Creating Outstanding Term Paper for PhD

Course Name: Creating Outstanding Term Paper

UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM & ENERGY STUDIES

PART-A

Unit 1 Scientific Writing ............................................................................................. 3

Unit 2 What is a Research Paper? .............................................................................. 7

Unit 3 Structure of a Research Paper ...................................................................... 13

Unit 4 How to Prepare the Title............................................................................... 21

Unit 5 How to Prepare the Abstract ........................................................................ 25

Unit 6 Introductions .................................................................................................. 29

Unit 7 Methods .......................................................................................................... 35

Unit 8 The Results ..................................................................................................... 41

Unit 9 Discussion ....................................................................................................... 47

Unit 10 Acknowledgements and References ............................................................. 51

Unit 11 Sample Papers ................................................................................................ 55

Unit 12 Where and How to Submit the Manuscript ................................................. 79

Unit 13 How to Present a Paper Orally ..................................................................... 85

Unit 14 How to Write a Review Paper ....................................................................... 89

Unit 15 How to Write a Book Review ........................................................................ 93

Unit 16 The Future is Electronic Publishing............................................................. 99

Unit 17 Developing the Research Proposal ............................................................. 105

Unit 18 How to Write a Thesis ................................................................................. 115

PART-B

Unit 19 Guidelines for writing a Term Paper ......................................................... 121

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The key characteristic of scientific writing is clarity.Successful scientific experimentation is the result of a clearmind attacking a clearly stated problem and producingclearly stated conclusions. Ideally, clarity should be acharacteristic of any type of communication; however, whensomething is being said for the first time, clarity is essential,Most research papers, those published in primary researchjournals, are accepted for publication precisely because theydo contribute new knowledge. Hence, we should demandabsolute clarity in scientific writing.

Most people no doubt must have heard this question: If atree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear itsfall, does it make a sound? The correct answer is no. Soundis more than “pressure waves” and indeed there can be nosound without a hearer.

Similarly, scientific communication is a two-way process. Justas a signal of any kind is useless unless it is perceived, apublished research paper (signal) is useless unless it is bothreceived and understood by its intended audience.Publication is no more than “pressure waves” unless thepublished paper is understood.

Objectives

After completion of this unit, the students will be aware of the followingtopics:

What is Scientific Writing

Origins of Scientific Writing

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Scientific writing is the transmission of a clear signal to arecipient. The words of the signal should be as clear andsimple and well ordered as possible. In scientific writing,there is little need for ornamentation. The flowery literaryembellishments – the metaphors, the similes, the idiomaticexpressions – are very likely to cause confusion and shouldseldom be used in writing research papers.

Many kinds of writing are designed for entertainment.Scientific writing has a different purpose: to communicatenew scientific findings. Scientific writing should be as clearand simple as possible.

In addition to appropriate organisation, the second principalingredient of a research paper should be appropriatelanguage.

English need not be difficult. In scientific writing, we say:“The best English is that which conveys the meaning in thefewest words”. Literary devices, metaphors and the like,divert attention from the substance to the style. They shouldbe used rarely in scientific writing.

Human beings have been able to communicate for thousandsof years. Yet scientific communication as we know it todayis relatively new. The first journals were published only 300years ago and the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Resultsand Discussion) organisation of scientific papers hasdeveloped within the past 100 years.

Knowledge, scientific or otherwise, could not be effectivelycommunicated until appropriate mechanisms ofcommunication became available. Prehistoric people couldcommunicate orally, of course, but each new generationstarted from essentially the same baseline because, withoutwritten records to refer to, knowledge was lost almost asrapidly as it was found.

Cave paintings and inscriptions carved onto rocks were amongthe first human attempts to leave records for succeedinggenerations. In a sense, today we are lucky that our early

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ancestors chose such media because some of these early“messages” have survived, whereas messages on less-durablematerials would have been lost. On the other hand,communication via such media was incredibly difficult. Think,for example, of the distributional problems the Postal Servicewould have today if the medium of correspondence were 100-lb rocks. They have enough troubles with 1/2-oz letters.

A medium of communication that was lightweight andportable was needed. The first successful medium waspapyrus (sheets made from the papyrus plant and gluedtogether to form a roll sometimes 20 to 40 ft long, fastenedto a wooden roller), which came into use about 2000 B.C. In190 B.C., parchment (made from animal skins) came into use.The Greeks assembled large libraries in Ephesus andPergamum (in what is now Turkey) and in Alexandria.According to Plutarch, the library in Pergamum contained2,00,000 volumes in 40 B.C. (Tuchman, 1980).

In 105 A.D. the Chinese invented paper, the modern mediumof communication. However, because there was no effectiveway of duplicating communication, scholarly knowledge couldnot be widely disseminated.

Perhaps the greatest single invention in the intellectualhistory of the human race was the printing press. Althoughmovable type was invented in China in about 1100 A.D.(Tuchman, 1980), the Western World gives credit toGutenberg, who printed his 42-line Bible from movable typeon a printing press in 1455 A.D. Gutenberg’s invention waseffectively and immediately put to use throughout Europe.By the year 1500, thousands of copies of hundreds of books(called “incunabula”) were printed.

The first scientific journals appeared in 1665, whencoincidentally two different journals commenced publication,the Journal des Scavans in France and the PhilosophicalTransactions of the Royal Society of London in England. Sincethat time, journals have served as the primary means ofcommunication of research work in the sciences, humanitiesand management. Currently, some 70,000 scientific andtechnical journals are published throughout the world (Kinget al., 1981).

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A research paper is a written and published report describingoriginal research results. That short definition must bequalified, however, by noting that a research paper must bewritten in a certain way and it must be published in a certainway, as defined by three centuries of developing tradition,editorial practice, scientific ethics and the interplay ofprinting and publishing procedures.

To properly define “research paper” we must define themechanism that creates a scientific paper, namely, valid (i.e.,primary) publication. Abstracts and conference reports andmany other types of literature are published, but suchpublications do not normally meet the test of valid publication.Further, even if a scientific paper meets all of the other tests(discussed below), it is not considered to be validly published ifit is published in the wrong place. That is, a relatively poorresearch report, but one that meets the tests, is validlypublished if accepted and published in the right place (a primaryjournal or other primary publication); a superbly preparedresearch report is not validly published if published in the wrongplace. Most of the government report literature and conferenceliterature, as well as institutional bulletins and other ephemeralpublications, do not qualify as primary institute.

Objectives


Definition of a Research Paper

Writing a Research Paper

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The research papers developed by the students (generallyat postgraduate/research level) are known as “term papers”.The term paper is not different from the research paper asit is primarily a record of intelligent reading in severalsources on a particular subject and developing a scientificpaper based on independent thinking and interaction withexperts in the field of interest, thus gaining valuable practicalinsights. It provides the students of management anopportunity to investigate a problem applying managementconcepts in a scientific manner. It enables them to apply theirconceptual knowledge in a practical situation and to learnthe art of conducting a research in a systematic way andpresenting the findings in its research paper.

There are a variety of ways in which the product of a studyor investigation can be prepared for presentation. The formin which the material is presented is the vehicle for thecommunication of ideas and information and as such, shouldbe recognised as a means rather than an end.

The procedure for writing a research paper consists of thefollowing steps:

The Preliminaries:

1. Choosing a Topic: Selecting a topic is possibly the mostdifficult part of doing research. Is it too big? Is it toonarrow? Will I be able to find enough on it? Start bychoosing a topic that you like or are curious about.You’re going to be working on it for quite a while, so tryand find one that’s interesting and that you canreasonably cover in the time and space available.

Taking a few moments to do some quick backgroundreading either in your textbooks or some of the morespecialised resources in the library is often a good wayto get ideas for topics. The next step is to narrow yourtopic to somethings manageable. You will probablyrefine and refocus your topic several times before youfinalise it.

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Once you have your topic, write it out as a short sentenceor question and look at the different components thatmake up your statement. Start compiling a list of thekey words that you will use as your search for your topic.For example, the topic “Factors influences oninvestment decisions of MNCs “ might have key wordsthat fall into two general categories:

a. MNCs’ investment, FDI

b. Decision making process, strategic investmentdecision.

2. Finding Background Information: Taking a fewminutes to read about your topic in a specialisedencyclopedia, dictionary or handbook may be one of themost effective and time saving research tips on this list.Here are many sources that can help you write yourresearch papers.

1. Material from teacher or class discussion: Thisusually won’t be enough to write your entire paperwith, but it should give you an idea for your thesis.

2. Encyclopedias: Encyclopedia and handbooks aregood places to start your research when you knowlittle about a topic, when you need an overview of asubject, or when you want a quick summary of basicideas. Encyclopedia articles are often followed bycarefully selected bibliographies or lists ofreferences to other works and other useful itemsas you begin looking for additional information.

3. Books: These are great sources because they are,or at least should be, focusing on your topic. Thecatalogue for finding materials in the library arecomputerised. These online catalogue are powerfulsearch tools, but to take full advantage of them, youmay need some help getting started.

4. Journals: Try starting your search with a periodicalindex that arranges articles by subject. There are

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many indexes to choose from, some available inonline format or CD-ROM. But still there are somereferences which can only be accessed in print.

An often over looked resource for journal articlesare the bibliographies that can be found at the endof related journal articles or in books on your topic.There are even specialised indexes that allow youto search just for bibliographies.

5. The Internet: The World Wide Web (WWW) providesa mean of connecting to a vast amount ofinformation via the Internet. It can include text,graphics, video, sound and more. The range ofinformation is enormous, ever changing andastonishingly varied. If you type in Banana Sluginto INFOSEEK, you’ll probably get a zillion pagesdedicated to the animal with songs, information,video, everything.

However, just because something comes packaged in a hightech. format doesn’t mean it’s well researched or accurate.One approach to researching the web is to start yoursearching a site that is more likely to focus on scholarlyresources and critically evaluate your www search results.Some locations that may provide more scholarly sources forresearch are listed on the altavista.com or yahoo’s businessand economics section.

1. Develop the final outline; test your outline.

2. Prepare to write:

a. put your note cards in the order that your outlineis in;

b. consider your (real and imagined) readers and howtheir expectations may affect your tone and style.

3. Write the rough draft.

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4. Check your documentation carefully.

5. Revise and rewrite.

6. Check the format of the text, citations, notes andbibliography.

7. Proofread.

An outline is:

A logical, general description

A schematic summary

An organisational pattern

A visual and conceptual design of your writing

An outline reflects logical thinking and clear classification

Generally:

Adis in the process of writing.

Specifically:

Helps you organise your ideas;

Presents your material in a logical form;

Shows the relationships among ideas in your writing;

Constructs an ordered overview of your writing;

Defines boundaries and groups.

Before you begin:

Determine the purpose of your paper.

Determine the audience you are writing for.

Develop the thesis of your paper.

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Then:

Brainstorm : List all the ideas that you want to includein your paper.

Organise : Group related ideas together

Order : Arrange material in subsections fromgeneral to specific or from abstract toconcrete.

Lable : Create main and sub headings and writecoordinate levels in parallel form.

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The research you have conducted is obviously of vitalimportance and must be read by the widest possibleaudience. The paper must be constructed in the approvedmanner and presented to the highest possible standards.There is no doubt that editors and assessors look adverselyon scruffy manuscripts, regardless of the quality of thescience. All manuscripts are constructed in a similar manner,although there are some notable exceptions such as theformat used by Nature. These exceptions are unlikely totrouble you in the early stages of your research career.

The object of publishing a research paper is that you providea document which contains sufficient information to enablereaders to:

assess the observations you made;

repeat the experiment if they wish;

determine whether the conclusions drawn are justifiedby the data.

The basic structure of a paper is summarised by the acronymIMRAD, which stands for:

Introduction (What question was asked?)

Objectives


Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

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Methods (How was it studied?)

Results (What was found?)andDiscussion (What do the findings mean?)

The introduction should be brief and must state clearly thequestion that you tried to answer in the study. To lead thereader to this point it is necessary to review briefly therelevant literature.

Many new authors have difficulties in writing theintroduction. The most common problem is the inability tostate clearly what question was asked. This should not occurif the study was planned correctly. It is too late to rectifybasic errors when attempting to write the paper.Nevertheless, some studies seem to develop a life of theirown and the original objectives can easily be forgotten. If Ido not receive a short clear sentence as an answer, thenalarm bells ring.

A review of the literature must not appear in theintroduction. Only cite those references that are essentialto justify your proposed study. Three citations from differentgroups are usually sufficient to convince most assessors thatsome fact is “well known” or “well recognised”, particularlyif the studies are from different countries.

Negotiation is a special communication task that takes placein order to reach agreement about how to handle bothcommon and conflicting interests between two or moreparties. As culture plays an important role in framing thepirorities of the negotiators, negotiating skills are not valuefree and expectations for outcome differ at the negotiatingtable. Therefore, international business negotiations, whichinvolve parties from two widely dissimilar cultures can beproblematic. According to the US Department of Commerce,for example, for every successful Japanese- Americannegotiation there are 25 failures. In this context the paper

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seeks to analyse the different negotiating styles of East Asiancountries and to explore the factors which can enhance theprobability of success in negotiating with East AsianManagers....

This important part of the manuscript has becomeincreasingly neglected and yet the methods section is themost common cause of absolute rejection of a paper. If themethods used to try to answer the question wereinappropriate or flawed, then there is no salvation for thework.

The main purposes of the methods section are to describeand sometimes defend, the experimental design and toprovide sufficient detail so that a competent worker canrepeat the study. The latter is particularly important whenyou are deciding how much to include in the text. If standardmethods of measurement are used then appropriatereferences are all that is required. In many instances“modifications” of published methods are used and it is thesethat cause difficulties for other workers. To ensurereproducible data, authors should:

give complete details of any new methods used;

give the precision of the measurements undertaken;

use statistical analysis sensibly.

The results section of a paper has two key features: thereshould be an overall description of the major findings of thestudy; and the data should be presented clearly andconcisely.

It is not necessary to present every scrap of data that youhave collected. There is a great temptation to give all theresults, particularly if they were difficult to obtain, but thissection should contain only relevant, representative data.

You must strive for clarity in the results section by avoidingunnecessary repetition of data in the text, figures and tables.

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It is worthwhile stating briefly what you did not find, as thismay save other workers in this area from undertakingunnecessary studies.

The initial draft of the discussion is almost invariably toolong. It is difficult not to write a long, detailed analysis ofthe literature that you know so well. However, a rough guideto the length of this section is that it should not be morethan one third of the total length of the manuscript(Introduction + Methods + Results + Discussion). Ample scopeoften remains for further pruning.

Many beginners find this section of the paper difficult. Thefollowing points will help you to compose an adequatediscussion:

Summarise the major findings;

Discuss possible problems with the methods used;

Compare your results with previous work;

Discuss the clinical and scientific (if any) implicationsof your findings;

Suggest further work;

State your conclusions as clearly as possible.

Common errors include repetition of data already given inthe results section, the belief that your methods were beyondcriticism and the preferential citing of previous work to suityour conclusions. Good assessors will seize upon suchmistakes, so do not even contemplate trying to deceive them.

Although IMRAD describes the basic structure of a paper,there are other important parts of a manuscript. The title,summary (or abstract) and list of authors are described inthe following Chapters. It is salutary to remember that manypeople will read the title of the paper and some will readthe summary, but very few will read the complete text. Thetitle and summary of the paper are of great importance forindexing and abstracting purposes, as will as enticements

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to persuade the reader to peruse the complete text. The useof appropriate references for a paper is very essential asthis is an area commonly full of mistakes. A golden rule is tolist only relevant, published references and present them ina manner that is appropriate for the particular journal. Thecitation of large numbers of references is an indicator ofinsecurity, not of scholarship. An authoritative author knowsthe important references that are appropriate to the study.

Before you start the first draft of the manuscript, readcarefully the “Instructions to authors” which every journalpublishes and prepare the paper accordingly. Some journalsgive detailed instructions, often annually and these can be avaluable way of learning some of the basic rules. It is a gravemistake to submit a paper in the style of another journal;this suggests that it has been rejected recently. At all stagesof preparation of the paper, go back and check with theinstructions to authors and make sure that your manuscriptconforms. It seems very obvious, but if you wish to publishin the Management Internation Review do not write yourpaper to conform with the Sloan Management Review. Readand re-read the instructions to authors.

Sample of the Guidelines for Authors

GUIDELINE FOR AUTHORS

Management International Review

Management International Review welcomes articles on originaltheoretical contributions, empirical research, state-of-the-art surveys orreports on recent developments in the areas of

(a) International Business (b) Transnational Corporations (c) InterculturalManagement (d) Strategic Management (e) Business Policy.

Manuscripts are reviewed with the understanding that they aresubstantially new, have not been previously published in whole (includingbook chapters) or in part (including exhibits), have not been previouslyaccepted for publication, are not under consideration by any otherpublisher and will not be submitted elsewhere until a decision is reachedregarding their publication in mir. The only exception is papers inconference proceedings, which we treat as work-in-progress.

Contributions should be submitted in English language. They shouldas a rule not exceed 5000 words. Reply papers should normally notexceed 1500 words. Contributions should include three copies of themanuscript and a 3,5-inch 1.44 MB Diskette in Word, MS-Test, or any

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ASCII (MS DOS or compatible) version with the complete test includingthe references, tables and figures and a little page with followingelements: Author(s) name, Heading of the article, Abstract (two sectionsof about 30 words each), Key Results (20 words), Author’s line (author’sname, academic title, position and affiliation) and on the bottom aproposal for an abbreviated heading on the front cover of the journal.The author’s line should be deleted on the two copies of the manuscriptin order to permit anonymity during the reviewing process.

Submitted papers must be written according to mir’s formal guidelines.Only those manuscripts can enter the reviewing process which adhereto these guidelines. Authors are requested to use endnotes forclarification sparingly References to the literature are indicated in thetext by author’s name and year of publication in parentheses, e.g.,(Reitsperger/Daniel 1990, p. 210, Eiteman 1989). The references shouldbe listed in alphabetical order at the end of the text. They should includefull bibliographical details and be cited in the following manner: e.g.,Reitsperger, W.D./Daniel, S.J.,Dynamic Manufacturing: A Comparison ofAttitudes in the US and Japan, Management International Review, 30,1990 PP. 203 – 216.

Eiteman, D.K., Financial Sourcing, in Macharzina, K./Welge, M.K. (eds.)Hand-worterbuch Export and Internationale Unternehmung, Stuttgart:Poeschel 1989, pp. 602 – 621.

Stopford, J.M./Wells, L.T. Jr., Managing the Multinational Enterprise, NewYork: Basic Books 1972.

avoid terms that may be interpreted denigrating to ethnic or othergroups.

be especially careful in dealing with gender. Traditional customssuch as “..the manager wishes that his interest...” can favour theacceptance of inequality were none exist. The use of plural pronounsis preferred. If this is impossible, the term “he or she” or “he/she”can be used.

In the case of publication authors are supplied one complimentary copyof the issue and 30 off-prints free of charge. Additional copies may beordered prior to printing. Overseas shipment is by boat: air-delivery willbe charged extra.

The author agrees, that his/her article is published not only in this journalbut that it can also be reproduced by the publisher and his licenseesthrough license agreement in other journals (also in translatedversions), through reprint in omnibus volumes (i.e., for anniversaryeditions of the journal or the publisher or in subject volumes), throughlonger extracts in books of the publisher also for advertising purposes,through multiplication and distribution on CD ROM or other data media,through storage on data bases, their transmission and retrieval, duringthe time span of the copyright laws on the article at home and abroad.

GUIDELINE FOR AUTHORS

VIKALPA

Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers welcomes original papersfrom both academics and practitioners on management, business and

Contd...

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organisation issues. Papers should illustrate practical experience andshow the applicability of work described.

Text Preparation: Authors should send three copies of the manuscriptprepared using standard software packages Word or Wordperfect. Thetext should be double spaced with generous margins. The author’sname should not appear anywhere on the body of the manuscript tofacilitate the blind review process. The manuscript should beaccompanied by an abstract as well as a summary of the article and abrief biographical sketch of the author on separate sheets.

