%):
· Is the topic clearly stated and defined with a clear overall purpose?
· Has appropriate background information been provided with all special and general terms defined?
· Is the rationale of the study identified and discussed with proper justification?
· Are the aim and objectives coherent?
· Do aim and objectives go beyond mere description i.e., do they involve evaluation?
· Are the aim and objectives achievable?
Your aim and objectives established in the previous chapter are a starting point and a foundation for the Literature Review. This section should include a wide variety of recent academic literature which examines academic concepts, models, and theories that are related to your topic. A minimum of 30 altogether, 10 peer-reviewed, and the most recent (the last 5 years) academic articles per objective are required. In the literature review chapter, non-academic literature cannot be used. It is important to ensure that there is a clear link between your aim and objectives and your literature review and that all your claims and assertions are acknowledged in the APA referencing style (7th edition, https://apastyle.apa.org/). Most of the literature must be found in the Glion library database. Please be aware of the following points:
· Quotations after quotations?
Your literature review cannot be made up mostly with various quotations from different articles. Quotations with proper references might be technically correct. However, quotations after quotations would not be accepted as relevant literature review because it indicates that you have not acquired the necessary in-depth knowledge on the research topic. A critical literature review is required, which demonstrates your independent critical thinking competence upon reviewing the existing knowledge base and comparing different perspectives already outlined in the literature.
· Minimalist?
Quoting more than one whole paragraph from the same literature is not acceptable. This again indicates that you are not able to conduct a critical review of the literature existing. Direct quotations should be limited to the most essential terms (i.e., no more than one sentence or two lines of text). You need to be prudent with direct quotations in your literature review.
Carefully consider the scope of the literature you wish to research. Use library databases and textbooks to get an overview of the topic, clarify the terminology, and identify relevant theories and academic models. Especially, if some specific terms can be understood in many ways, you are required to clearly define these terms for your own research.
Your literature review will need to be updated at intervals throughout your research and particularly before you write up the final thesis to ensure that you keep track of what is happening in your research area.
Having done your initial literature review, knowing the background of your chosen area of study, you are ready to finalize the precise nature of your investigation, and then more specific questions or hypotheses may be developed to meet your aim and objectives. This is useful to you as your work progresses and will also be used as an indicator as to whether you achieve what you set out to do. There is no right answer to a thesis, but those that do not show critical evaluation and analysis throughout the work, which is congruent with the aim and objectives, will be scored much lower than those that do.
The literature review should not be limited to a mere description or a summary of existing literature. Your literature review needs to incorporate relevant debates and controversies and furthermore, to integrate a critical appraisal of existing literature.
Last but not the least, the literature synthesis and the conceptual framework are required. The synthesis is to bring all your literature reviews together in the context of developing main concepts to be tested. The conceptual framework needs to be presented at the end of the Literature Review, while the literature synthesis should be presented in Appendix. If your research is carried out with quantitative data analysis, the literature synthesis provides a good basic framework for data requirement table, hypotheses (not obligatory but optional), and survey questions. Meanwhile, if your research is carried out with qualitative data analysis, the literature synthesis provides a good basic framework for interview questions summary table and key interview questions to be investigated.
Literature Review (20%):
· Has a comprehensive range of RELEVANT literature been reviewed?
· Is the literature firmly rooted in a theoretical base?
· Has the literature of the related disciplines been included?
· Are the sources used up to date, where appropriate, and do they have sufficient academic weight?
· Does the thesis give evidence of a critical attitude towards source material? Does it compare, contrast, and criticize several relevant concepts, models, and theories in terms of their internal logic, structure, and consistency?
· Are the key themes and issues surrounding the research objectives clearly drawn from the literature?
· Does the review deal with relevant debates and controversies?
· Has the literature used to be summarized and presented in a form of Literature Synthesis and Conceptual Framework?
The second draft is including