All tables, charts and graphs should be prepared on separate sheets.They should be numbered continuously in Arabic numerals as referredto in the text. Wherever necessary, the source should be indicated at thebottom. Number and complexity of such exhibits should be as low aspossible. All charts and graphs should be drawn cleanly and legibly.Tables and Figures should contain self-explanatory titles. Footnotes,italics and quote marks should be kept to the minimum.

Reference should be complete in all respects and arranged inalphabetical order.

(a) In the text, the references should appear as follows: Dayal (1989)has shown or Recent studies (Ramnarayan, 1989; Murthy, 1989)indicate.

(b) Journal reference should be listed as follows: Khandwalla, PN(1988). “What Can Financial Institutions do to Prevent CorporateSickness?” Vikalpa, Vol 13, No. 4, pp 111 – 23.

(c) Books should be referred to as follows: Jain, U (1987), ThePsychological Consequences of Crowding. New Delhi. SagePublications.

Copyright: Wherever copyright material is used, authors should beaccurate in reproduction and obtain permission from copyright holdersif necessary. Articles published in Vikalpa should not be reproduced/reprinted in any form, either in full or in part, without prior writtenpermission from the Editor.

Review Process: All contributions are reviewed by two or more refereeson the “double blind” system, whereby the names of contributors andreferees are not revealed to each other. The refereeing process consistsof a Preliminary Review, each paper submitted is first read by onemember of the Editorial Board (blind review format). If the paper is notfound suitable, we inform the author within 15 days. Otherwise, the paperis sent for a comprehensive review to one or two experts in the fieldidentified by the Editorial Board. After a comprehensive review whichtakes no more than three months, the leading author is informed aboutthe reviewer’s comments and suggestions. The final decision on theacceptance of the paper is dependent on the authors meeting the highstandards demanded by the journal. Usually the case is that revisionswill be required. The revised version will once again go through thereview process before publication can proceed. The final draft is subjectto editorial amendments to suit the journal’s requirements.

Our final decision on the status of the paper is conveyed within six tonine months from the date of receipt of the original paper. An electronic

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version on the diskette would be required once the paper is accepted forpublication.

Proofs: Correspondence and proofs for correction will be sent to thefirst named author unless otherwise indicated. The author will receivepage proofs for checking, but it is hoped to correct only typesetting errors.Proofs should be returned within three days.

Reprints: The author(s) will receive 20 reprints free of charge.

Note: Contributors from abroad are requested to submit their articles totheir Associate Editors in the respective regions in order to facilitate thereview process.

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORSPARADIGM

ARTICLES/PAPERS

On topics related to different dimensions of management andcontemporary issues.

Guidelines

1. Authors should send two copies of manuscript typed double spacedwith at least I’ margin on both sides (Manuscripts typed in MS-Wordon floppy discs would be appreciated).

2. The manuscript should be accompanied by an abstract of 100-150words.

3. A declaration is to be made by the author that the paper is originaland has not been published/submitted for publication elsewhere.

4. A note about the author (name designation, affiliation/s) is to be sentalongwith.

5. Contributions should be of about 2000 words.

6. In the text, references should appear as:

(a) Gupta (1980) has proceed...Empirical evidence (Patel 1990;Ghosh 1991) shows...

(b) References should be given at the end of the text. If should carrythe surname of the author, followed by other names, title ofpaper/book in quotes, name of the journal, Vol page no.,publisher’s name and the year of publication (in case of book).

Example: Book reference to be like – Dhingra, R.S. (1991),Contemporary Issues In Finance, New Delhi, Sage Publication.

7. Tables, graphs, charts, etc., should be typed in separate pages andshould be serially numbered in Arabic numerals.

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In preparing a title for a paper, the author would do well toremember one salient fact: that title will be read bythousands of people. Perhaps few people, if any, will readthe entire paper, but many people will read the title, eitherin the original journal or in one of the secondary (abstractingand indexing) publications. Therefore, all words in the titleshould be chosen with great care and their association withone another must be carefully managed. Perhaps the mostcommon error in defective titles and certainly the mostdamaging in terms of comprehension is faulty syntax (wordorder)

What is a good title? I define it as the fewest possible wordsthat adequately describe the contents of the paper.

Remember that the indexing and abstracting services dependheavily on the accuracy of the title. An improperly titledpaper may be virtually lost and never reach its intendedaudience.

Objectives


Importance of the Title

Length of the Title

Need for Specific Titles

Title as a Label

Abbreviations and Jargon

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Occasionally, titles are too short. Let’s take an example of apaper submitted with the title “Studies on Negotiation”.Obviously, such a title is not very helpful to the potentialreader. Was the study psychological, managerial ordiplomatic? We would certainly want to know at least thatmuch.

Much more often, titles are too long. Ironically, long titlesare often less meaningful than short ones. A generation orso ago, when science was less specialised, titles tended tobe long and non-specific, such as, “On the addition to themethod of microscopic research by a new way of producingcolour-contrast between an object and its background orbetween definite parts of the object itself” (J. Rheinberg, J.R.Microsc. Soc. 1896: 373). That certainly sounds like a poortitle; perhaps it would make a good abstract.

Without question, most excessively long titles contain“waste” words. Often, these waste words appear right at thestart of the title, words such as “Studies on,” “Investigationson,” and “Observations on” An opening A, An, or The is alsoa “waste” word. Certainly, such words are useless forindexing purposes.

Let us analyse a sample title: “Action of Antibiotics onBacteria” – Is it a good title? In form it is; it is short andcarries no excess baggage (waste words). Certainly, it wouldnot be an improvement if we change it to “PreliminaryObservations on the Effect of Certain Antibiotics on VariousSpecies of Bacteria”. However (and this brings me to my nextpoint), most titles that are too short are too short becausethey include general rather than specific terms.

We can safely assume that the study introduced by the abovetitle did not test the effect of all antibiotics on all kinds ofbacteria. Therefore, the title is essentially meaningless. Ifonly one or a few antibiotics were studied, they should beindividually listed in the title. If only one or a few organismswere tested, they should be individually listed in the title.

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If the number of antibiotics or organisms was awkwardlylarge for listing in the title, perhaps a group name could havebeen substituted. For example.

The title of a paper is a label. It is not a sentence. Since it isnot a sentence, with the usual subject, verb, objectarrangement, it is really simpler than a sentence (or, at leastusually shorter), but the order of the words becomes evenmore important.

Actually, a few journals do permit a title to be a sentence. Isuppose this is only a matter of opinion. The meaning andorder of words in the title are of importance to the potentialreader who sees the title in the journal table of contents.

But these considerations are equally important of allpotential users of the literature, including those (probably amajority) who become aware of the paper via secondarysources. Thus, the title should be useful as a labelaccompanying the paper itself and it also should be in a formsuitable for the machine-indexing systems. Most of theindexing and abstracting services are geared to ”key word”systems, generating either KWIC (key word in context) orKWOC (key word out of context) entries. Therefore, it isfundamentally important that the author provide the right“keys” to the paper when labeling it. That is, the terms inthe title should be limited to those words that highlight thesignificant content of the paper in terms that are bothunderstandable and retrievable.

Titles should almost never contain abbreviations, chemicalformulas, proprietary (rather than generic) names, jargonand the like. In designing the title, the author should ask:“How would I look for this kind of information in an index?”If the paper concerns management by objective; should thetitle include the words “Management by Objective” or shouldit contain the much shorter and readily recognisable “MBO”.I think the answer is obvious. Most of us would look under“Ma” in an index, not under “Mb”. Furthermore, if some

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authors used (and journal editors permitted) MBO andothers used management by objective the user of thebibliographic services might locate only part of the publishedliterature, not noting that additional references are listedunder another, abbreviated, entry.

1. Compensation Design as a Tool for ImplementingForeign Subsidiary Strategy.

2. Determinants of Country Risk Ratings.

3. Control Systems and Strategic Adaption: Lessons fromthe Japanese Experience.

4. Just and Honest Governance: A Case Study of IndianPSUs.

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An abstract should be viewed as a mini version of the paper.The Abstract should provide a brief summary of each of themain sections of the paper: Introduction, Materials andMethods, Results and Discussion. As Houghton (1975) putit, “An abstract can be defined as a summary of theinformation in a document.”

“A well-prepared abstract enables readers to identify thebasic content of a document quickly and accurately, todetermine its relevance to their interests and thus to decidewhether they need to read the document in its entirety”(American National Standards Institute, 1979). The Abstractshould not exceed 250 words and should be designed to defineclearly what is dealt with in the paper. The Abstract shouldbe typed as a single paragraph. Many people will read theAbstract, either in the original journal or in ManagementAbstracts, Biblio Service, or one of the other secondarypublications (either in the print editions or in onlinecomputer searches).

The Abstract should (1) state the principal objectives andscope of the investigation, (2) describe the methodsemployed, (3) summarise the results and (4) state theprincipal conclusions. The importance of the conclusions isindicated by the fact that they are often given three times:

Objectives


Definition of Abstract

Writing the Abstract

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once in the Abstract, again in the Introduction and again (inmore detail probably) in the Discussion.

Most or all of the Abstracts should be written in the pasttense because it refers to work done.

The Abstract should never give any information or conclusionthat is not stated in the paper. References to the literaturemust not be cited in the Abstract (except in rare instances,such as modification of a previously published method).

When writing the Abstract, examine every word carefully.If you can tell your story in 100 words, do not use 200.Economically and scientifically, it doesn’t make sense towaste words. The total communication system can affordonly so much verbal abuse. The use of clear, significant wordswill impress the editors and reviewers (not to mentionreaders), whereas the use of abstruse, verbose constructionsis very likely to provoke a check in the “reject” box on thereview form.

Sample 1

TITLE: PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIPS IN UKINTERNATIONAL ALLIANCES

Abstract

This paper considers relationships between subjective measures ofalliance performance and a set of variables which may act as predictorsof success at the time of alliance formation (ex ante variables) and a setof variables which emerge during the operation of the alliance (ex postvariables). The empirical study investigates a sample of UK partnerfirms in 51 equity joint ventures and 22 nonequity joint ventures withpartners from developed market economies.

Sample 2

TITLE: NATIONAL INFLUENCES ON MULTINATIONALCORPORATION CONTROL SYSTEM SELECTION

Abstract

A conceptual analysis is developed to assess the probability of amultinational corporation’s selection of a subsidiary’s control systemunder various host country environmental conditions. The effect of hostcountry financial policies, cultural distance and political risk on the taskprogrammability and output measurability of a subsidiary manager’saction is assessed.

Contd...

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These antecedent conditions affect the tendency toward an input,behaviour or output control system that a multinational is likely to employfor foreign subsidiaries. The host country factors are operationalisedand synthesised into a three dimensional matrix that prescribesappropriate control system.

Key Results

Findings support a significant relationship between alliance performanceand depth of analysis preceding alliance formation, other long-termrelationships between partners and partner behaviour/ performanceduring the operation of the alliance.

Authors

Keith W. Glaister, Professor of International Strategic Management, LeedsUniversity Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.

Peter J. Buckley, Professor of International Business and Director of theCentre for International Business. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.

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Introductions should be short and arresting and tell thereader why you have undertaken the study. This firstsentence tells you almost everything I have to say and youcould stop here; if you were reading a newspaper, youprobably would and that is why journalists writing a newsstory will try to give the essence of their story in the firstline. An alternative technique used by journalists and authorsis to begin with a sentence so arresting that the reader willbe hooked and likely to stay for the whole piece.

I may mislead by beginning with these journalistic devices,but I want to return to them: scientific writing can usefullyborrow from journalism.

Before sitting down to write an introduction you must haveanswered the basic questions that apply to any piece ofwriting:

What do I have to say?

Is it worth saying?

Objectives


Answer the Basic Questions

Importance of Study Undertaken by You

What Your Work Adds

Sample Introduction

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What is the right format for the message?

What is the audience for the message?

What is the right journal for the message?

If you are unclear about the answers to these questions thenyour piece of writing-no matter whether it’s a news story, apoem, or a scientific paper – is unlikely to succeed. Authorsare often not clear about what they want to say. They startwith some sort of idea and hope that the reader will havethe wit to sort out what’s important. The reader will notbother. Authors also regularly choose the wrong format – aresearch paper rather than a descriptive essay or a longpaper rather than a short one. Not being clear about theaudience is probably the commonest error and specialistsregularly write for generalists in a way that is entirelyinaccessible.

The main job of the introduction is to tell the readers whyyou have undertaken the study. If you set out to answer aquestion that really interested you, then you will have littledifficulty. But if your main reason for undertaking the studywas to have something to add to your curriculum vitae, itwill show. The best questions may arise directly frommanagement practice and, if that is the case, the introductionshould say so.

A patient was anaesthetised for an operation to repair hishernia and asked whether the fact that he used Ecstasy fournights a week would create difficulties. We were unable tofind an answer in published medical reports and so designeda study to answer the question.

Or:

If your audience is interested in the answer to the questionsforwarded by you in introduction then they may well betempted to read the paper and, if you have defined youraudience and selected the right journal, they should beinterested.

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More commonly, you will be building on scientific workalready published. It then becomes essential to make clearhow your work adds importantly to what has gone before.

Editors will not want to publish - and readers will not wantto read - studies that simply repeat what has been doneseveral times before. Indeed, you should not be undertakinga study or writing a paper unless you are confident that itadds importantly to what has gone before.

Usually, it is not so easy to make clear how your study isbetter than previous ones and this is where the temptationarises to give a detailed critique of everything that has evergone before. You will be particularly tempted to do thisbecause, if you are serious about your study, you will havespent hours in the library detecting and reading all therelevant literature. The very best introductions will includea systematic review of all the work that has gone before anda demonstration that new work is needed.

To undertake such a review is clearly a major task, but thisideally is what you should do before you begin a new study.You should then undertake the study only if the questioncannot be answered and if your study can contributesignificantly to producing an answer. You should include abrief account of the review in the introduction. Readers willthen fully understand how your study fits with what has gonebefore and why it is important.

Another important and relevant advance is that managementjournals are beginning to have websites and publishsynergistically on paper and on the Web. This at last opensup the possibility of simultaneously being able to satisfy theneeds of the reader-researcher, who wants lots of detail anddata and the needs of the reader-practitioner, who wants astraightforward message. In the context of introductions,this means that a proper systematic review might bepublished on the Web while the paper version might includea short and simple summary.

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Before beginning a study, authors should seek the help oflibrarians in finding any earlier studies. Authors should alsomake personal contact with people who are experts in thesubject and who may know of published studies that librarysearches do not find, unpublished studies, or studiescurrently under way. It’s also a good idea to find the latestpossible review on the subject and search the references andto look at the abstracts of meetings on the subject. We knowthat library searches often do not find relevant papers thathave already been published, that many good studies remainunpublished (perhaps because they reach negativeconclusions) and that studies take years to conduct andsometimes years to get into published reports.

In a systematic review the search strategy clearly belongsin the methods section, but in an ordinary paper it belongsin the introduction, in as short a form as possible. Thus itmight read:

If you have selected the right audience and a good studythen you need not work hard to convince your readers ofthe importance of the question you are answering. Onecommon mistake is to start repeating material that is in allthe textbooks and that your readers will know. Thus, in apaper on National influences on MNC Control SystemSelection you do not need to tell your readers what Nationaland MNCs are. You might, however, want to give them asense of the scale of the problem by giving the importanceand difficulty of MNC Control, a performance measurementsystem for MNC and its organisation to yield the globalconsistency.

To write an effective introduction you must know youraudience, keep it short, tell readers why you have done thestudy and explain why it’s important, convince them that itis better than what has gone before and try as hard as youcan to hook them in the first line.

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TITLE: PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIPS IN UKINTERNATIONAL ALLIANCES

Keith W. Glaister /Peter J. Buckley

Introduction

Since the mid 1970s, the incidence of alliance formation betweenpartners from advanced industrial economies has accelerated(Anderson 1990, Hergert/Morris 1988, Glaister/Buckley 1994). A majordriving force for alliance formations is the recognition by manymanagements that in an intensely competitive international businessenvironment self-sufficiency will not bring success but that the ability tocompete will be considerably improved with the help of partners (Inkpen1995, p.1). Two contractual forms of alliance can be identified - equityjoint ventures and non-equity joint ventures. Equity joint ventures (EJVs)involve the incorporation of a new company in which two or more partnershold an equity stake Each partner will expect to participate in the decisionmaking activities of the jointly owned entity, will anticipate a proportionalshare of dividend and expect representation on the board of directors(Harrigan 1985, Geringer 1991). Examples include the 50-50 EJVestablished in 1988 between ICI of the UK and Du Pont of the USA inindustrial paint products for the purposes of product development,production and marketing. From ICI’s perspective the venture wasparticularly important in facilitating international expansion and to copemore effectively with a common competitor. From Du Pont’s perspectivethe alliance was particularly important in terms of exchange ofcomplementary technology enabling both product diversification andfaster entry to the market. In 1989 the UK publishing group EMAPestablished a 50-50 EJV with Bayard press of France, for the purposesof product development and marketing. The venture facilitatedinternational expansion for Bayard Press and was particularly importantin enabling fast entry to the UK market. These motives also apply toEMAP which also used the EJV to shape competition through formingthe venture with a potential competitor and the partners together beingmore able to compete against other competitors.

In contrast to EJV’s, non-equity joint ventures (NEJVs) do not involve thecreation of new firms, but undertake formal long-term agreementsbetween partners to co-operate in some way. Employees of the partnerfirms tend to work together directly from their own organisations. WithNEJVs carefully defined rules and formulas one may govern the allocationof tasks, costs and revenues and there is at least a moderate degree ofinter-organisational dependence (Contractor/Lorange 1988). In thefinancial services sector in 1988 the Royal Bank of Scotland establisheda NEJV with Banco Santander of Spain, for the purposes of productdevelopment and marketing. This venture enhanced the range ofproducts for Banco Santander and provided access to the Royal Bank ofScotland’s technology. For the Royal Bank of Scotland the venturefacilitated international expansion and enabled it to gain a presence innew markets. At the end of 1980s the Dalgety Group (through SpillersFoods) established a marketing NEJV with Asahi Breweries of Japan.Asahi Breweries would promote and distribute Spillers’ petfood productsin Japan, thus gaining a new range of products while Spillers would

Contd...

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benefit from fast entry to a new international market. This venture wasterminated within two years of formation, however, due to poorperformance.

The underlying factors that promote successful outcomes in internationalalliances is a relatively unknown area. Saxton (1997, p. 444) points outthat a number of recent reviews (Smith et al. 1995, Varadarajan/Cunningham 1995) reached the same conclusion: “Scholars know littleabout the underlying causes of successful alliances”. Given theincreased emphasis on international alliances as an organisationalform, this paper presents new findings on aspects of alliancecharacteristics and performance in international alliances from a sampleof UK partner firms with alliance partners from developed marketcountries. The basic goal of the paper is to identify relationships betweenmeasures of alliance performance and alliance characteristics.

The remainder of the paper is set out in the following way: Thebackground literature on performance and success factors ofinternational alliances discussed in the following section together withthe research hypotheses. The research methods are set out in the thirdsection. The fourth section presents results and the fifth discussion ofthe findings. Conclusions are in the final section.

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The methods section should describe, in logical sequence,how your study was designed and carried out and how youanalysed your data. This should be a simple task when thestudy is complete. However, if you leave writing the methodsuntil this stage, you may only then recognise flaws in thedesign that you would have detected sooner if you hadwritten this part in as much detail as possible before thestudy started. The challenge of setting down what you intendto do is also a very useful exercise, far better than findingout after months of hard work that you should have used adifferent strategy, measured an additional variable, oranticipated and catered for a predictable requirement.

When readers turn to the methods section, they are lookingfor more than details of the apparatus or assay that you used.They want to know exactly what hypothesis was tested: forexample, that an intervention should result in a particulareffect such as an increase in survival or improvement inoutcome. This is tested by assuming that the null hypothesisis true. The observed results are used to assess how tenable

Objectives


Testing Hypotheses

Statistics

Design

Sample Methods

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this hypothesis can be, that is, the probability that theintervention is without effect. The expression of how smallthis possibility (p value) has to be to disprove the nullhypothesis should be stated clearly as the “missionstatement” of the study. A study of two antibiotics mightcompare cure rate: the null hypothesis is that there is nodifference, using cure as the outcome variable A p value ofless than 0.05 (out of a total probability of 1) implies thatvalues less than this will make the null hypothesis untenable.Many papers merely say, adequately, “p<0.05 was consideredsignificant”.

1. Partner views and attitudes to the management of thealliance will be significantly positively related toalliance performance.

2. Integration of the alliance will be significantly positivelyrelated to alliance performance.

The other side of the coin of probability, often neglected, isthe power of the study. Readers should not be encouragedto believe that, if the null hypothesis has survived yourattempts to destroy its credibility, there is probably nodifference between the groups. This negative outcome maybe either true or false: you have not shown that your methodsare sufficient to test the null hypothesis. First, a truedifference may be present, but it might only be a small one.Second, there may be a difference but the measurementsmight be variable enough to swamp the effect. In both cases,there is a small “signal-to-noise” ratio. Your methods should,if possible, give an estimate of the power of the study todetect what you are looking for, so that the reader can assessthe possibility of a false negative result. This is the b error.The value you choose may depend on factors such as theprecision of the answer needed and the practicalconsequences of an incorrect conclusion, but it is often takenas 0.2, which implies a power of 0.8 to avoid a false negativeresult. In practice, the power of a study depends on the sizeof the effect, the variability of the data and the number ofobservations.

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Always state clearly the a prior hypotheses, if only to be surethat you collect appropriate and relevant data and do thecorrect statistical tests.

Give the exact tests used to analyse the data statistically,with an appropriate reference if the test is not well known.If a computer was used, then give the type of computer, thesoftware and the software version. The choice of statisticaltest depends on the type of data. It may not be clear beforethe data is collected whether parametric tests can be used,in which case the a priori tests should be non-parametric.

The study design can often be described in a few well chosenwords, particularly if it is a description of a layout of thegroups or events. The groups may be independent, allocatedto different treatments and the design is often parallel, eachgroup receiving a different treatment, with both groups beingentered at the same time. In this case comparisons will bebetween groups. Subjects receiving different treatments maybe paired, to reduce the effects of confounding be variablessuch as weight or sex. The effects of a treatment on eachsubject may be assessed before and after; such comparisonsare within subject. The simplest study design is a randomisedparallel design with a comparison of outcome betweengroups.

How the study was designed:

(a) Keep the description brief.

(b) Say how randomisation was done.

(c) Use names to identify parts of a study sequence.

How the study was carried out:

(a) Describe how the subjects were recruited and chosen.

(b) Give reasons for excluding subjects.

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(c) Consider mentioning ethical features.

(d) Give accurate details of materials used.

How the data were analysed:

(a) Use a p value to disprove the null hypothesis.

(b) Give an estimate of the power of the study.

(c) Give the exact tests used for statistical analysis.

A diagram may be helpful if the design of the study is complexor a complicated sequence of interventions is carried out.You can help readers by using explicit names for the separateparts of a study sequence so that they can follow the results;names or even initials are preferable to indicate groups orevents rather than calling these events 3,4,5 and so on.

Test procedures

We tested for the existence of individual relationships between each ofthe hypothesised variables and the two measures of performance byrunning Pearson correlations between the variables. Net, a multipleregression procedure was run to determine which combination of factorspredicted alliance performance. Three regression models weredeveloped: Model 1 included the ex ante variables, Model 2 included theex post variables and Model 3 included both sets of variables. Allianceform and industry group were treated as control variables in theregression procedure.

Research Methods

This study involves UK parents of international alliances with partnerfirms from western Europe, the United States and Japan, formed since1980. A sample frame of alliances was obtained from pressannouncements in the Financial Times. The sample frame was derivedfrom alliances created from the free association of firms and not thoseencouraged by incentives provided by external agents. The qualifyingalliances therefore do not include those organised through governmentagencies, particularly European Community programmes such asESPRIT.

A postal questionnaire was used to gather the data. The specialisednature of the desired information meant that participants had to be seniormanagers who were knowledgeable about the research topic. A set ofsemi-structured interviews with a senior manager from each of eightUK partners helped to shape the form of the final questionnaire. Resultsfrom a pre-test questionnaire confirmed the appropriateness of the datacollection instrument. To enhance the quality of the data, telephone

Contd...

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contact was made with each UK partner to ascertain the name andposition of the most appropriate senior manager to whom thequestionnaire was personally addressed. The questionnaire cited thealliance referred to in the Financial Times of which the UK firm was apartner, but invited the respondent to complete the questionnaire withrespect to another alliance with which they were more familiar, providingthe foreign partner(s) was (were) from either Western Europe, the USAor Japan and that this alliance had been formed since 1980. The requestfor information on the alliance with which the respondent had the mostdetailed knowledge was designed to improve the quality of the data.

The 520 qualifying alliances recorded from the Financial Times involved277 separate UK firms. Several firms proved impossible to contact eitherbecause they had been taken over and restructured or had gone out ofbusiness altogether. Other firms had moved location and could not betraced. In some of the firms contacted there was no longer anyone inemployment with sufficient knowledge to provide the depth of answersthe study required. This left a total of 203 UK partners to whom thequestionnaire was administered in the autumn of 1992. In exchange fortheir participation in the study and to provide motivation and accurateresponses, the respondents were assured of anonymity and werepromised a summary report of the findings. After one reminder, 94 usablequestionnaires were returned, a response rate from 203 mail out of46.3%. About 18% of the returned questionnaires involved allianceswith more than one foreign partner. As Geringer (1991) has pointed outthere may be difficulties associated with analysing multiple partneralliances in that two partner ventures may demonstrate significantdifferences from ventures with three or more partners. Hence this studyonly concerns the single foreign partner alliances. In recognising thatperformance data for very new alliances might not be meaningful,Dussauge/Garrette (1995), for example, reported that experts had difficultyin evaluating the performance of recently established alliances in theaerospace industry, it was decided to analyse only those alliances thathad been in existence for at least one year at the time the data wascollected. The time span of the study is therefore 1980 to 1991.

The sample consists of 75 alliances (51 EJVs and 24 NEJVs). Themajority of alliances were formed with partners from western Europe,followed by the USA and Japan. A total of 48 alliances are in themanufacturing sector and 27 are in the tertiary sector. For the sample ofalliances as a whole, 48 ventures were still in existence (33 EJVs and15 NEJVs), while 27 alliances had been terminated (18 EJVs and 9NEJVs). Alliance termination is independent of contractual form (chi-square statistic = 0.04, d.f.= 1, p>0.85). Of the terminated alliances 16were not considered as failures (12 EJVs and 4 NEJVs) with 11considered as failures (6 EJVs and 5 (NEJVs). Clearly, termination of analliance does not necessarily signify failure. This corresponds withSaxton’s (1997) evidence. Whether the alliance was considered a failureis independent of contractual form (chi- square statistic= 1.22, d.f. = 1,p>0.23). The average duration of all alliances was 4.7 years. The averageduration of surviving (non-terminated) alliances was 5.1 years, while theaverage duration of terminated alliances was 4.1 years.

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1. Does the text describe what question was being asked,what was being tested and how trustworthy themeasurements of the variable under considerationwould be?

2. Were these trustworthy measurements recorded,analysed and interpreted correctly?

3. Would a suitably qualified reader be able to repeat theexperiment in the same way?

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The results section provides the answers to the questionsyou, as the author, pose in the introduction. The answerswill most likely be the ones you were expecting. Sometimesthey will not and you may refute your original ideas.Occasionally something unexpected comes up and you needto report it.

What you must avoid is what any reader, editor, or assessordreads: “The results are presented in Tables I to V and inthe figures.” This does not guide the readers into discoveringwhat you want them to find but actively encourages them tofind things you do not think important. You must lead yourreaders into following your thoughts, usually by using amixture of text, tables and illustrations.

First, you will need to describe the subjects of your studiesin enough detail for the readers to assess how normal orabnormal they were. Readers need to compare these withtheir own subjects. You might have given these details inthe methods section but it is becoming common for thisinformation to appear in the results.

Objectives


The Words

The Statistics

The Tables

The Illustrations

Conclusion

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The next section presents the answers. Start with some text.In general, the readers will follow the text as though it weretelling a story, so start at the beginning and go on logicallyto the end. Use the tables to present the meat of the resultsand to establish the statistical validity of your conclusions.Illustrations should be used for emphasising the importantpoints. The eye and the brain are good at picking up amessage from pictures; working through a mass of numbersis much harder. Remember that both the tables and theillustrations should be capable of standing alone. There mustbe sufficient information associated with them for the readernot to have to refer back to the text. Think that a readermight want to copy them to illustrate the next public lecturewith due acknowledgement! Always use words; add thetables and illustrations when necessary.

Tell the story of how you arrived at the answers. Establishinitially how normal or abnormal your groups were and howcomparable they were. Even with a random allocation intogroups, it is necessary to confirm that they are equivalent.

Having established the baseline, the story can be developedin a number of ways. You might want to show an example ofa typical response and use an illustration. The reader willassume that your typical response is in fact your mostdramatic one but we are all human. Then summarise, in thetext, the answers to your main questions. Give an indicationof the size of any effects and their statistical significance. Inthe discussion, you will deal with the practical as opposedto the statistical significance. If your results do not supportyour original ideas or even refute them, you still need todescribe them.

The final part of the section should illustrate expected/unexpected result. State their statistical significance and leadto a development in the discussion section of what they mean.

Many papers suffer because the statistics are presentedbadly. Many statistical tests can be used, some familiar and

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others more esoteric. Your planning of the study will includethe decision as to which tests to use. You will not have takenthe results to your local statistician to see what can be madeof them. But even with the right tests it is not easy tocondense the results into the space available. But, pleasetry!

You will be able to show a vast amount of data in the tables.In general, do not use the tables you prepare to accompany atalk. Those tables should have been designed for rapidassimilation of key points only by the audience. The key isto make each table deal with a specific problem. Use the firstto describe the general characteristics of your subjects. Usethe remaining ones to give details of the answers.

Good illustrations will get your message across clearly. Themind takes in pictorial information much more quickly thanthe written text. A good illustration will display the dataand lead the reader to think about the substance of the answeryou provide. It can help reveal data at several levels.

The illustration you made for the talk to the learned societyare after useless for the furnace. They will have been madefor rapid assimilation by the audience which you were takingto item. In print, illustrations can contain more detail butalso appear much smaller.

The result section is the easiest one to write. Theintroduction has defined the questions and the methods ofgetting the answers. You should have thought in the designstage how the results will be presented and you will haveplanned the appropriate mixture of text, tables and figures.Remember that the text should tell the story, that the tableswill summaries evidence and that the illustrations will showthe highlights.

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Table 1 reports the means, standard deviations and correlations for thedependent variables, the independent variables (in the orderhypothesised) and the control variables. Although there is a relativelystrong significant correlation between the two independent variablesthe correlation coefficient is considerably less than 1.0. It is clear thatthese two subjective measures of overall performance are capturingdifferent aspects of perceived performance.

In general there are highly significant correlations between Satisfactionand depth of analysis, other long-term relationships, partner views andattitudes to the management of the alliance and behaviour/performanceof the partner. Also in general there are relatively strong significantcorrelations between the Cost-Benefit measure and depth of analysis,whether partners actively compete and behaviour/performance of partner.Each of the significant correlations has the expected sign.

Table 2 displays the results of the multiple regression analyses forcombinations of the independent variables with alliance performanceas the dependent variables. A separate analysis of the control variablesalone (not shown) indicates that his combination of variables is notsignificant (Satisfaction dependent Variable, F = 0.59, R2 = 0.01; Cost-Benefit dependent variable, F =0,13, R2=0.00). With virtually none of thevariance explained by the control variables, the percent of variancereported in Table 3 is explained by the each of the models specified.

Model 1 captures the effects of the ex ante variables on allianceperformance. For Satisfaction as the dependent variable this model isnot significant (F=1.18, R2=0.10). Depth of analysis is the only variablewith a significant coefficient (p<0.05). For Cost-Benefit as the dependentvariable this model is significant at the p<0.01 level (F =3.26, R2=0.23).Coefficients for depth of analysis (p<0.01)

TABLE 1: MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS AND CORRELATIONS

Variable Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1 Satisfaction 3.56 1.32

2 Cost-Benefit 2.41 0.86 0.61**

3 Cultural distance 1.48 1.29 0.04 0.14

4 Previous relationships 0.71 0.46 -0.02 0 -0.25*

5 Depth of analysis 3.91 1.08 0.23* 0.38* 0.05 0.13

6 Partner actively compete

0.41 0.5 -0.09 -0.25* -0.14 0.04 -0.06

7 Other long-term relationships

0.47 0.5 0.25* 0.15 0.06 0.24* -0.01 -0.01

8 Partner views and attitudes

to management of alliance

2.88 0.66 0.29** 0.14 -0.05 0.02 0.24* -0.01 -0.1

9 Behaviour/Performance of partner

1.95 0.66 0.54** 0.55** -0.01 0.14 0.26* -0.18 0.07 0.33**

10 Integration of alliance 0.4 0.49 0.19 0.01 -0.02 0.07 0.02 0.20* -0.07 0.27** 0.15

11 Alliance formaa 0.68 0.47 -0.1 0 0.16 0.11 0.21* -0.12 -0.04 -0.04 -0.01 0.09

12 Industryb 0.64 0.48 -0.08 0.-06 -0.04 -0.04 0.20* 0.12 0.02 -0.01 0.1 0.1 -0.06 0.02

aEquity or nonequity; bManufacturing or teritary;*P<0.05, one-tailed test;**p<0.01, one-tailed test.

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TABLE 3: RESULTS OF REGRESSION ANALYSES.

Variable Model 1 Ex ante

Satisfaction

Model 2 Ex post

Cost-Benefit

Model 3 Full Model

Satisfaction Benefit

Constant 3.00*** 1.59*** 1.05 1.18*** 1.19 0.95*

Cultural distance 0 0.06 -0.01 0.06

Previous relationships -0.08 -0.01 -0.51* -0.24

Depth of analysis 0.33** 0.31*** 0.19 0.26***

Partners actively compete -0.23 -0.43** -0.17 -0.29

Other long-term relationships 0.59** 0.17 0.74*** 0.27

Partner views and attitudes 0.21 -0.05 0.13 -0.15

to management of alliance

Behaviour/performance of partner 0.95*** 0.74*** 0.85*** 0.61***

Integration of alliance 0.31 -0.09 0.53* 0.05

Alliance form -0.54 -0.24 -0.27 0.01 -0.45 -0.15

Industry -0.29 -0.17 -0.3 -0.21 -0.3 -0.25

R2 0.1 0.23 0.39 0.33 0.44 0.46

Adjusted R2 0.02 0.16 0.33 0.27 0.35 0.37

F 1.18 3.26*** 7.04*** 5.46*** 4.77*** 5.16***

N=75; *p<0.10; ** p<0.05; ***p<0.01.

and partner actively compete (p<0.05) are significant. The signs on eachof the significant coefficients in Model 1 are as anticipated.

Model 2 captures the effects of the ex post variables on allianceperformance. For Satisfaction as the dependent variable this model issignificant at the p<0.01 level (F =7.04. R2 =0.39). The coefficients forother long-term relationships (p<0.05) and behaviour/performance ofpartner (p<0.01) are significant. For Cost-Benefit as the dependentvariable this model is significant at the p<0.01 level (F=5.46. R2 =0.33)The coefficient for behaviour/performance of partner is significant(p<0.01). The signs on each of the significant coefficients in Model 2 areas anticipated.

Model 3 is the full model with all the independent variables. This modeloffers a stronger, multivariate test of the hypotheses and allowsexamination of how ex ante and ex post variables simultaneously affectalliance performance. For Satisfaction as the dependent variable thismodel is significant at the p<0.01 level (F =4.77, R2=0.44, adjusted R2

=0.35). Individual coefficients for previous relationships (p<0.10), otherlong-term relationships (p<0.01) are significant. For cost-Benefit as thedependent variable this model is significant at the p<0.01 level ((F=5.16,R2 =0.46, adjusted R2 =0.37). Individual coefficients for depth of analysis(p<0.01) and behaviour/performance of partner (p<0.01) are significant.The signs on each of the significant coefficients in Model 3 are asanticipated.

Considering model fit, it may be seen that a model which includes bothex ante and ex post variables can better explain performance than can amodel that incorporates either set of variables alone. For Satisfaction asthe dependent variable, the full model explains an additional 33 percentof the variance in performance over the model which includes only the exante variables and the full model explains an additional 2 percent of thevariance compared to the model which just includes ex post variables.

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For Cost-benefit as the dependent variable, the full model explains anadditional 21 percent of the variance in performance over the modelwhich includes only the ex ante variables, the full model explains anadditional 10 percent of the variance compared to the model which justincludes ex post variables.

The test procedures offer support for hypotheses Hypothesis 3 (depthof analysis). Hypothesis 5 (other long-term relationships) and Hypothesis7 (behaviour/performance of partner). There is weak support forHypothesis 4 (whether partners actively compete) and Hypothesis 8(integration of the alliance). Correspondingly, the findings do not offersupport for hypotheses Hypothesis 1 (cultural distance), Hypothesis 2(previous relationships) and Hypothesis 6 (partners views and attitudesto the management of the alliance)

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The discussion section, no less than the other parts of thepaper, is an exercise in logic and discipline. It should statethe main findings of the study. It should highlight any aspectof the methods that is less than you aimed for (assuming, ofcourse, that this is not a significant confounding factor). Youshould note previously published findings in the same areaof endeavour and, if necessary, try to explain anyinconsistency between your work and that of others. Finally,find out what are the implications of your findings forpractice or for future research, or both. These aspects arediscussed with the help of imagined examples.

The findings of this paper do indicate that successful allianceoutcomes are predicted in a number of basic factors. The morecarefully and in depth the formation of the alliance is analysedthe greater the likelihood of successful alliance performance.

The two sentences encapsulate the main conclusion of thestudy without repeating the data, which must be confined tothe results section. It is a useful discipline to try to describethe major findings in a sentence or two before starting towrite the manuscript. Among other benefits, this will providean excellent start to the discussion.

Objectives


Previous Work

Discussion Method

Conclusion

Aims of Discussion

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In many cases it is likely that perusal of previouspublications has been the stimulus to the methods for thepresent paper. New technology may have become available,allowing more precise assessment. In a previous publicationor subsequently, flaws in the experimental plan may haveoccurred. The present paper offers a new look at the problem.Sometimes it is appropriate to note a previous study in theintroduction to a paper. That is not a reason for excluding areference in the discussion section, but the repeat referenceshould add something substantial to the narrative.

It is most unlikely that the methods you used in the studywere perfect, so you should present a brief appraisal in thediscussion. This is particularly important if the design ofthe study was unusual; you may need to defend vigorouslythis aspect of the investigation. Hopefully, you will haveimproved on the methods used previously to examine thetopic - this is therefore an opportunity to show your work ina good light and even gently chide rivals on the deficits oftheir work.

If your findings can alter clinical practice, then this shouldbe discussed. Similarly, if the study was non-clinical, thenany basic scientific implications must be mentioned. Mostauthors are unlikely to make a major breakthrough and it isprobable that you have only added another small piece to alarge scientific jigsaw. Even so, it is important to state howour scientific understanding has progressed, albeit verylittle, as a result of your work.

To state the main finding;

To highlight any shortcomings of the methods;

To compare the results with other published findings;

To discuss the implications of the findings.

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The goal of this paper was to identify the relationships betweenmeasures of alliance performance and a set of ex ante and ex postvariables that have a potential effect on alliance performance. From theprior literature four ex ante variables were identified as having a potentialeffect on alliance performance: cultural distance, previous relationshipsbetween the alliance partners, depth of analysis preceding the formationof the alliance and whether or not the partners actively compete. Themost significant findings for this set of variables was the confirmation ofthe importance of depth of analysis prior to alliance formation. Four expost variables were identified as having a potential effect on allianceperformance: other long-term relationships between partners, thepartner’s views and attitudes to the management of the alliance, thebehaviour/performance of the partner and the degree of integration ofthe alliance. The significant findings for this set of variables was theconfirmation of the importance of ongoing long-term relationships andof the behaviour/performance of the partner firm for alliance success.From the models presented, the ex post variables alone explain more ofthe variance in subjective performance than do the ex ante variablesalone, however, the full model incorporating both sets of variables explainsmore of the variance in performance than either of the individual sets ofvariables alone. The findings of this study therefore suggest thatcombination of both ex ante and ex post variables offer superiorexplanatory power for predicting successful performance outcomes ininternational alliances.

A number of caveats must be issued with the findings of the study. Thesubjective measures of alliance performance were obtained from UKpartners. There is clearly a need in future studies to obtain informationfrom both sets of partner firms and where appropriate from alliancemanagers, in order to obtain a consensus view on alliance performance.More crucial for this study is the managers’ opinions of allianceperformance may not be a good measure of the extent to which thealliance has actually met its objectives, particularly if the respondenthas had the responsibility for initiating and managing the alliance. Tothe extent that this is the case the responses may be biased in providinga favourable view of the alliance. It should also be noted that the variablesidentified in this study do not constitute an exhaustive list of the potentialinfluences on the subjective measure of the satisfaction of allianceperformance. There is an important set of variables related to themanagement of the alliance, the discussion of which is beyond thescope of the present paper.

The findings of this paper do indicate that successful alliance outcomesare predicated on a number of basic factors. The more carefully and in-depth the formation of the alliance is analysed the greater the likelihoodof successful alliance performance. Also of crucial importance are themanagement process issues and in particular the ways in which partnerbehaviour and performance reaches expectations. In this context thenexus of relationships between the partner firms especially in terms ofother ongoing long-term relationships serves to enhance allianceperformance. This may be rationalised in terms of the development oftrust between the partners and a corresponding reduction in thepropensity to act opportunistically given the potential hostage position of

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the wider set of relationships between the partners. Further research isclearly needed in this important area, both as an aid to conceptualdevelopment and practice. The way forward to a deeper understandingof alliance performance must be to further develop causal models ofperformance.

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The main text of a scientific paper is usually followed by twoadditional sections namely, the Acknowledgements andReferences.

As to the Acknowledgements, two possible ingredients requireconsideration. First, you should acknowledge any significanttechnical help that you received from any individual, whetherin your laboratory or elsewhere. You should also acknowledgethe source of special equipment, cultures, or other materials.You might, for example, say something like “Thanks are due toJ Jones for assistance with the experiments and to R Smith forthe valuable discussion.” The important element inacknowldgements is simple courtesy.

Second, it is usually the Acknowledgements wherein youshould acknowledge any outside financial assistance, suchas grants, contracts, or fellowships.

1. The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for theirconstructive comments on the earlier versions of this paper.

2. A number of further variables are involved in the relationship of jointventure operations and performance, particularly those relating to

Objectives


How to Write Acknowledgements

Reference Styles

Contd...

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the management of the joint venture. While these variables have abearing on the main topic of this paper they are substantial enoughin themselves to warrant an examination in their own right. Thispaper, therefore, does not consider the joint venture management-performance relationship, however, this relationship is analysed bythe authors for the sample reported here in a separate paper(Glaister/Buckley 1998).

3. It is apparent that this study relies on data collected from one parent.The extent to which data collected from one element of the alliance– one parent or the alliance general manager – represents a reliablemeasure of alliance performance was a topic of concern in the studyby Geringer and Hebert (1991). Geringer and Hebert conclude fromtheir analysis that where it is only possible to obtain responses fromone of the partners. “use of a single respondent per IJV [internationaljoint venture] appears to allow researchers to obtain fairly reliableand efficient data for overall IJV performance” (Geringer/Hebert 1991,pp. 259-261). The findings of Geringer and Hebert provide somejustification for the research method adopted here and confidencein the performance data so obtained.

There are two rules to follow in the References section justas in the Acknowledgements section. First, you should listonly significant, published references. References tounpublished data, abstracts, theses and other secondarymaterials should not clutter up the references for LiteratureCited section.

Second, check all parts of every reference against the originalpublication before the manuscript is submitted and perhapsagain at the galley proof stage.

Journals vary considerably in their style of handlingreferences. There is an almost infinite variety of referencestyles, most journals cite references in one of three generalways that may be referred to as “name and year”, “by numberfrom alphabetical list” and “ by number in order of citation.”

Name and Year System

Beamish, P.W., 1987, Joint Ventures in Less DevelopedCountries: Partner Selection and Performance, ManagementInternational Review, 27, 1, pp.23 – 37.

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Anderson. E., 1990 Two Firms, One Frontier: On AssessingJoint Venture Performance, Sloan Management Review,312,2, pp. 19 – 30.

Beamish, P.W. 1985, The Characteristics of Joint Venturesin Developed and Developing Countries. Columbia Journalof World Business, 20, 3, pp. 13 – 19.

Alphabet- Number System

Anderson. E., 1990 Two Firms, One Frontier: On AssessingJoint Venture Performance, Sloan Management Review,312,2, pp. 19 – 30.

Beamish, P.W., 1987, Joint Ventures in Less DevelopedCountries: Partner Selection and Performance, ManagementInternational Review, 27, 1, pp.23 – 37.

Beamish, P.W. 1985, The Characteristics of Joint Venturesin Developed and Developing Countries. Columbia Journalof World Business, 20, 3, pp. 13 – 19.

Citation Order System

Barkema, H.G./Bell, J.H.J/Pennings, J.M., Foreign Entry,Cultural Barriers and Learning, Strategic ManagementJournal, 17, 1996, pp. 151 – 166.

Anderson. E., Two Firms, One Frontier: On Assessing JointVenture Performance, Sloan Management Review, 312,2,1990 pp. 19 – 30.

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Topic: A comparative study of Argentina and Hongkong’sexperiences with “Currency Board”.

Abstract: In 1991, Argentina adapt a new policy in whichthe currency of Agrentina should be backed and pegged to USdollar by the establishment of a currency board. Afterwards,the economies in Argentina recovered and the inflation,. Fromthis paper I’ll try to find out a reason why the currency boardis useful to treacle the hyperinflation in Argentina.

In the end of 1980s Argentina experienced a very highinflation rate. In 1991, Argentina Government started tomake the Argentina Peso pegged with US dollar. Then, thehyperinflation in Argentina slowed down.

In this paper, I’d like to show that the effects of theestablishment of currency board in Argentina is not the onlyreason to make the hyperinflation slow down in Argentina.Indeed, the most important, is the confidence of people makethe currency board so successful.

In the first part, I’ll first define the setting of a classicalcurrency board and contrast the difference between thequasi-currency board of Argentina with the classical one. Inthe second part, I’ll list out the other factors that make theArgentina currency board so successful. Lastly, in part three,I will try to summarise the idea of currency board and try toconnect the idea of currency with the Monetary Authority ofHong Kong to see if this is practical, or useful, to performthe similar currency board in Hong Kong to due with theproblems arisen from Asian Financial Crisis.

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According the handbook published by IMF, “A currency boardarrangement may be seen as a special; case of a rule-basedmonetary system. Analogous to other spheres of economicdecision-making, it is a system based on rules rather thandiscretion that serves to establish credibility and avoidslosses resulting from decisions that can sometimes beundertaken within a myopic time scale”. What is thesignificant of a currency board? Comparing with CentralBank, a currency board can be characterised.

that it can assure convertibility;

that it can instil macroeconomic discipline;

that it can provide a guaranteed payments adjustmentmechanism;

that because of those three features it createsconfidence in the monetary system and thereforepromotes trade, investment and growth.

In terms of convertibility, a currency board requires the homecurrency to be totally backed by the foreign currency pegged.For instance, Argentina Peso is pegged with US dollar. Allpersons are is eligible to use the home currency to exchangea certain amount of foreign currency with the pegged rate.

In Argentina’s case, the currency board is not the classicaltype. The commercial banks in Argentina have to keep theirforeign reserve in the currency board. If the banks are shortof money, according to the rule of currency board, the bankshave to call back their loans or sell their assets. When thecountry is in fact facing a financial crisis, in this case, theclassical currency board can do nothing but constraint themoney supply or increase the interest rate. Then, the moneymay attract from outside to the country –

Monetary Base/Promised Exchange RateMB $ FR =Stock of Reserve Currency

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In a more technical term, a classical currency should keepat least the same amount of foreign reserve. The MB$FRratio of a classical currency board should be equal to one.Yet, in Argentina’s case, the currency allow the currencyboard have a MB$FR ratio greater than one. In 1995 duringthe Mexico Crisis, the currency board held less than therequired amount of US dollar. On March 30, 1995, the MB$FRratio recorded 1.23.

In this case, we can draw a conclusion that the quasi-currencyboard setting of Argentina give flexibility for it and this ishelpful for Argentina not to devaluate under the Mexicocrisis.

The classical currency board requires a full backing of thecurrency issued. This can give people more confidence asthe all the currency is fully backed. Yet, the flexibility ofArgentina’s currency board may make people have lessconfidence on the currency board of Argentina. This showsthat people give more confidence in the Argentina’s currencyboard when the Mexico crisis arose in 1995.

Second, a currency have a more discipline that the currencyboard does not allow the government to carry outexpansionary fiscal policy if the government cannot borrowfrom public or foreign to finance the fiscal deficit. There areultimately two ways in which fiscal and monetary policy canbe made consistent. One involves a monetary authoritysufficiently powerful to constrain the fiscal authority to abideby a budget constraint where its seigniorage income wouldbe limited by monetary considerations. The other involves amonetary policy that manages the debt resulting from fiscalchosen by the fiscal authority. The key question is whetherlegislating a currency board will guarantee that the fiscalauthority will accept the subservient role assigned to it bythe first of those alternatives. In other words, the currencyboard can stop the fiscal authority from carrying out fiscaldeficit policy, which is harmful if the economy is not capableto pay back the deficit by the surplus in the coming year orthe existing reserve. So, a currency board can give the

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investors confidence that the government will not carry outfiscal deficit policy because of political consideration. Theenvironment of investment is better then.

Also, the currency board arrangement is helpful to slow downinflation rate. This is assumed by the fact that a fixedexchange rate regime will maintain the inflation rate. In somecases it is seen that the fixed exchange rate in a smalleconomy will speed up the inflation rate, Hong Kong is atypical example and the inflation rate is usually higher thanthat of US. Yet, the same phenomenon does not apply toArgentina. This is said that in larger world-wide economy,inflation has a momentum of its own, which, if the inherentinflation was high when the fixed exchange rate was firstestablished, can leave the real exchange rate dangerouslyover-valued before arbitrage pressure bring inflation downto the level in the reserve centre. In fact, the inflation ratecan be maintain as a low level after the currency board carryout its function in Argentina.

Graph 1: Inflation Rate of Argentina from 1981 to 1995

Source: Starr, Pamela K. (1997), “Government Coalition and the Viability of Currency Boards:Argentina under the Cavallo Plan”’ Journal of Interamerican Studies and world Affairs, Vol, 39

Summer 1997, pp. 84

The third advantage of currency board over central bank isthat it can build in a payment adjustment mechanism. Thisis just similar to that in gold standard, the monetaryauthority cannot issue paper money if not sufficient gold

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reserve. Thus, an economy has to decrease the money supplyif the economy has a payment deficit. Decreasing the moneysupply, the interest rate will increase. This can attract moneyto the country. Also, higher interest rate is useful to slowdown inflation and this will improve the current account ofthe economy. If the internal price level is flexible enough,the increase in interest rate will have a pressure to pushthe price level down and the competitiveness of exportablegoods will increase. This will lead to increase in productionof exportable goods and the output level can rise to the fullemployment level.

The last advantage that the currency board can createconfidence so as to promote trade, investment and growthcomes from the above three advantages. All and all, thecritical point of a currency board is the confidence – if peoplehave the confidence that the currency board is competent tofix the foreign exchange rate. This is useful to minimise theexchange rate risk rise by changing in foreign exchange rate– so, more people will invest in the country. Yet, if the peopledo not have the confidence in the currency, both the localresidents and speculators will sell the currency. Noarrangement can solve the problem if no people haveconfidence in the currency and think the currency willdevalue shortly.

The currency board arrangement seems to have so manyadvantages and this is a good method to make people haveconfidence in the currency. Yet, there are somedisadvantages of the currency board. While the commitmentto preserve the parity is an asset in times of currencyinstability, it can become a liability in the presence of largeexchange rate misalignments. This risk can be particularlyserious whether it is difficult to have any firm idea as towhat the appropriate exchange rate should be (such as inpost-chaos economy). While the market may be no moresuccessful than the authorities at initially setting theexchange rate at an appropriate level, a more flexible

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exchange rate regime would enable early errors to becorrected without incurring the costs of credibility.

The drawbacks of the currency board arrangement can besimply divided into two, namely nominal exchange raterigidity and constraints on fiscal policy.

If a currency board arrangement is used to stabilised thecurrency, the currency cannot devalue or abandon thepromised exchange rate as this will entitle a substantial lossof credibility. So, the correction in the real exchange ratemisalignment in a currency board arrangement takes a longtime of tightening liquidity and experiencing highunemployment rate.

Yes, this is especially bad to the countries whose non-tradable sectors are vulnerable. Argentina is a typicalexception in this case. In Argentina, the real exchange rateappreciation following the currency board arrangement’sintroduction was indeed substantial, as inflation, albeitdeclining, continued to be higher than in their main tradingpartners. However, it is unclear whether significant lossesof competitiveness have occurred, as residual inflation mayhave been mainly associated with initially undervaluedexchange rates or a systematic “productivity bias”.

As in the case of bank runs and for similar reasons, currencyboard arrangement, may be vulnerable to bond-ledspeculative attacks if there is a large outstanding stock ofshort-term government debt, even if the current fiscal deficitis sustainable. Thus, in addition to exposing the governmentto debt crisis, failure to sustain the securities market couldalso contribute to banking or payments system crisis whengovernment debt forms an important component of theeconomy’s liquidity.

Undoubtedly, the currency board arrangement is useful toprevent the fiscal authority from overspending and make afiscal deficit without borrowing. For instance, in Argentina,

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the treasurer issues IOUs debt to the public and this can beused as medium of exchange in Argentina. So, thegovernment still can carry out fiscal deficit policy. Even therule of currency board arrangement does not allow the fiscalauthority to borrow from, local entities.

In other words, the IOU debt is used as money in Argentina.Yet, the IOU debt is not backed by US dollar. This makesthe currency board of Argentina more easy to setup as lessforeign exchange is to be kept for the implementation ofcurrency board.

In April 1991, the Argentina government introduced aprogramme to stabilise the currency of Argentina Peso. Asthe graph shown, the programme is successful to fight againstthe high inflation in Argentina. This is also known asArgentina miracle.

The programme is very simple by setup a currency board soas try to stabilise the currency. There are three elements inthe programme: (1) it fixed the value of the Argentinacurrency relative to the US dollar, (2) it established fullconvertibility between the austral (now the peso) and thedollar and (3) it required the Argentina Central Bank tomaintain foreign reserves that would total at least 100% ofthe domestic monetary base. Indeed, the Argentina currencyis not a classical one. The Convertibility Law gives theCentral Bank some flexibility to finance the government’sfiscal deficit.

As I said before, the currency board arrangement is not theonly reason why the hyperinflation in Argentina is keptunder control. Starr argued that the Argentina economy hadeffectively become dollarised following a decade of instabilitycapped off by economic chaos in 1989, monetary confiscationsincorporated into previous stabilisation attempts and theconsequent collapse of confidence among Argentines in theirgovernment’s ability to bring inflation under control. Becauseonly a small supply of pesos remained in circulation, theMenem government was able to back 100% of the domesticmonetary supply with foreign exchange despite the country’s

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limited reserves of foreign exchange. The Argentina firstcancelled all the local time deposits and changed them allinto 10-year, dollar-denominated treasure bonds. TheCentral Bank then used such bonds to pay off the debt withcommercial banks and the commercial banks used such bondsto pay off the debt with public as well. Then, the moneysupply decreased in January 1990. The decrease in moneycan make the interest rate increase and the high interestrate can attract foreign capital inflow. The foreign reservesof Argentina began to accumulate.

In addition, the interest rate of US decreased throughout1991. This reduced the returns in US and investors began tofind a new market for their money. For this Argentina is agood substitute and this will make increased capital inflow.The capital inflow is useful for the reconstruction of theArgentina economy, especially to finance the deficit in thecurrent account and to pay off the foreign debt. Besides, theinflow of capital is invested in the non-tradable goods. Theseinvestment has been very useful to increase the efficiencyin the largest segment of Argentine economy and to reducefuture losses of international competitiveness.

The labour union’s support is another factor that makes thecurrency board successful. The labour union in Argentinahas the power to change the government policy. If the labourunion does not support the currency board, the politicalleaders have to leave their office. In fact, the workerssuffered a lot form the long period of hyperinflation,therefore, they agreed to suffer a short-term pain of thereform of currency board. In addition to the support of labourunion, the military also supported the government byagreeing a budget cut in the military sector. In LatinAmerican, no political leaders can carry out new policywithout the support of the military sector. The currencyboard cannot be carried out without the military sector’sapproval because the spending of the sector will decline afterthe implementation of the currency board.

In short, Argentina’s success in slowing down the inflationrate is not solely due to the implementation of currencyboard. Indeed, the investment environment around

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Argentina, the support from the IMF, as well as the supportfrom both labour union and the military sector contribute alot in the success. In short, thus it the public’s confidencemade that the currency board successful to control thehyperinflation in Argentina.

In Hong Kong, there is a similar currency board system, i.e.,by keep reserves in US dollar. In my opinion, Hong Konghas no reason to follow the experience of Argentina. On onehand, Hong Kong has its own currency board but Hong Kong’scase does not allow a reserve smaller than Hong Kong dollar.On the other hand, Argentina’s currency board is not sopowerful. During the Mexico crisis in 1994, a tequila effectarose in Latin American. Argentina also suffered from thetequila effect. Likewise, the Asian Financial Crisis doesmake Hong Kong’s economy suffer. Thus, a currency boardis not an ultimate solution to deal with macroeconomicproblems. The only method is to increase the competitivenessof economy, to increase the amount of exports. If the surplusin current account is not sufficient to cover the deficit incapital account the currency board may not so helpful.

Other figures showing the success in Argentina’s currencyboard:

Graph 2: Foreign Exchange Reserve of Argentinafrom 1988 to 1996

Source: http://www.netway.at/application/application/english/latin.htm.

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Graph 3: Economic Growth in Argentina

Source: Starr, Pamela K. (1997), “Government Coalition and the Viability of Currency Boards:Argentina under the Cavallo Plan.” Journal of Inter American Studies and world Affairs, Vol. 39,Summer 1997, pp. 85

1. Balino, Tomas J. T. and Charles. Enoch (1997), pp., 1

2. See Williamson, John, (1995), pp. 13

3. The rule make the currency board of Argentina can hasa ME$FR ratio up to 1.25. see Balino, Tomas J.T. andCharles. Enoch (1997) pp. 15

4. Williamson, John, (1995) pp.15

5. Williamson, John, (1995) pp.17

6. Balino, Tomas J.T and Charles. Enoch (1997) pp.11-12

7. Balino, Tomas J.T and Charles. Enoch (1997) pp. 11-19

8. Balino, Tomas J.T and Charles. Enoch (1997) pp. 12-13

9. Balino, Tomas J.T and Charles. Enoch (1997) pp.15

10. Starr, Pamela K. (1997) pp.87

11. Starr, Pamela K. (1997) pp.90

12. The reserve increased from $2.4 billion at the end ofMarch 1991 top over $6 billion at the end of the. SeeStarr, Pamela K. (1997) pp. 92

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1. Balino, Tomas J.T. and Charles. Enoch (1997), “Currencyboard arrangements : issues and experiences”, IMFOccasional paper; 151, Washington, DC : InternationalMonetary Fund, 1997

2. Caprio, Gerald, Jr., Dooley, Michael, Leipziger, Dannyand Carl Walsh (1996), “The Lender of Last ResortFunction under A Currency Board : The Case ofArgentina”, Open Economies Review, Vol. 7, pp. 625-660, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996

3. Hanke Steve H. and Kurt Schuler (1994) “Currencyboards for developing countries : a handbook” Sectorstudies; no 9., San Francisco, Calif. : ICS Press, 1994

4 Hanke, Steve, H (1995), “A Tale of Two Pesos: AComparison of Currency Policies In Mexico andArgentina”, Heritage Lecture No.

http://www.atr.org/heritage/library/categories/theory/lect552.html

5 Judy, Richard W. (1995), “Currency Boards: An IdeaWhose Time Has Come?”, 1995 Center for InternationalPrivate, ENTERPRISEhttp://www.cipe.org/e15/GUEST.HTML

6 Roubini, Nouriel (1998), “The Case Against CurrencyBoards: Debunking 10 Myths about the Benefits ofCurrency Boards”, unreleased paper on into http//www.stern.nyu,edu/-nroubini/asia/CurrencyBoardsRoubini.html

7 Schuler, Jurt, (1992), “Currency Boards”, Dissertation,George Mason University, Firfax, Virginia, 1992, http://www.erols.com/kurrency/webdiss2,html

8 Starr, Pamela K. (1997), “Government Coalition and theViability of Currency Boards: Argentina under theCavallo Plan”, Journal of Interamerican Studies andworld Affairs, Vol. 39, Summer 1997, pp. 83-127

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9 Tang Shu Ki (1996), “The Linked rate system: through1997 and into the 21st Century”, The Other Hong KongReport 1996, edited by Nyaw Mee-Kau and Li Si-ming,Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1996

10 Williamson, John (1995), “What role for currencyboards?”, Washington, D.C. : Institute for InternationalEconomics, 1995

11 Zarazaga, Carlos E. (1995), “Argentina, Mexico andCurrency Boards: Another Case of Rules VersusDiscretion”, The Economic Review, Forth Quarter 1995,Dallas: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 1995

Dr Parag Diwan* and Prof Vinod Dumblekar* *

Distance education is an education concept and methodologythat uses a variety of media in such a manner that its studentsare facilitated to chose the place and time of their learningaccording to their individual circumstances. Diwan (1999)credits the most quoted definition of distance education toProf Borje Holmberg, who says that it includes the variousforms of study at all levels which are not under thecontinuous and immediate supervision of tutors present withtheir students in lecture rooms or on the same premises,but which, nevertheless, benefit from the planning, guidanceand tuition of a tutorial organisation.

As a result of breakthrough advances in information andcommunication technologies, gigantic changes in teachingand learning have taken place and are still taking place. Theyhave such enormous capacity to transform various aspectsof DL that the new education concept can rightly be called

* Dean & Director, AIMA - Centre for Management Education** Head – Games & Membership, All India Management Association

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and recognised as Instant Learning (IL). Although many ofthese changes are largely in consequence of advances ininformation and communication technologies, they would alsohave been influenced by social and cultural factors, businessenvironment and global events. To understand the need forthis paradigm shift, it is important to observe and appreciatethe characteristics of such change from different points ofview.

Not only the profile of the student but also the entire systemof education has steadily seen a paradigm shift, over theyears. Diwan (1999) identifies and explains some of thereasons for the origination of DL. In India, more studentshave taken to education due to many reasons:

They had to discontinue their formal education due topersonal and other circumstances.

They were in geographically remote areas.

They had discontinued their education earlier due tolack of motivation and aptitude, but had regainedsufficient interest after sometime.

They were unable to find an institution to learn from.

They do not wish to join a formal institution due to therigours of conventions and rules of that institution.

They look upon education as a life long activity.

Peters (1999) lists some of the social factors behind theparadigm shift.

More and more adults have taken to education, resultingin the concept called Lifelong learning. In turn, we seecontinuing education, adult education and distanceeducation.

Elitist education has given way to egalitarian educationand class education has surrendered to mass education.Open schools and universities and trends to mass highereducation are the evidences of this factor.

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The average student of today is no more the young malestereotype bachelor of yesterday, who went to college.The new student could be one who is employed, is olderand perhaps a family man or woman with children andhe would study at home.

The nature of education has shifted from generalisededucation to professional education and the purpose hasbeen to meet the demands of industry and theprofessions.

Earlier, a person’s education would ensure social status,but today, it would have to prepare the student foremployment and a career.

New ways of thinking now influence our behaviour, thatpervade our humanities, literature, arts, philosophy, scienceand social sciences. A huge shift of values has taken place,where the new individual is rarely satisfied with his currentstatus and yearns for more. Peters (1999) states that we arenot in the modern era any more, but on the threshold of apost-modern era, where the consciousness of the man in thestreet, especially highly industrial countries, isdistinguished by these traits:

rejects delayed gratification (i.e., wants instantsatisfaction);

is not ready to endure duress, but has developed acapacity for joy;

refuses to do empty routine work, but desires to dosomething meaningful;

is more interested in the fulfilment of human valuesthan in that of materialistic objectives;

does not seek achievement, but self-realisation;

does not like self-control, but self-expression;

rejects competition and is interested in a good workclimate;

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does not want to become isolated, but is interested insocial relations and interactivity.

The purpose of business has always been based on makinga surplus for the firm in the short run and (especially forthe profit making firm), maximising its wealth, in the longterm. In a market economy, the customer remains supreme,unless the firm innovates constantly and keeps thecustomer’s interest always in focus. Globally, Microsoft, 3Mand Sony and in India, Aiwa and Akai, Ranbaxy and (now)Maruti are vivid examples that confirm the need forindustry and business to remain ahead of the customer. Thebusiness logic of the yesteryears is woefully inadequate forthe coming millennium. Venkatraman (1994) said itsuccinctly that the emerging business environment beyond1990s called for a strategy based on three intertwinedelements: low cost, high quality and fast and flexibleresponse to customer needs.

Globalisation has tended to mean many things to manypeople. Political events such as the now forgotten break upof the Soviet Union and the merger of two German nationStates and the emergence of the World Trade Organisationover the erstwhile UNCTAD have shaken up the World. TheEast Asian economic crisis left the financial, property andstock markets of countries like Indonesia, South Korea, HongKong, Malaysia and Thailand shattered and their economiesdestroyed. The Euro was launched, seeking to unify Europeancountries across a common currency. And back home in India,we experienced the effects of liberalisation that was initiatedearly this decade: fewer Government controls, a rapidlyexpanding market and burgeoning middle class. Futurist andTrend forecaster Naisbitt (1995) aptly stated that as theglobal economy shifted from an industrial past to its fullpotential of the information-based future, the key toproductivity would not be inexpensive labour but the bestuse of high technology.

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Gunawardene (1999) firmly states that even the smallest,the most distant or remote society would fail to escape theneeds of worldwide interdependence and globalisation inthe 21st century. He acknowledges that the major force thathas quickened the concept of the Global village is theadvancement of information and communicationtechnologies. The potential for the application of thesetechnologies in education would be virtually unlimited.Mechanisation of education can easily be overdone, forperhaps, more profit. He warns that new technologies cannotbe imposed on an underdeveloped infrastructure and thatfunds are required not only for fresh investments, but alsofor maintenance of the momentum of the initiatives.

He lists those technologies that impact on education – andare relevant to IL – as:

Computers

Cable and satellite TV and broadcasting

Multimedia equipment

Interactive exchange systems such as E-mail, onlinelibraries and public databases

Computerised simulations

Virtual reality systems

Some of these technologies have been adopted by EMRC,Pune, Jamia Millia University, IGNOU, Zee TV/NarseeMonjee Institute and AIMA.

Nyondo (1999) quotes JC Taylor (1997) who offers a moredetailed classification of the models of distance educationand associated delivery technologies:

First Generation – the Computer Model

Print

Second Generation – the Multimedia Model

Print

Contd...

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Audiotape

Videotape

Computer based learning

Interactive video (disk and tape)

Third Generation – the Telelearning Model

Audioteleconferencing

Videoteleconferencing

Audiographic communication

Broadcast TV/Radio and Audioteleconferencing

Fourth Generation – the Flexible Learning Model

Interactive multimedia

Internet based access to (World Wide Web) WWW resources

Computer mediated communication

The fundamental issue of the student could be forgotten,under the glare of the internet and the WWW. He suggeststhat the student’s access to the media should be offundamental concern. He reports that British Columbia’sLearning Agency listed four features that would allow peopleto predict the most effective media:

Accessibility: the media should have reach into thestudents’ homes and be cost-effective.

Convenience: the student should be able to use themedium at his convenience without much additionaltraining

Academic control: The teacher must be able to able touse the media to design and prepare the textualmaterial, on his own.

Human touch: The student must be able to relate tothe teacher through the medium.

Keegan (1986) lists some of the key variables that shouldinfluence of choice of media in distance education as follows:

Pedagogic effectiveness

Costs

Political influences

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Research pressures

Student access

Privatisation of living

The gains of technology-led education are many and obvious(Gunawardena, 1999):

The reach is enormous, ideally for large populationsdistributed over large geographical territories;

The unit costs are low;

The penetration is quick;

The contents and quality are uniformly good;

Students have gained from the flexibility of delivery.

Slow learners and reluctant students have been inspiredinto more learning;

Teachers have been facilitated by the computer basedtechnology.

A major problem in adopting educational technologies is therapid pace of technological change and the consequent rapidobsolescence of investments in IT equipment. Injudiciousexpenditure would inconvenience institutions, who mustkeep away from leading edge technologies that needadequate testing. Butler and Zwimpfer (1997) recommend anational advisory body to study such issues, on the lines ofUK’s National Council of Educational Technology. There isa call for the recognition of these technologies as ver versatilenew tools that would help students, if properly used. Only amastery of the use of these tools would help equip thestudents with invaluable skills for their chosen careers.

Bordes (1999) suggests that learning through WWW couldbe better understood if a few facts were acknowledged:

Education is a life-long quest.

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Technology is expensive and would evolve rapidly.

There is no proof that computers can improve learning.

People prefer to learn through discovery andparticipation.

She then warns that the WWW has emerged as one of themany tools for educators, (having made the CD-ROMsobsolete) there was no proof that learning can be improvedwith its use.

Kuruba (1999) quotes from Adekanmbi’s (1996) paper, whichidentified two kinds of problems. For the learner,

His feelings of isolation;

Their staleness after they enter the programmes;

The perception by some that the programmes are ofinferior quality;

The high dropout rate in some programmes.

At the level of policy planning and implementation,

The unwillingness on the part of policy makers andthose in authority to release the grant funds as and whenneeded;

The occasional lack of understanding of the objectivesof the programmes by those in authority;

The delay in the writing, production and delivery ofcourse materials;

The inability of the other sections of the institution tomeet the support services needs of the students;

The disruption of academic activities in the regularprogramme which may cause shifts in the agreed dateswith students;

IL must forego the traditional tools used in conventionaleducation. Blackboard and chalk, cinema, slide and overhead

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(OHP) projectors have limited the reach of the teacher andrestricted him within the confines of his classroom. Theprimary emphasis of educational technology would belearning and not teaching (Parhar, 1999).

Pedagogical tools such as the study guides and paper basedassignments used in conventional DL will also need to bescrapped to cope in favour of IL. Other aids about to becomeextinct are audio and videocassettes and computer basedfloppies.

The IT-enabled versions of DL would use CD-ROMs totransfer information in the form of text, graphics and soundfrom teacher to students. The VSAT and satellite has madeinteractive discussions possible on a global scale.

The use of education television and radio as cheaperalternatives for high cost IT has also been noticed. Thesetwo aids make available audience responses via telephoneand facsimiles. However, Bansal and Chaudhry (1999) arguein favour of radio broadcasting, which offers InteractingRadio Instruction (IRI) for many reasons:

Wide reach among the masses;

More affordable medium;

Transcends literacy;

Present in remote and hilly terrain ;

Uses low technology;

The less intrusive radio medium allows the listener toperform other activities while listening to radioprogramme;

Can be used for localised applications and cater to thespecific needs of learners in the selection of topics,programming, etc.;

Allows the listener to develop the story line in terms ofhis cultural backgrounds.

However, they also pointed out its many limitations, beingthe outcome of other research:

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Once broadcast, the message was lost unless it had beenrecorded in some form;

Broadcasts are at fixed times, which goes against thenorms of flexibility, transportability and user control;

They are aimed at an average target group and areunable to address the unique needs of individuallisteners;

The listener is forced to create, for himself, a picture ofthe subject matter, which could lead to a gap betweenthe illusion and the reality;

The new dimensions of IL will demand new behaviour fromits two principal parties. Hall (1996) anticipates that thespotlight would shift from faculty productivity to studentproductivity and student learning styles would be of morethan teaching styles. The shift of interest would be clearlyin favour of the student and be essentially in terms of whathe needs to learn.

Peters (1990) foresees that the IL students will become self(or autonomous) learners. They would need to learn manyother things as well, such as:

To search, retrieve and manage data;

To chose from wide variety of data sources and multipleforms;

To browse, navigate and follow in hypertext;

To use models and simulations;

To collaborate with other students in a knowledge-building community;

To communicate with other students, on-line, for virtualclasses and seminars.

The IL teacher will need to become a tutor, a counsellor or afacilitator, in the first stage. In the next, they should be ableto design and prepare hypertext and hypermedia

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programmes. Their ultimate objective would be to make thestudents independent and self regulated learners. Theteacher must become an agent of change in the system andassume responsibility for the student’s learning success.

Despite initial hiccups and some bottlenecks, Indian telecominfrastructure has improved, substantially. The Governmentis also aware of the effect of IT on the economy and hasestablished separate committees and departments withinministries to focus on the onerous task of creating supportivepolicies. Yet, the infrastructure has a long way to go, beforereaching international standards. Prohibitive computer costshave discouraged most prospects. The private sector hasresponded eagerly to cater to the burgeoning population of300,000 internet users in the country. Cyber Cafés and AccessPoints have helped.

DL has grown in this country at an astonishing rate of 28%p.a. since the ‘70s. With the Indian population exceeding 1billion, it is the second largest country in the world. Educatingthis mass presents a challenge and an opportunity to theGovernment and our educational institutions.

Despite its weaknesses and problems, the new IT, theInternet is clearly the strongest and most accepted platformof IL. Education and information now transcendsgeographical and political barriers to reach the home of everykind of student anywhere in the world. The new Internetinitiatives offer consistent standards of quality and educationwould be available on-line. The All India ManagementAssociation has launched management education throughthe Internet via www.aimauniv.net. The pioneer in DL inmanagement has now become a pioneer in IL. The first fewsteps for the transition from DL to IL in India have beentaken.

Bansal, Kiron and Chaudhry, Sohanvir S (1999) InteractiveRadio for supporting Distance Education, Indian Journal ofOpen Learning, 61-71.

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Bordes, Nicole (1999) Reflection about the role of InformationTechnology in education, http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/uniserve/bordes.html.

Butler, GW and Zwimpfer L (1997) Impact 2001: Learningwith IT: The Issues, http://www.moc.govt.nz.itag/publish.htm.

Diwan, Parag (1999) Professional Education throughDistance Mode, Organisational Management, April-June, Vol.XV, No 1, 7-10, 23.

Gunawardena, Chandra (1999) Using Technology for QualityImprovement, Indian Journal of Open Learning, 73-78.

Hall, J W (1996) Report of the Task Force of the InternationalCouncil on Distance Education, Standing Committee ofPresidents, Norway.

Keegan, D (1986) Foundations of Distance Education,London, Croom Helm.

Kuruba, Gangappa (1999) Distance Education in Botswana,Indian Journal of Open Learning, 39-47.

Naisbitt, John (1995) Megatrends Asia, Nicholas Brealey,London.

Nyondo andrew Chola (1999) Educational Media in Open andDistance Learning, Indian Journal of Open Learning, 103-108.

Parhar, Madhu (1999) Pedagogical Analysis of InstructionalMaterial in School Education, Indian Journal of OpenLearning, 85-101.

Peters, Otto (1999) The Paradigm Shift in Distance Educationand its Meaning for Teacher Training, Indian Journal of OpenLearning, Vol. 8, No 1, 5-17.

Venkatraman, N (1994) IT-Enabled BusinessTransformation: From Automation to Business ScopeRedefinition, Sloan Management Review, Winter, 73-87.

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The choices of where and how to submit the manuscript areimportant. Some manuscripts are buried in inappropriatejournals. Others are lost, damaged, or badly delayed becauseof carelessness on the part of the author.

The first problem is where to submit the manuscript.Obviously, your choice depends on the nature of your work;you must identify those journals that publish in your subjectarea.

A good way to get started or to refresh your memory is toscan a recent issue of Current Contents. It is usually easy todetermine, on the basis of journal titles alone, which journalsmight publish papers in your field. Only by examination ofthe tables of contents, however, you can determine whichjournals are publishing papers in your field. You may alsoelicit useful information by talking to colleagues.

To identify which journals might publish your manuscript,you should do several things: Read the masthead statement(a statement, usually on the “title page” at the front of theissue, giving the name of the journal, the publisher and a

Objectives


Choosing the Journal

Factors Determine the Selection of Journal

Packaging and Mailing

Cover Letter

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brief statement of purpose) in a current issue of each journalyou are considering; read the “scope” paragraphs that areusually provided in the Instructions to Authors; and lookcarefully at the table of contents of a current issue.

If you submit your manuscript to a wrong journal, then oneof three things may happen and all are bad.

First, your manuscript may simply be returned to you, withthe comment that your work “is not suitable for this journal.”Often, however, this judegment is not made until after thereview of the manuscript. A “not suitable” notice after weeksor months of delay is not likely to make you happy.

Second, your manuscript may receive poor or unfair review,because the reviewers (and editors) of that journal may beonly vaguely familiar with your specialty area. You may besubjected to the trauma of rejection, even though themanuscript would be acceptable to the right journal. Or youcould end up with a several over suggested revisions, whichyou do not agree with and which do not improve yourmanuscript. And, if your manuscript really does havedeficiencies, you will not be able to benefit from the soundcriticism that would come from the editors of the rightjournal.

Third, even if your paper is accepted and published, yourglee will be short-lived if you later find that your work isvirtually unknown because it is buried in a publication thatyour peers do not read.

If several journals are right, does it matter which you select?Perhaps it shouldn’t but it does. There is the matter ofprestige. It may be that your future progress (promotions,grants) will be determined solely by the numbers game. Butnot necessarily. It may well be that a wise old bird sitting onthe faculty committee or the grant review panel willrecognise and appreciate quality factors. A paper publishedin a “garbage” journal simply does not equals a paperpublished in a prestigious journal. In fact, the wise old birdmay be more impressed by the candidate with one or two

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solid publications in a prestigious journal than by thecandidate with ten or more publications in second-ratejournals.

How do you tell the difference? It isn’t easy and of coursethere are many gradations. In general, however, you can formreasonable judgements by just a bit of bibliographic research.You will certainly know the important papers that haverecently been published in your field. Make it your businessto determine where they were published. If most of the realcontributions to your field were published in Journal A,Journal B and Journal, C, you should probably limit yourchoices to those three journals. Journals D, E and F, uponinspection, contain only the lightweight papers, so each couldbe eliminated as your first choice, even though the scope isright.

You may then choose among Journals A, B and C. Supposethat Journal A is a new, attractive journal published by acommercial publisher as a commercial venture, with nosponsorship by a society or other organisation; Journal B isan old, well-known, small journal, published by a famoushospital or business and Journal C is a large journalpublished by the principal scientific society representingyour field. As a general rule (although there are manyexceptions), Journal C (the society journal) is probably themost prestigious. It also will have the largest circulation(partly because of quality factors, partly because societyjournals are less expensive than most others, at least to thesociety members). By means of publication in such a journal,your paper may have its best chance to make an impact onthe community of scholars at whom you are aiming. JournalB might have almost equal prestige, but it might have a verylimited circulation, which would be a minus; it might also bevery difficult to get into, if most of its space is reserved forin-house material. Journal A (the commercial journal) almostcertainly has the disadvantage of low circulation (because ofits comparatively high price, which is the result of both theprofit aspect of the publisher and the fact that it does nothave the backing of a society or institution with a built-insubscription list). Publication in such a journal may resultin a somewhat restricted distribution for your paper.

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Be wary of new journals, especially those not sponsored bya society The circulation may be minuscule and the journalmight fail before it and your paper become knowns to thescientific world.

If you want to determine the comparative circulation ofseveral journals, there is an easy and accurate way to do it.Look among the last few pages of the November andDecember issues and you will find a “Statement of Ownership,Management and Circulation.” The Postal Service requiresthat each publisher is granted second-class mailingprivileges (and almost all scientific journals qualify) file andpublish an annual statement. This statement must includebasic circulation data.

Another factor to consider is frequency of the journal. Thepublication lag of a monthly journal is almost always shorterthan that of a quarterly journal. Assuming equivalent reviewtimes, the additional delay of the quarterly will range up 2or 3 months. And, since the publication lag, including thetime of editorial review, of many (probably most) monthliesranges between 4 and 7 months, the lag of the quarterly islikely to run up to 10 months. Remember, also, that manyjournals, whether monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly, havebacklogs. It sometimes helps to ask colleagues what theirexperience has been with the journal(s) you are considering.If the journal publishes “received for publication” dates, youcan figure out for yourself what the average lag time is.

Prestige, circulation and frequency are all important, butwhat audience are you trying to reach? If you are reportinga fundamental study in organisational behaviour, you shouldof course try to get your paper published in a prestigiousinternational journal. On the other hand, suppose your studyrelates to an Indian business and organisational issues. Inthat situation, publication in Sloan Management Review willnot reach your audience, the audience that needs and can

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use your information. You should publish in an appropriateIndian Journal, probably Vikalpa or Indian Management.

After you have decided where to submit your manuscript,do not neglect the nitty-gritty of sending it in.

How do you wrap it? Carefully. Many manuscripts are lost,badly delayed, or damaged in the mail, often because ofimproper packaging. Do not staple the manuscript. Damagecan result either from the stapling or from later removal of thestaples. Giant paperclips are preferable. (Special note: Alwaysretain at least one hard copy of the manuscript even if youmaintain the manuscript in a computer file. Some journals, bythe way, are now asking authors to submit a computer diskalong with one or more hard copies of the manuscript).

Use a strong manila envelope or even a reinforced mailingbag. Whether or not you use a clasp envelope, you will bewise to put a piece of reinforced tape over the sealed end.Make sure that you apply sufficient postage and that yousend the package by courier.

Most scientific journals do not require that authors supplystamped, self-addressed return envelopes, although mostjournals in other scholarly fields do enforce such arequirement. Apparently, the comparative brevity ofscientific manuscripts makes it cost-effective for publishersto pay return postage rather than store many bulkyenvelopes. Overseas mail should be sent airmail.

Finally, it is worth noting that you should always send a coverletter with the manuscript. Manuscripts without coverletters pose immediate problems: To which journal is themanuscript being submitted? Is it a new manuscript, arevision requested by an editor (and, if so, which editor?), ora manuscript perhaps misdirected by a reviewer or aneditor? The address is of special importance, because theaddress shown on the manuscript may not be the currentaddress of the contributing author. The contributing author

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should also include his or her telephone number and faxnumber in the cover letter or on the title page of themanuscript. Be kind to the editor and state why you havesubmitted that particular package.

Dear Dr.

Enclosed are two complete copies of a manuscript by P.S.Gandhi and Akhter, S.A. titled “Economic value Added andshareholder wealth- An empirical study”, which is beingsubmitted for possible publication in the IndianManagement.

This manuscript is new, is not being considered elsewhereand reports new findings that extend results were reportedearlier in The Journal of Management Science (145:112-117,1992).

Sincerely,

P.S. Gandhi

Most journals send out an “acknowledegment of receipt” formletter when the manuscript is received. If you know that thejournal does not, attach a self-addressed postcard to themanuscript, so that the editor can acknowledge receipt. Ifyou do not receive an acknowledgement in two weeks, callor write the editorial office to verify that your manuscriptwas indeed received.

The mails being what they are and busy editors and reviewersbeing what they are not concerned if you do not receive adecision within one month after submission of themanuscript. Most journal editors, at least the good ones, tryto reach a decision within 4 to 6 weeks or, if there is to befurther delay for some reason, provide some explanation tothe author. If you have had no word about the disposition ofyour manuscript after 6 weeks have elapsed, it is not at allinappropriate to send a courteous inquiry to the editor. Ifno reply is received and the elapsed time becomes 2 months,a personal phone call may not be out of place.

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The best way to organise a paper for oral presentation is toproceed in the same logical pathway that one usually doesin writing a paper, starting with “what was the problem?”and ending with “what is the solution?” However, it isimportant to remember that oral presentation of a paperdoes not constitutes publication and therefore different rulesapply. The greatest distinction is that the published papermust contain the full experimental protocol, so that theexperiments can be repeated. The oral presentation,however, need not and should not contain all of theexperimental detail. Extensive citation of the literature isalso undesirable in an oral presentation.

Most oral presentations are short (with a limit of 10 minutesat many meetings). Thus, even the theoretical content mustbe trimmed down relative to that of a written paper. Nomatter how well organised, too many ideas too quicklypresented will be confusing. You should stick to your mostimportant point or result and stress that. There will not beenough time for you to present all your other neat ideas.

Objectives


Organisation of the Paper

Presentation of the Paper

The Audience

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There are, of course, other and longer types of oralpresentations. A typical time allotted for symposiumpresentations is 20 minutes. A few are longer. A seminar isnormally one hour. Obviously, you can present more materialif you have more time. Even so, you should go slowly,carefully presenting a few main points or themes. If youproceed too fast, especially at the beginning, your audiencewill lose the thread; the daydreams will begin and yourmessage will be lost.

At small, informal scientific meetings, various types of visualaids may be used. Overhead projectors, data projectors flipcharts and even blackboards can be used effectively. At mostscientific meetings, however, 35-mm slides are the linguafranca. Every researcher should know how to prepareeffective slides, yet attendance at almost any meetingquickly indicates that many do not.

Here are a few of the considerations that are important.First, slides should be designed specifically for use with oralpresentations. Slides prepared from graphs that were drawnfor journal publication are seldom effective and often arenot even legible. Slides prepared from a typewrittenmanuscript or from a printed journal or book are almost nevereffective. It should also be remembered that slides shouldbe wide rather than high, which is just the opposite of thepreferred dimensions for printed illustrations. In addition,screens are normally wider than they are high. Thus,horizontally oriented slides are usually preferable.

Second, slides should be prepared by professionals or at leastwith the use of professional equipment. Slides prepared withstandard typewriters are almost never effective; thelettering is simply too small. Word processing is fine if alarge type size is selected but powerpoint is well suited forslides. Your graphs will no doubt be generated by computer.

Third, it should be remembered that the lighting in meetingrooms is seldom optimum for slides. Contrast is thereforeimportant.

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Fourth, slides should not be crowded. Each slide should bedesigned to illustrate a particular point or perhaps tosummarise a few. If a slide cannot be understood in 4 seconds,it is a bad slide.

Fifth, get to the hall ahead of the audience. Check theprojector, the advance mechanism and the lights. Make surethat your slides are inserted in the proper order and inproper orientation. There is no need for and no excuse for,slides that appear out of sequence, upside down, or out offocus.

Normally, each slide should make one simple, easilyunderstood visual statement. The slides should supplementwhat you are saying at the time the slide is on the screen;the slide should not simply repeat what you are saying. Andyou should never read the slide text to the audience; to doso would be an insult to your audience, unless you areaddressing a group of illiterates.

Slides that are thoughtfully designed and well prepared cangreatly enhance the value of a scientific presentation.

The presentation of a paper at a scientific meeting is a two-way process. As the material being communicated at ascientific conference is likely to be the newest availableinformation in that field, both the speakers and the audienceshould accept certain obligations. As indicated above,speakers should present their material clearly and effectivelyso that the audience can understand and learn from theinformation being communicated.

Almost certainly, the audience for an oral presentation willbe more diverse than the readership of a scientific paper.Therefore, the oral presentation should be pitched at a moregeneral level than would be a written paper. Avoid technicaldetails. Define terms. Explain difficult concepts. A bit ofredundancy can be very helpful.

For communication to be effective, the audience also hasvarious responsibilities. These start with simple courtesy.

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The audience should be quiet and attentive. Speakersrespond well to an interested, attentive audience, whereasthe communication process can be virtually destroyed whenthe audience is noisy or, worse, asleep.

The best part of an oral presentation is often the questionand answer period. During this time, members of theaudience have the option, if not the obligation, of raisingquestions not covered by the speakers and of brieflypresenting ideas or data that confirm or contrast with thosepresented by the speaker. Such questions and commentsshould be stated courteously and professionally. In short,the speaker has an obligation to be considerate to theaudience and the audience has an obligation to be considerateto the speaker.

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A review paper is not an original publication. On occasions,a review will contain new data (from the author’s ownresearch) that have not yet appeared in a primary journal.However, the purpose of a review paper is to reviewpreviously published literature and to put it into some kindof perspective.

A review paper is usually long, typically ranging between 10and 50 printed pages. The subject is fairly general, comparedwith that of research papers. And the literature review is,of course, the principal product. However, the really goodreview papers are much more than annotated bibliographies.They offer critical evaluation of the published literature andoften provide important conclusions based on that literature.

The organisation of a review paper is usually different fromthat of a research paper. Obviously, the Materials andMethods, Results, Discussion arrangement cannot readilybe used for the review paper. Actually, some review articlesare prepared more or less in the IMRAD format; for example,they may contain a Methods section describing how theliterature review was done.

Objectives


Characteristics of a Review Paper

Types of Reviews

Writing for Audience

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If you have previously written research papers and are nowabout to write your first review, it might help youconceptually if you visualise the review paper as a researchpaper. For this, greatly expand the Introduction; delete theMaterials and Methods (unless the original data is beingpresented); delete the Results; and expand the Discussion.

Actually, you have already written many review papers. Informat, a review paper is not very different from a well-organised term paper or thesis.

As in a research paper, however, it is the organisation of thereview paper that is important. The writing will almost takecare of itself if you can get the thing organised.

Unlike for research papers, there is no prescribedorganisation for review papers. Therefore, you will have todevelop your own. The cardinal rule for writing a reviewpaper is prepare an outline.

The outline must be prepared carefully. The outline willassist you in organising your paper, which is all-important.If your review is organised properly, the overall scope ofthe review will be well defined and the integral parts willfit together in logical order.

Obviously, you must prepare the outline before you startwriting. Moreover, before you start writing, it is wise todetermine whether a review journal (or primary journal thatalso publishes review articles) would be interested in sucha manuscript. Possibly, the editor will want to limit or expandthe scope of your proposed review or to add or delete certainof the subtopics.

Not only is the outline essential for the preparation of thereview, it is also very useful to potential readers of the review.For that reason, many review journals print the outline atthe beginning of the article, where it serves as a convenienttable of contents for prospective readers.

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Before actually writing a review, you also need to determinethe critical requirements of the journal to which you plan tosubmit the manuscript. Some journals demand criticalevaluation of the literature, whereas others are moreconcerned with bibliographic completeness. There are alsomatters of organisation, style and emphasis that you shouldhave in mind before you proceed very far.

By and large, the old-line review journals prefer, a and somedemand, authoritative and critical evaluations of thepublished literature on a subject. Many of the “book” series(“Annual Review of,” “Recent Advances in,” “Yearbook of,”etc.), however, publish reviews designed to compile and toannotate but not necessarily to evaluate the papers publishedon a particular subject during a defined time period. Someactive areas of research are reviewed yearly. Both of thesetypes of review papers serve a purpose, but the differentpurposes need to be recognized.

At one time, review papers tended to present historicalanalyses. In fact, the reviews were often organised inchronological order. Although this type of review is now lesscommon, one should not deduce that the history of sciencehas become less important. There is still a place for history.

Today, however, most review media prefer either “state ofthe art” reviews or reviews that provide a new understandingof a rapidly moving field. Only the recent literature on thesubject is catalogued or evaluated. If you are reviewing asubject that has not previously been reviewed or one in whichmisunderstandings or polemics have developed, a bit morecoverage of the historical foundations would be appropriate.If the subject has been effectively reviewed before, thestarting point for your review might well be the date of theprevious review (not publication date, but the actual dateup to which the literature has been reviewed). And, of course,your review should start out by citing the previous review.

Another basic difference between review papers and primarypapers is the audience. The primary paper is highly

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specialised and so is its audience. The review paper willprobably cover a number of these highly specialised subjects,so that the review will be read by many peers. The reviewpaper will also be read by many people in related fields,because the reading of good reviews is the best way to keepup in one’s broad areas of interest. Finally, review papersare valuable in the teaching process, so that the student useis likely to be high. (For these reasons, by the way, orderplenty of reprints of any review paper you publish, becauseyou are likely to be inundated with reprint requests.)

As the review paper is likely to have a wide and variedaudience, your style of writing should be much more generalthan it need be for a research paper. Jargon and specialisedabbreviations must be eliminated or carefully explained Yourwriting style should be expansive rather than telegraphic.

Readers are much influenced by the Introduction of a reviewpaper. They are likely to decide whether or not to readfurther on the basis of what they find in the first fewparagraphs (if they haven’t already been repelled by thetitle).

Readers are also influenced by the first paragraph of eachmajor section of a review, deciding whether to read, skim,or skip the rest of the section depending on what they findin the first paragraph. If “first paragraphs” are well written,all readers, including the skimmers and skippers, will beable to achieve some degree of comprehension of the subject.

Importance of Conclusions

Because the review paper covers a wide subject for a wideaudience, a form of “conclusions” is a good component toconsider and take the trouble to write. This is especiallyimportant for a highly technical, advanced, or obscure subject.Painful compromises must sometimes be made, if one reallytries to summarise a difficult subject to the satisfaction ofboth an expert and an amateur. Yet, good summaries andsimplifications will in time find their way into textbooks andmean a great deal to students yet to come.

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Books are important in all professions, but they are especiallyimportant in the management. That is because the basic unitof scientific communication, the primary research paper, isshort (typically five to eight printed pages in most fields)and narrowly specific. Therefore, to provide a generaloverview of a significant slice of management science, writersof management books organise and synthesise the reportedknowledge in a field into a much larger, more meaningfulpackage. In other words, new scientific knowledge is mademeaningful by sorting and sifting the bits and pieces toprovide a larger picture.

Management books are of many types. In broad categories,they can be considered as monographs, reference books,textbooks and trade books.

Monographs are the books most used by scientists ormanagement research. They are specialised and detailed.In form, they are often the equivalent of a long review articleand in fact some are labeled as such (annual reviews of,advances in, etc.). Some monographs are written by singleauthors; most are written by multiple authors. If a largenumber of authors are contributing to a monograph, there

Objectives


Kinds of Management Books

Audience Analysis

Components of the Book Review

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will be one or more editors who assign the individual topicsand then edit the contributions to form a well-integratedvolume. (This is the theory but not always the practice.) Sucha monograph can be put together “by mail”; alternatively, aconference is called, papers are read and a resultant volumecontains the “proceedings.”

Reference Books. Because management science producesprolific data, publishers produce a wide variety ofcompilations of data. Most of these are of the handbookvariety. Some of the larger fields also have their ownencyclopedias and dictionaries. Bibliographies were once acommon type of reference book, but relatively few are beingproduced today. As online bibliographic searching has becomecommon, printed bibliographies in most fields have becomeobsolete.

Reference books are expensive to produce. Most areproduced by commercial publishers, who design the productand employ academician or management practitioners asconsultants to ensure the accuracy of the product. Thepublished reference works, particularly the multivolumeworks, are likely to be expensive. From the reviewer’s pointof view, the essential considerations are the usefulness andthe accuracy of the data assembled in the work.

Text Books: Publishers love textbooks because that is wherethe money is. A successful undergraduate text in a broadsubject like general management or marketing may sell tensof thousands of copies. New editions of established texts arepublished frequently (primarily to kill the competition fromthe used-book market).

A textbook is unique in that its success is determined not byits purchasers (students) but by its adopters (professors).Thus, publishers try to commission the big names in the fieldto write texts, hoping that major adoptions will result onthe basis of name recognition. Occasionally, the big names,who became well known because of their research write goodtexts. A good reviewer should evaluate a text on the basis ofits usefulness as a text; the name on the cover should beirrelevant.

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Trade Books. Trade books are those books that are soldprimarily through the book trade, that is, book wholesalersand retailers. The typical retail bookstore caters to the tastesof a general audience, those people who walk in off the street.Because a bookstore has space to stock only a small fractionof the total output of publishers, the bookstore is likely tostock only those titles that would interest many potentialreaders. In bookstores, you will find books that appear onvarious best-seller lists, popular fiction and general-interestnonfiction and perhaps not much else.

The main purpose of a book review is to supply sufficientinformation to potential readers so that they can decidewhether they should get the book. To do this, the reviewermust define the content of the book and also the audiencefor the book. Who should read the book and why?

Many books have different audiences. As an example, Indiain the era of Economic Reform edited by Jeffery D. SacheAshutosh Varshney and Nirupam Bajpar had a very focusaudience, but reviewer Mark Tully, has wide generalaudience when he wrote the following review, whichappeared in Feb 7, 2000 issue of outlook.

If you are not a specialist in economics or political sciencedon’t but off by the academic title, or indeed by the formidableacademic qualifications of the contributors to this book. Ifyou are like me alarmed by graphs and tables just ignorethem you can afford to. But if like me again you have taken adismal view of the achievement of India’s economic reformsso far, you cannot afford to ignore this book itself. It sets outin clear simple terms the achievements of these reforms,while not ignoring the problems that remain.

Monographs. We can define a monograph as a specialisedbook written for a specialised audience. Therefore, thereviewer of a monograph has one paramount obligation: todescribe for potential readers exactly what is in the book.

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What, precisely, is the subject of the book and what are theoutside limits of the material covered? If the monograph hasa number of subjects, perhaps each with a different author,each subject should be treated individually. The good review,of course, will mirror the quality of the book; the pedestrianmaterial will be passed over quickly and the significantcontributions will be given weightier discussion. The qualityof the writing, with rare exceptions, will need no comment.It is the information in the monograph that is important toits audience. Highly technical language and even some jargonare to be expected.

Reference Books: The subject of a reference book is likely tobe much broader than that of a monograph. Still, it isimportant for the reviewer to define in appropriate detailthe content of the book. Unlike the monograph, which maycontain many opinions and other subjective material, thereference book contains facts. Therefore, the primeresponsibility of the reviewer is to determine, howeverpossible, the accuracy of the material in the reference book.

Text books: In reviewing a textbook, the reviewer has adifferent set of considerations. Unlike the language in amonograph, in a textbook the language must be non-technicaland jargon must be avoided. The reader will be a student,not a peer of the authors who wrote the book. Technical termswill be used, of course, but each should be carefully definedat first use. Unlike in the reference book, accuracy is not ofcrucial importance. An inaccurate number or word here andthere is not crucial as long as the message gets through. Thefunction of the reviewer, then, is to determine whether thesubject of the text is treated clearly, in a way that is likely toenable students to grasp and to appreciate the knowledgepresented. The textbook reviewer has one additionalresponsibility. If other texts on the same subject exist, whichis usually the case, the reviewer should provide appropriatecomparisons. A new textbook might be good based on its ownevident merits; however, if it is not as good as existing texts,it is useless.

Trade Books: Again, the reviewer has differentresponsibilities. The reader of a trade book may be a general

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reader, not a subject specialist or a student of themanagement. Therefore, the language must be non-technical.Furthermore, unlike any of the other scientific books, a tradebook must be interesting. Trade books are bought as muchfor entertainment as they are for education. Facts may beimportant, but a boring effusion of facts would be out of place.Scientific precepts are sometimes difficult for the laypersonto comprehend.

Finally, with trade books, the reviewer should try to definethe audience. Can any literate person read and understandthe book, or is some level of scientific competency necessary?

If a reviewer has done the job well, a potential reader willknow whether or not to read the book under considerationand why.

Imprint Information: At the top of a book review, thereviewer should list complete imprint information. The usualorder is as follows: title of the book, edition (if other thanthe first), name of author(s) or editor(s), publisher, year ofpublication, number of pages and list price of the book.Conventionally.

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The emergence of the Internet and its World Wide Web inthe mid-1990s is the most significant change in the way wecommunicate since Gutenberg invented movable type in1455. Some say it is even more significant. In humanendeavour, either in social change or in technicalinnovations, revolutions occur when a number of related oreven apparently unrelated phenomena fuse into somethinglarger than the sum total of all the components. The futureis happening now, insofar as we are seeing the Internetunfolding before our eyes and it might be instructive toanalyse its relevance to scientific communication in the sameway.

The popularity of the Internet is very largely explained byits apparent cheapness. The billions of dollars spent by theUS Defense Department on its earlier incarnation have longsince been written off. For the first 20 years of its existence,the Internet proper was managed within the not-for-profit,tax dollar-funded university system in the USA and this hasshielded all its users from its true development andmaintenance costs, adding to the perception that it is an

Objectives


Economics of the Internet

Technology of the Internet

Culture of Internet

How it Might Work

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intrinsically cheap medium. Local telephone calls in the USA,the home of the Internet, are frequently free and so, for manyAmerican users, the Internet seems almost as free as the airthat we breathe.

Perhaps the only brand new, brain wave invention in thehistory of man was the wheel and axle; all else is somehowderivative. The discovery of silicon technology paralleleddevelopments in digital technology and from them bothemerged computers - first the bulky mainframes and laterthe bijou but hugely more powerful personal computers.Neither could work, of course, without operation andapplication software, the “languages” that enable machinesto talk to us and to each other. The digital bits and bytesstored in the computer are nothing more than electricalimpulses until they are assembled and interpreted andperhaps even spoken by the software, like the thousands ofrandom pitches and frequencies rescued from chaos by thegenius of Mozart to form the wondrous Clarinet Concerto.

Charles Babbage built his Difference Analytical Engine inLondon in the 1820s; in 1844, Samuel Morse sent his firstcommercial telegraph. It took a further 150 years for datamanagement and communication technologies to merge toform the Internet’s World Wide Web. When they met, theylifted each other to an altogether higher value than eithercould ever have achieved separately.

The Internet has changed the technology and even theconventions of communication forever. It started in 1887when Emile Berliner produced the first disc recordings ofclassical vocalists. The ability to listen to the ClarinetConcerto at home was unimaginable before Thomas Edisoninvented the phonograph for dictating speech. Then, as in awhirlwind, came moving pictures, mass radio, television,video recorders, compact disks. The Internet, or moreaccurately its World Wide Web, is the inevitable and logicalextension of all the miracles worked by Edison, Marconi,

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Logie Baird, Sam Goldwyn, the scientists at CERN and BillGates. Apparently cheap, easy and fun to use.

The Internet might be changing the promulgation andpublication of Scientific research more profoundly thananything. For most people involved in the sciencecommunication “chain”, however, it is very difficult tounderstand fully what is happening now and where it willlead to. Those managing the communication flow, especiallypublishers and librarians, must at least attempt an analysisand try to plan for the near future. Those with imaginationand luck might be able to forecast the medium term futureas well (five to seven years); only prophets and visionariescan see beyond. And yet, some of the mist is beginning toclear.

Most companies and institutions now have a website and muchof the content on the Web is little more than promotionalinformation. However, valuable scientific information isusually accessible only after some kind of payment by the useris available free as a service from the institution, perhapsunder some commercial sponsorship. Management publishingnow includes video, audio, still image and interactive data inits digital formats and processing these extra media will needto be paid for. These additional media are becoming integralto publication; they are no longer “bells and whistles” and theyare expensive to process.

Libraries will probably continue to buy access to digitalinformation via intermediaries rather than directly from thepublisher’s server, though they will probably formgeographical or special interest consortia to do so. They willpay annual subscriptions to regularly used publications; lessfrequently accessed titles will be paid for on a “transactional”basis.

Outside the library, individuals will eventually have to payfor access to their required information, as part of amembership fee for their relevant society or association, asa direct subscription to the publisher who will provide anaccess password, or by way of a transactional access fee formaterial they use infrequently.

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Only Web enthusiasts imagine that science will no longerbe published on paper, but only on the Internet. Apart fromthe unpleasantness of spending any length of time reading acathode ray tube and the simple pleasure and convenienceof holding and reading from a well printed book or journal,the history of technical innovation over the past 50 yearsindicates that new technologies, may change those that camebefore but they rarely destory them. There are more radiostations than there were before the introduction of television;far from video killing the cinema, the Hollywood studios arebusier than ever and property developers pay handsomelyto build multiscreen cinema complexes. We may very wellend up with more printed journals, rather than less,published for special interest groups within the largerspeciality subject, with the “complete” journal being accessedin libraries, either in traditional printed form or, more likely,in digital format.

Archiving science books and journals is a major challenge. Itis likely that the bits and bytes which make up the archiveof a journal or scientific book will not be stored on either thepublisher’s or the library’s server. We are seeing theemergence of digital warehouses, to which publishers aredelivering the digital version of their books and journals andfrom which librarians and individuals are accessing them.The computing and telecommunications technologies are allin place to make it very simple. The national libraries mightwell become the ultimate archieve, providing permanentaccess to digitally formatted science information.

Most publishers will have their own Web servers; on thesewill be placed all the promotional and bibliographicalinformation relating to their publications, includingsearchable tables of contents and full structured abstracts,prior to and after publication. These abstracts and tables ofcontents will contain hypertext links to the full text of thearticle stored in the digital warehouses such as BIDS (BathUniversity), OCLC in Ohio, or HighWire Press in California.Publishers might well also post current articles and bookchapters on their own website for limited periods, all in full

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text and without any access charge. The sites will be usedfor every kind of communication with the publisher, journaleditors and authors, including peer review.

CD-ROMs will continue to perform two key functions: toprovide archieves of individual and sometimes collectedjournal titles, mainly for use by personal subscribers ratherthan libraries. They will also be used as a delivery “platform”for updating information stored on the hard disk of the user’sPC.

The Internet has caught everyone’s attention. Since theemergence of the World Wide Web, computers have stoppedcomputing and started connecting. For the scientists andresearchers, the ability to move words and, more significantlydata around cheaply and easily is a qualitative change towhat happened before: a true paradigm shift, just like theinvention of movable type. Before the Internet, computerswere for the initiated; among authors and scientists,communication is now virtually impossible without them.

Some even wonder whether direct communication betweenspecial interest groups of science on the Internet will replacelearned societies and their journals. The general consensusamong most disciplines seems to be that there remains aneed for some kind of peer review process, with all itsdeficiencies. Endorsement by an established and widelyrecognised body or publication is likely to remain. The extentto which the Internet is used by researchers and editorsbefore “publication” is likely to vary from subject to subjectand will depend largely on the degree of security required.

One thing the Internet can do that is impossible in the papermedium is to establish the “dynamic” journal. Grouping apaper with its follow up correspondence and commentsdrawn from different issues of a journal and perhaps evenfrom different journal titles into a single source on the Webis a major breakthrough, universally welcomed by thescientific community. Publishers and librarians are currentlydeveloping linking technologies to improve this process.

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Publishers can now alert readers and researchers by emailabout new articles, letters and other information that willbe of interest to them. There is some evidence that not allreaders are wholly in favour of this, usually because they donot have the time to read all the articles about which theyare notified. In general, however, using the Internet as atwo way communication medium is precisely what makes itso very different from anything that has gone before.

Over the next 5-10 years, more and more communicationbetween authors, referees, publishers and readers will beconducted over the Net. As authors, research institutionsand publishers resolve the complex questions of copyright,we can look forward to wide access to scientific informationthat earlier generations could not have imagined. We face abanquet of options that is hard to digest. But there are somesignposts as to what the future will look like. The cheap willdisplace the expensive, digital technology will sit alongsideprint and the simple to use will displace the complex.Marketing people and technicians are key members in anydigital development team; pride of place, however, must goto the behavioural psychologist.

Could another revolution like the Internet storm the worldof managerial communication again within the next fewyears, the “future” envisaged in the title of this chapter? Itwill certainly be improved in that time and as domestictelevision switches to digital technology, access to theInternet might become virtually universal in the developedas well as developing world. Software will become at oncemore elaborate and simple to use and it will become easierand easier to move large amounts of information around. Itis hard to conceive, though, that we will see again in ourlifetime anything as truly revolutionary as the Internet.

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The first step of the research process involves selecting aresearch topic and writing your research proposal. Thismeans that you need to do a great deal of reading and clearthinking to identify the problem and your area of interest.This chapter deals with choosing a topic for research andgives guidance on writing your research proposal.

When embarking upon research as part of PhD work, it isimportant that particular attention is paid to the choice ofsubject or topic of the research. The choice of topic usuallycomes from your interest in and value of particular subject.This interest and value will eventually be developed into aseries of questions, which you are keen to find answers to. Ifyou are finding difficulty in choosing a researchable topic,you can consider the following:

1. Consult the Library catalogue and inquire about theseand dissertations, articles in a academic journals,reports, books and the like.

Objectives


Working Title

Propose of the Research (Or ratinle for the study)

Aim

Objectives

Hypothesis (or key questions)

Outline Methodology

Proposed Contents

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2. Talk about problems and possible topics with yourcolleagues and/or with the faculty, who are experts inthe field.

3. Arrange an informal interview with professionals in theindustry and discuss what you should emphasis andwhat are the possible practical outcome.

4. After deciding on a topic for research, your dissertationproposal should contain the following.

(a) Working title

(b) Purpose

(c) Aim

(d) Objectives

(e) Hypothesis (or key questions)

(f) Outline methodology

(g) Proposed contents

The extent and degree of detail for your proposal shouldideally take the following into account:

Working title is a short statement that gives your researcha direction and the title might slightly change at the finalstages of research. The title should give your research anidentity / name which reflects the focal point and area of theresearch. It should therefore be clear and to the point. Thereare a number of questions to be borne in mind when selectinga final title. These are:

Does the title identify precisely what is being studied?

Is the title clear and concise and at the same timesufficiently descriptive to allow for rapidcategorisation?

Has the title been stripped of superfluous words andredundancy/ Phrase such as ‘A contribution to….” Or“Towards a theory of….” Are nothing more than padding.

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Are the key nouns correctly chosen and in the properorder?

Purpose of the research (Or rationale for the study)

This should be a one page discussion which sets out (withsupporting data fully referenced) the problem and the reasonfor the proposed study, highlighting the issues to beinvestigated.

Ideally a one-sentence aim should be provided, highlightingyour ultimate goal.

Ideally between three and five single sentence objectiveshould be developed. Objectives are the breakdown of youraim (sub aims), which focuses on finding out or establishingcertain issues while achieving your aim. The objectives willpose a number of questions, which will form your researchquestionnaire later in the research process.

If your research is designed to test/validate hypothesis orconceptual theory, then a one sentence hypothesis needs tobe established which should clearly and specifically statethe position for the argument or investigation. A hypothesisis a tentative proposition, which is a subject of verificationthrough your investigation. Your conclusion will eithersupport or reject your proposed hypothesis, or support partand reject others. Hypothesis can often be formulated as‘if.then’ statements or as a hunch that you have about theexistence of a relationship between issues or variables. Yourhypothesis should also be sharp and specific.

If your research is designed to develop a theoreticalframework (as in the case of qualitative research or problem-solving approach), then a number of ‘key questions’ need tobe formulated which should state the position for theargument or investigation.

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In this part of the proposal you should highlight yourproposed methodology for obtaining the informationnecessary for the study. Research methods can take manyforms. At the proposal stage, however, all you need to provideis an outline methodology, which you are going to adopt foryour research.

This stage involves writing up the contents of thedissertation and should cover the chapter proposed.

Selecting your research topic is an important task. Therefore,you should allow a reasonable amount of time in which todevelop your proposal. The first step is to identify areas,which have potentials and seem interesting to you. Consultyour library and read articles, books, and dissertations etc.,which are related to your area of interest. The three mostimportant part of your proposal are purpose of study,objectives and methodology. Finally, discuss your initialproposal with your supervisor and make amendments, ifrequired.

Once you have selected a suitable topic, define the problemand outline the manner in which the research study is to beconducted. The next step is to prepare the research proposaland to defend your proposal before a committee of expertsfor approval before starting your work on the project.

Alongside the growing importance of international versusdomestic trade, there has been a parallel growth inimportance of foreign versus domestic investment in themarket for operating business. At times, the importance of

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overseas investments has swelled to overshadow that ofdomestic investments. Among the reward of globalisation ofinvestment has been an improvement in the global allocationof capital and an enhanced ability to diversify investmentportfolios.

In addition to the growth of international trade andinvestment flows, interest in international investment hasgrown with the increased importance of transnationalcorporations (TNCs) By 1996, the United Nation estimatedthat there were 44,000 transnational corporations, with thelargest 100 of these possibly being responsible for $3.2 trillionor approximately 16 per cent, of the world’s productiveassets. The power held by these massive stateless enterpriseshas long been a source of governmental and public concern.

It is generally believed that transnational corporations havecome to control more and more of world’s trade, production,investment and employment. There is a large body ofliterature on the factors that cause individual firms fromone country to invest in production in other countries. Anecessary condition for such investment is that the investingor parent firm possesses some firm-specific advantages thatenable it to operate in foreign countries.

In proposed study Strategic Investment Decisions ofTransnational Corporations in Developing Countries,Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are defined asincorporated or unincorporated enterprises comprisingparent enterprises and their foreign affiliates. A parententerprise is defined as an enterprise that control assets ofother entities in countries other than its home country, usuallyby owning a certain equity capital stake. A foreign affiliates isan incorporated or unincorporated enterprise in which aninvestor, who is resident in another country own a stake thatpermits a lasting interest the management of that enterprise.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is defined as an investmentinvolving a long term relationship and reflecting a lastinginterest and control of a resident entity in one economy

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(foreign direct investors or parent enterprises) in anenterprise resident in an economy other than that of theforeign direct investor (FDI enterprise or affiliatedenterprise or foreign affiliate). Foreign direct investmentimplies that the investor exerts a significant degree ofinfluence on the management of the enterprise resident onthe other economy. Such investment involves both the initialtransactions between the two entities and all subsequenttransactions between them and among foreign affiliates, bothincorporated and unincorporated. FDI may be undertakenby individual as well as business entities.

Strategic investment decisions is defined as a process whichdetermined by strategic considerations emerging frominformal decision-making processes and by the applicationsof more formal capital budgeting techniques. It alsoconsiders the formal risk analysis, which could only bereduced by better knowledge of strategic issues.

The study will not require any specific definition ofdeveloping countries, but will consider the list of 130countries classified by International Monetary Fund (IMF)as developing countries, for the country selection.

The reason for a special analysis of TNCs are principallythe same as those which have led to the widespread interestand international co-operation in matters relating to theactivities of TNCs in general. There are at least two majorissues of interest and concern to host developing countries:

1. Far from that ideal of unrestricted competition, manyproduct and services market is characterised by highconcentration ratios, oligopolistic behaviour andformidable entry barriers. The analysis of TNCs in theworld’s primary and manufacturing industries hasshown that these markets cannot be adequatelyunderstood without looking at the corporate structureof the market leaders.

2. Data on foreign investment in developing countriespoints to the prominent role of TNCs. The developing

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countries received $ 129 billion of FDI inflows in 1996,their share of inflows rose to 37 percent in 1996 from 30percent in 1995. The reasons for increasingattractiveness of developing countries are their largedomestic markets but hardly any thing is known aboutTNCs activities at the microeconomics level, and theirinvolvement in domestic or foreign trade. A betterunderstanding of TNCs activities at the firm level isessential for developing host countries to maximise thebenefits for TNCs.

The purpose of this study is to further the understanding ofthe nature of transnational corporations (TNCs) and analysetheir activities in developing countries; and to contribute toan improved understanding of their role in economicdevelopment. The immediate objective of the study is to addto available knowledge regarding TNCs in developingcountries by investigating and analysing their investmentactivities. The basic purpose is to present empirical evidenceand analysis that contributes to a better understanding ofthe issues associated with TNCs activities and whichprovides a basis for corporate policy formulation and choiceof appropriate strategic investment decisions.

The specific objectives of the study are:

At the aggregate level, the analysis would concentrateon the performance of Transnational Corporations &FDI in developing host countries.

At the industry level, the study seeks to explore the majorindustry characteristics and their competitive strategiesfor investment decisions.

At the firm level, the study seeks to explore theinternational aspect of these industries fromcompetition among transnational firms to internationalstructure of production and investment. Morespecifically, it will present basic information about theimplication of current conditions and expected changesin firm’s management and equity structure.

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The variables of the study will be country choice, industrychoice and firm choice of TNCs for their strategic investmentdecisions.

The study will be focusing on TNCs activities in majorindustries namely petrochemicals, automobiles, banking andtelecommunications. These four major industries have beenfigured prominently in international business in 20th century.The study will explore the international aspects of theseindustries from competition among transnational firms tointernational structure of production and investment. Mostspecifically, it will present the basic information about theindustries and then examine their strategic investmentdecisions and expected changes for developing hostcountries.

The study attempts to present a comprehensive picture ofthe characteristics and activities of TNCs in developingcountries and examine their investment decisions. Given thelack of readily available raw data and published material onTNCs investment decisions, two different andcomplementary approaches will be used in this study.

First, country case studies (TNCs wise) for industries willbe conducted for specified three industries, tracing the roleof TNCs and focusing on specific aspects of their investmentactivities in selected countries. Special attention will begiven to foreign affiliates for the development aspect of thedeveloping countries.

Second, an interview survey of TNCs affiliates (at countrymanager level) will be undertaken on the basis of aquestionnaire covering the major characteristics andactivities of TNCs at firm level.

The initial background materials will be gather fromnational or international press reports and from otherpublished sources such as company annual reports andaccounts and company histories.

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The study will consider only the subsequent investment ofTNCs made for the purpose of growth and expansion withinthe industry and country. The study will explore industrycharacteristics; recent history and industry structure ofspecified transnational corporations. In addition theindividual firms and their competitive investment strategieswill be discussed. In country analysis, the choice of countrywill depend on the operation of TNCs in selected developingcountries (those can be comparable).

In order to bridge the prevailing discrepancy between thelimited knowledge available regarding TNCs involvementin developing countries on the one hand, and the crucialimportance of such involvement on the other, I submit thisproposal to study various aspects of the activities of TNCswith focus on investment decisions engaged in developingcountries. The perspective adopted is that of the hostcountries.

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A PhD thesis in management is supposed to present thecandidate’s original research. Its purpose is to prove thatthe candidate is capable of doing and communicating originalresearch. Therefore, a proper thesis should be like a scientificpaper, which has the same purpose. A thesis should exhibitthe same form of disciplined writing that would be requiredin a journal publication. Unlike the scientific paper, thethesis may describe more than one topic and it may presentmore than one approach to some topics. The thesis maypresent all or most of the data obtained in the student’sthesis-related research. Therefore, the thesis usually can belonger and more involved than a scientific paper.

There are almost no generally accepted rules for thesispreparation. Though most types of scientific writing arehighly structured Thesis writing is not. The “right” way towrite a thesis varies widely from institution to institutionand even from professor to professor within the samedepartment of the same institution. Reid (1978) is one of themany who have suggested that the traditional thesis no longerserves a purpose. In Reid’s words, “Requirements that acandidate must produce an expansive traditional-style

Objectives


Purpose of the Thesis

When to Write the Thesis

Structure of Writing the Thesis

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dissertation for a PhD degree in the sciences must beabandoned...The expansive traditional dissertation fostersthe false impression that a typed record must be preservedof every table, graph and successful or unsuccessfulexperimental procedure.”

If a thesis serves any real purpose, that purpose might be todetermine literacy. Perhaps universities have alwaysworried about what would happen to their image if it turnedout that a PhD degree had been awarded to an illiterate.Hence, the thesis requirement. Stated more positively, thecandidate has been through a process of maturation,discipline and scholarship. The “ticket out” is a satisfactorythesis.

There are few rules for writing a thesis, except those thatmay exist in your own institution. If you do not have rules tofollow, go to your departmental library and examine thetheses submitted by previous graduates of the department,especially those who have gone on to fame and fortune.Perhaps you will be able to detect a common flavour.Whatever ploys worked in the past for others are likely towork for you now.

Generally, a thesis should be written in the style of a reviewpaper. Its purpose is to review the work that led to yourdegree. Your original data (whether previously publishedor not) should of course be incorporated, buttressed by allnecessary experimental detail. Each of several sectionsmight actually be designed along the lines of a researchpaper (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results,Discussion). Overall, however, the parts should fit togetherlike those of a monographic review paper.

Be careful about the headings. If you have one or severalResults sections, these must be your results, not a mixtureof your results with those of others. If you need to presentresults of others, to show how they confirm or contrast withyour own, you should do this within a Discussion section.Otherwise, confusion may result, or, worse, you could becharged with lifting data from the published literature.

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Start with and work from a carefully prepared outline. Inyour outline and in your thesis, you will of course describein meticulous detail your own research results. It is alsocustomary to review all the related work. Further, there isno bar in a thesis, as there may be in state-of-the-art reviewpapers, to hoary tradition, so it is often desirable to go backinto the history of your subject. You might thus compile areally valuable review of the literature of your field, whileat the same time learning something about the history ofscience, which could turn out to be a most valuable part ofyour education.

I recommend that you give special attention to the Introductionin your thesis for two reasons. First, for your own benefit, youneed to clarify what problem you attacked, how and why youselected that problem and what you learned during the courseof your studies. The rest of the thesis should then flow easilyand logically from the Introduction. Second, because firstimpressions are important, you do not want to lose yourreaders in a cloud of obfuscation right at the outset.

You would be wise to begin writing your thesis long beforeit is due. In fact, when a particular set of experiments orsome major facet of your work has been completed, you shouldwrite it up while it is still fresh in your mind. If you saveeverything until the end, you may find that you have forgottenmany of the important details. Worse, you may find that youjust don’t have time to do a proper writing job. If you havenot done much writing previously, you will be amazed at whata painful and time-consuming process it is. You are likely toneed a total of 3 months to write the thesis, on a relativelyfull-time basis. You will not have full time, however, nor canyou count on the ready availability of your thesis advisor oryour typist. Allow 6 months at a minimum.

Certainly, the publishable portions of your research workshould be written as papers and submitted, if at all possible,before you leave the institution. It will be difficult to do thisafter you leave the institution and it will get more difficultwith each passing month.

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The content of the whole dissertation includes essentialpreliminary information and relevant support material inaddition to the main body of the text. The following-order ofpresentation of the contents is prescribed.

1. Title page

2. List of contents

3. List of Tables

4. List of Figures

5. Acknowledgements

6. Preface

7. Text (Main body of Dissertation)

8. Appendices

9. Bibliography

The information to be given on the Title Page is normallyrigidly prescribed by the degree awarding body. Typically,the required information consists of:

(i) The full title of the dissertation;

(ii) The full name of the author and, if desired, anyqualification or distinctions (which should be includedin a abbreviated form);

(iii) The qualification for which the dissertation is beingsubmitted as part of the statement that it is submittedin partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award;

(iv) The degree awarding body;

(v) The name of the institution in which the research isregistered on dissertation to be submitted;

(vi) The month and the year of submission.

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The layout of the title page is centred between the prescribedmargin. The vertical centre line is approximately 110mnfrom left-hand edge of the page.

In preparing the list of contents exceptional care should betaken. The contents sheet is a map to the various section ofthe report. The list of contents should cover all the essentialparts of the report and yet be concise and easy to understand.

The heading CONTENTS in all capital letters appears atthe top. The list of contents presents the heading of thechapters and any subheadings exactly as they appear in thetext.

After the list of contents, list of tables and figures areprovided. Each list starts with a separate page. The headingfor these lists maybe all in capital letters – LIST OF TABLES,LIST OF FIGURES.

Table and Figures are numbered as 1.1, 2.1, 3.2, 4.1. The firstnumber refers to the chapter number and the second one tothe serial order of the table or figure within the chapter.

It is customary to acknowledge any assistance or supportthat has been given during the research. Generally if theacknowledgement section is short it is merged with thepreface. If it is rather long, a separate section is created.The purpose of acknowledgement is to recognise thecontributions and help of individuals other than theresearcher in the conduct of research.

The preface is written by the author to indicate the genesisof the research project, its importance and need and the focusof the research findings for the intended audience.

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The order of some of the contents of the text or main body ofthe dissertation is firmly established while others dependupon the individual nature of a study. A general guide tothe order of presentation of material may be seen asfollowing a logical sequence:

1. Introduction

2. Method of approach

3. Presentation and analysis of evidence

4. Summary and conclusions

How this structure will develop in terms of chapters dependson the nature of the research being reported. However, ingeneral, the flow of the dissertation would be expected toincorporate the following elements.

A description and explanation of the purposes and scope ofthe study and the circumstances that led to its formulation.

A description of the rationale within which the researchquestions are to be pursued. The general aims and preciseobjectives of the research are defined. This section includesa statement of the hypothesis to be examined in the researchas well as the assumptions.

A survey is usually a historical detail of the research andthe development of ideas to which the present-researchcontributes. This section normally includes the main surveyand critical appraisal of the literature relating to theresearch topic.

This section describes the means and methods by whichresearch was persued in practice, including organisation and

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administration of the date-gathering strategies. Theresulting data or evidence are presented and analysed inrelation to the hypothesis or research questions.

The meaning and significance of the analysis of the evidencein relation to the research questions is described andconclusions clearly presented.

This chapter introduces the reader to the area beinginvestigated. It basically includes most of your proposalcontents. After reading the introduction, the reader shouldknow why you decided to do the research and how youdecided to go about it. In general the introduction chaptermay be composed of four sections. These are:

1. The first section starts with a description of pastresearch which is relevant to the problem. This sectionmay be entitled “Nature of the problem”, “Scope of theresearch”, “Rationale for the research”, “Background tothe problem” and the like. Here, an exhaustive reviewof past research is not necessary, rather you want todescribe only the research and/or theoretical issues thatare clearly related to your study. You should stateexplicitly how this previous work is logically connectedto your problem. This tells the reader why your researchwas conducted.

2. The second section of the introduction tells the readerwhat your aim is, what objectives are to be achieved andwhat hypothesis (or key questions) are being examined.This part may be entitled “Research Goals”.

3. The third section should describe the method you usedto achieve your aim and objectives. This part may beentitled “Outline methodology of the research”.

4. The final part of the introduction tells the reader aboutthe chapters of the dissertation. This part may beentitled “Dissertation contents”.

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This chapter needs to be inserted after the Introduction. Itmay also be entitled “Procedure of data gathering”, “Researchdesign and methodology” or the like. In this chapter, youneed to explain how the problem was investigated anddescribe the tools that you used to make the investigation,i.e., your questionnaire or the data collection format. Youalso need to describe the characteristics of your researchsample and method of analysis. I suggest that this chaptermay include the following sections.

Section 1: Statement of research aim

This should be a repeat of your stated aim to remind thereader as to what you intend to investigate.

Section 2: Rationale of the research questionnaire

In this section you need to rationalise your questionnaire bystating why have you asked the questions you did.Remember, you questionnaire consists of, say, three to fivesection headings and each heading contains a number ofquestions which are related to your research objectives. Yourtask, therefore, is to refer to the questionnaire which isusually inserted in the Appendix and discuss each sectionindividually. For instance, what did you intend to obtainfrom the respondent? Which objective would you achieve byasking the group questions? Has there been similar type ofquestions asked by fellow researchers? If so, refer briefly totheir questionnaire or to their work.

This chapter is the core part of your dissertation and willconsist of the research findings expressed by texts, figures,tables, charts, graphs and the like. It is absolutely importantto present your results clearly. For this matter I suggest thefollowing structure for this chapter.

Section 1: Analysis of the results, part 1 (the descriptivemethod)

This part of the dissertation will consist of questions,answers, tables, figures or charts and comments. When

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writing the results sections, it is best to refer back to yourquestionnaire. The order in which results are presentedshould correspond to the order of your questionnaire. Ingeneral, the analysis of the results for the descriptive methodcan be presented following the format below:

1. The question: Here, you state the question as was askedin the questionnaire.

2. The results/findings: Here, you present the analysisof the results in the form of table, bar chart, pie chart ora graph.

3. Comments/interpretation: After analysis the questionand presenting the results in a table, chart or other form,you need to go beyond this step and interpret the resultsof your study. For instance, what do they mean to you?Are your results similar or dissimilar to the results ofprevious studies? If your results were different, whywere they different? Did you use different subjects oruse different techniques?

Section 2: Analysis of the results, part -2 (statistical test)

If you applied inferential statistical tests, this part of thedissertation will then consist of hypothesis testing, tables ofcorrelation or association and interpretation of the result.

The conclusion chapter is the end product of yourinvestigation and should not be confused with the resultschapter or a summary. It should be tied very closely withyour introduction chapter. Before writing the conclusionchapter, you need to read you research aim, objectives andhypothesis (or key questions) and start to conclude what youinvestigated within the broader context of your proposal.Start reading the whole dissertation thoroughly and make anote of key issues of findings. The contents of the conclusionchapter should include the following:

1. The dissertation aim.

2. Comments on the research objectives. Here take eachobjective in turn and conclude what you have achieved

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in each objective. Are your conclusions similar/dissimilar to previous writers in the subject area?

3. Comments on the research hypothesis or the researchquestions (which ever is applicable). Here state whetheryour investigation proved or disproved your researchhypothesis.

4. Personal recommendation (practical) as to what shouldand should not be done. Perhaps a development ofconceptual model of a framework can be inserted in thispart of the conclusion chapter.

5. Limitations of your research, Here state what were thedifficulties that you faced throughout the researchprocess which hindered you from achieving impart ofyour objectives.

6. Further research.

The Appendices section of the dissertation might be thoughtof as being mainly the repository for the working tools ofthe investigation and for information that supports the studywhile not being directly a part of it.

Each dissertation topic requires different kinds of supportmaterial and discretion must be exercised as to the amountof material presented in the appendices typical. Appendicesinclude:

(a) Data collecting introductions used during theinvestigation, such as tests, questionnaires, observationand interview schedules.

(b) Examples showing how the instruments have been usedsuch as a complete interview schedule should beincluded if its inclusion helps the reader to understandthe work method.

(c) It is normally necessary that a computer softwaredeveloped as part of the research to be submitted aspart of the dissertation and this would be included asan appendix.

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(d) Some dissertations employ a wide range of technicalterms with – specialised meanings/applications withinthe context of the research. A glossary of technical termsused in dissertation, therefore, can be includedappropriately as an appendix.

Appendices are numbered sequentially with upper caseroman numerals (e.g., I, II, II, IV). Each appendix showedhas a heading that states precisely and concisely what theappendix contains.

Interview Schedule

Factor Analysis and Other Derived Variables

An Example of Constructing Theoretical Model

The bibliography includes text and all other sources that havebeen referred to in the body of the dissertation. Thebibliography is the final section of dissertation and is locatedafter the appendices.

In order to identify a particular text clearly and accurately,it is necessary to have certain minimal reference information.This information primary consists of:

the name of author;

the year of publication;

the title of publication;

the place of publication;

the name of publication.

1. Bibliographical references for books:

Hall, L. (1979), Business Administration (3rd Edit).Estover, Ply mouth, New York: Collier Macmillan.

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Guleck, W. F and Jawch, L. R, Business Policy andStrategic Management. McGraw Hill, 1984.

2. Bibliographical references to collected works:

Weinshall, T.D. (Ed). 1977. Culture and ManagementHarmonds-worth: Penguin 107-130.

Takeuchi, Hand Michale E. Porter “Three Roles ofInternational Marketing in Global Strategy inCompetition in Global Industries, ed. Micwall Porter(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1986): 113.

3. Bibliographical references for article inperiodicals:

Ted Levitt, “The Globalisation of Markets”, HarvardBusiness Review (may- June 1983): 92-192.

Fred Gluck, “A Fresh Look at Strategic management”,Journal of Business Strategy (Fall 1985): 23.

5. Bibliographical references for non-print media:

Reference to national transmitted or availableelectronically, such as computer programmes, CD-ROM,the Internet and E-mail, follow the same format as print-based materials but with minor variations. In all cases,specific identifiers should be included in the sequenceto show access routes.

Computer Programmes

Data Mate Survey Software (1995) Worcester : Simplesurveys.

CD-ROM

Mac Rai s (1995) Introduction to Research Design andStatistics (CD-ROM). Leicester: British PsychologicalSociety.

Internet

Greenwash Jed Greer & Uenny Bruno. Third WorldNetwork: TNCs in recent years

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http:/www. Southbond. company.my/Souths/twn/title/gree-cn.Ltm-Size 24-30 March- ’97 - English-

E-mail

Worden.S. (1996), Networking in art and design(Summary).

Design - Research @mailbase, ac.uk (24 July 1996).

Audio tape

Diwan, Parag (1997), Total Quality Management (AudioCassette), AIMA - Excel Book.

In general, a dissertation is composed of three main parts.Part one covers the introduction chapter. Part two coversthe research design. Part three covers analysis of the resultsand conclusions. The main points to remember are:

1. The introduction chapter should state the problem,purpose of study, aim, objectives, hypothesis andcontents of the dissertation.

2. The literature chapters should be divided into sectionswith specific themes. All questions must beacknowledged. At the end of each chapter, you need toappraise (critically or otherwise) the material that youincluded.

3. The research design chapter should give the techniquethat you used to gather the information, the rationaleto the questionnaire, the source of data, characteristicof the sample, the method of analysis and /or format forpresenting the findings.

4. The results chapter should clearly state the issues underinvestigation, the findings and comments orinterpretation of the results.

5. The conclusion chapter should comment on theobjectives and hypothesis (s) that are stated in theintroduction chapter.

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6. The references/bibliography should follow a uniformsystem.

7. Other mechanics of presenting a dissertation, such aslength and page formatting should be followed inaccordance with the rules and regulations set by yourinstitution.

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1. Section A:

Table of Content:

1.1 Framing a Research Question

1.2 Writing a term paper

The structure

Table of Content

Introduction (I)

Main Part (II)

Conclusion (III)

Citations (footnotes/endnotes)

References

1.3 Bibliography

1.1 Structure of the paper:

Cover: Name and title

Page 2: List of contents

Page 3-12: Text (double space)

I. Introduction

II. (Main part)

1....

2....

3...

a....

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b. and so on

4....

III. Conclusion

Page 13: Footnotes

Page 14: Key references

Example for a list of contents showing the systematicstructure of a term paper:

Topic: The Comeback of Regionalism in China in the1980s

I. Introduction

II. Regionalism in China

1. Terms and Definitions

a. What is Regionalism?

b. What is Centralism?

2. Historical Roots of Regionalism in China

a. The Relation between Centre and Region 1911-1949

b. The Relation between Centre and Region 1949-1978

3. The Development of Regionalism since 1978

a. Planned Decentralization by the centralgovernment

b. Financial and Economic Reforms

c. Administrative Reforms

4. The increasing power of the regions

a. Local interests

b. Resistance against the centre

c. ...

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III. Conclusion

Footnotes

References

The introduction should consist of three aspects:

1. A description of the topic, the importance of the topicand which aspects of the topic you are going to writeabout.

2. A description of the structure of the term paper: youshould explain how you have structured your termpaper, which aspects you are going to deal first, secondand so on.

3. You should give a short overview of the main sourceswhich are important for the topic and which sourcesyou have finally used.

Give only the titles with a footnote from which the wholetitle can be identified.

With a term paper of ten pages, the introduction should beno more than one page.

The main part of the term paper has to be constructedsystematically.

Look at several books to see how the authors have structeredthe content of their books.

There are different systems for arranging the content of apaper:

1. Numbers

2. Letters

3. Numbers and letters.

Look at several books with different systems and decide onthe system you would like to apply. You must only apply onesystem.

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Usually, the main part starts with the definitions of thecentral concepts and a short review of the topic.

In the conclusion you should try to sum up the main resultsof the term paper. You should try to put down the results inthree or four short statements or thesis. At the end, youshould give your own point of view. Try to explain why someauthors are wrong or right, and what do you think about thetopic, but you have to base your own opinion on reasonabelearguments.

The conclusion should be no longer than 1 page.

Citations are very important. A term paper without citationswill not be accepted. They are necessary in order to showwhich sources you have used and allow the reader to lookup the references for further reading.

There are three systems for writing citations:

1. at the bottom of each page (called footnotes)

2. at the end of the term paper (called endnotes)

3. in between the text

To start with we would recommmend to use the system 1or 2.

Do not mix two systems. Apply only one.

a. Citations from a monograph:

1 Immanuel C.Y. Hsü: The Rise of Modern China 4,Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford1990, p. 131.

If you quote from the book for the second time, youonly write

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2 Compare Hsü, p. 165.

If the next footnote also refers to Hsü, you onlywrite:

3 Ibid., page 183. (that means: same place and comesfrom Latin)

If the next footnote is also related to Hsü, you againwrite

4 Ibid., pp. 184-185.

If footnote no 5 is from a new book then you have towrite the whole new title.

b. Citations from an article:

5 Lin Min: “The Search for Modernity: ChineseIntellectual Course, 1978-1988 - The Case of LiZehou.” In: The China Quarterly, no. 132, Dec. 1992,pp. 969-998, p. 978.

6 Compare Lin Min, p. 981.

7 Ibid., pp. 984-986.

c. Citations from an article in a book:

(Author, title, book title, editor, series title, place, date,number of pages, page)

8 David A. Kelly: “The Emergence of Humanism:Wang Roushui and the Critique of SocialistAlienation”, in: China’s Intellectuals and the State:In Search of a New Relationship, ed. by MerleGoldman with Timothy Cheek and Carol LeeHamrin, Harvard Contemporary

China Series: 3, Cambridge, Mass. 1987, pp. 1859-182, p. 163.

9 Kelly, in: Goldman, pp. 165-167.

d. Citations from Chinese references:

The system of citation is the same. Please write the titlein pinyin and add the translation of the title.

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10 Ai Siqi: Xin zhexue lunji (Essays on the NewPhilosophy), Shanghai 1938, pp. 43-46.

f. Footnotes have an additional function:

In the footnotes you can explain certain further aspectsof the topic which are not so important that they shouldbe placed in the main text. You can add furtherreferences to articles or books regarding the aspectsand so on.

Example:

11 Kelly, in Goldman, pp. 165-167. For a further discussion ofthis aspect compare the book by the same author: David Kelly:Chinese Marxism in the Post-Mao Era, Stanford 1990, pp.23-28 and 34-36. Also Chester Tan: Chinese Political Thoughtin the 20th Century. Newton Abbot 1972, pp. 86,90.

At the end of the term paper you write all articles and booksin alphabetical order.

You have to distinguish between

monographs

articles

books edited by somebody

internet resources

The usual order for monographs is:

Author, title, place, date of publication.

Example:

Hsü, Immanuel C.Y.: The Rise of Modern China4, OxfordUniversity Press, New York and Oxford 1990. (4 means 4thedition)

The usual order for articles is:

Author, title of the article, name of the magazine ornewspaper, volume, number, year, month, pages.

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Example:

Lin Min: “The Search for Modernity: Chinese IntellectualCourse, 1978-1988 - The Case of Li Zehou.” In: The ChinaQuarterly, no. 132, Dec. 1992, pp. 969-998

The usual order for books which somebody has edited:

Title of the book, editor(s), place, date of publication.

Example:

China’s Intellectuals and the State: In Search of a NewRelationship, ed. by Merle Goldman with Timothy Cheek andCarol Lee Hamrin, Harvard Contemporary China Series: 3,Cambridge, Mass. 1987.

The references should only include the titles you haveactually used in your term paper.

How to find refences books and articles

Besides the term paper you compile a bibliography for thetopic of the term paper. This bibliography should consist ofall relevant books and articles, in English as well as inChinese, but not more than 30 titles.

Please add the bibliography to the term paper.

Step 1:

Look up the books and articles which are related to yourtopic (on the back page of the lecture outline) for furthertitles.

Step 2:

Use the computer in the library, enter several keywords.

Step 3:

Look for bibliographies in the library, for example theBibliography of the Journal of Asian Studies. Try to findout under which category the titles you need could befound.

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Example:

Your topic is: The ideological development in the PRC 1949-1976

Look under the categories: Chinese contemporary philosophy,ideology, contemporary history and so on.

Step 4:

Look up the following periodicals for articles about yourtopic:

The China Quarterly

The Journal of Asian Studies

Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs

Modern China

Modern Asian Studies

China Report

Asian Survey

Issues and Studies

Problems of Communism

China Information

China News Analysis

Many of the journals have a monthly or yearly index, whichmakes it easier to find relevant articles. Try to find otherjournals.

Look up Chinese periodicals:

Zhexue yanjiu

Shehui kexue zhanxian

Zhongguo zhexue and others

SEectiob B:Chapter 1-18.

Creating Outstanding Term Paper for PhD

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