Individual Assignment 2 – Research Proposal

Overview
You are required to write an individual assignment of 3000 words (+/- 10%).
This assignment is your chance to explain how a marketing research practitioner wishing to research a specific issue should go about conducting the research (i.e. what type of research should be carried out, how and why you feel such choices are appropriate).

Please remember that this assignment is a Research Proposal – it asks you only to plan an assumed piece of research.

You are NOT expected to collect any data for this assignment (i.e. you are not expected to actually carry out the empirical research that you would have described in this assignment). All you need to do is state what you wish to do in terms of carrying out additional research on the chosen topic and why your choices are appropriate.

The word count:
 INCLUDES the whole Section 1, Section 2 and Section 3 (see below)
 DOES NOT include:
– the list of references and/or bibliography
– the cover page
– the contents table
– any tables, figures, graphs, pictures
– any additional supporting material included in Appendices

You are not allowed to exceed the word count limit.

The proposal should be written in font size 12, with 1.5 line spacing.

Assignment Brief

The assignment is in the format of a Research Proposal to carry out research in order to address a green marketing issue relating to a specific topic that is currently causing concern to businesses and marketing practitioners in your country of choice,
and which has an impact on sustainability.

In your individual assignment, you should build upon theories in marketing and
consumer research (including those on green marketing in particular) and explain what new research could be carried out and how it should be carried out, so that marketing practitioners, policy-makers and/or consumers such as students can be advised, and solutions to this issue could be provided.

In order to assist you in starting working on the assignment, below are some academic articles on issues which are related to the specific topic. You may find these articles
useful and are free to use and quote them in your assignments or, alternatively, may
not quote and use them in your assignments, but may find other/additional literature
that you source yourselves more appropriate for the specific aspect of the green
marketing issue you have decided to explore and research.

This relevant literature will guide you while planning and writing up your Research
Proposal.

While the articles listed below may provide the foundation for your thinking, you are expected to source, review, and integrate additional academic studies, practitioner and policy reports in your Proposal.

Some academic studies on green marketing:
 Brindley, C., Oxborrow, L. (2014). Aligning the sustainable supply chain to green marketing needs. Industrial Marketing Management, 43: 45–55.
 Fuentes, C. (2015). How green marketing works: Practices, materialities,
and images. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31 (2): 192-205
 Groening, C., Sarkis, J., & Zhu, Q. (2018). Green marketing consumer-level
theory review: A compendium of applied theories and further research directions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172: 1848-1866.
 Henning, B., Jochen, M. (2013). Values, beliefs, attitudes: An empirical study on the structure of environmental concern and recycling participation.
Social Science Quarterly, 94: 691-714.
 Kadirov, D., Varey, R. (2013). Neo-structuralist analysis of green marketing discourse. Consumption, Markets & Culture, 16: 266-89.
 McEachern, M., Carrigan, M. (2012). Revisiting contemporary issues in green/ethical marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 28: 189-94.
 Papadas, K. K., Avlonitis, G. J., Carrigan, M., & Piha, L. (2018). The interplay of strategic and internal green marketing orientation on competitive advantage. Journal of Business Research
 Prothero, A. (1990). Green consumerism and the societal marketing concept. Journal of Marketing Management, 6: 87-103.
 Rettie, R., Burchell, K., Barnham, C. (2014). Social normalisation: using marketing to make green normal. Journal of Consumer Behaviour
 Smith, K., Brower, T. (2012). Longitudinal study of green marketing strategies that influence millennials. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 20: 535-
51.
 Wan, C., Cheung, R., Shen, G. (2012). Recycling attitude and behaviour in university campus: A case study in Hong Kong. Facilities, 30: 630-46.

Please note that not only academic articles constitute ‘literature’. The ‘literature’ for this assignment also consists of practitioner and policy reports, as well as media reports on green marketing. You may decide to quote and use the ‘academic literature’ (academic articles) or may focus more on practitioner and policy reports as well as media reports on green marketing. Both are appropriate choices for this practice focused assignment.

Assignment format

There are three main components (sections) to the assignment:
Section 1 – Introduction & Overview of the Issue
In this section, you will be expected to:
 Explain the importance and implications of the topic you have chosen to
research
 Summarise some of the literature on this topic, based on your reading of
academic theories and business reports on green marketing and the more
specific aspect of this topic you chose to investigate
 Present an overview of theoretical frameworks currently guiding research in
your chosen area of interest
 Clearly state the research questions, objectives and (if applicable) the
hypotheses that will form the basis for your proposed empirical research.
This section is not only the Introduction but also the basis for the research that you are proposing to carry out.

Section 2 – Methodology
This is a module on methodology. Therefore, the methodology section should be the largest and most prominent among the sections in your assignment.
In it, you will need to:
 Discuss how you wish to answer the research questions, objectives (or
hypotheses, if applicable) discussed in Section 1
 Identify and justify your research design(s) and/or research strategy/ies
 Discuss (and justify once again) the different method/s you propose to employ
for collecting data
 Include information about the choice of sample and why you feel this is a good
approach
 Produce and discuss your proposed instrument for data collection (i.e. interview
guide, sample questionnaire, etc.)
7 Briefly state the proposed data analysis method/s
 Discuss the research problems, complications and any ethical issues that might
arise
The key to this section is an appreciation for how you propose to go about your
research and why you feel the approach that you have chosen is the best approach.

Section 3 – Conclusion
In this section, you should reiterate the importance of your planned research, and
discuss:
 Why is this research needed?
 How will it add to our knowledge?
 Will it inform marketing practice and/or behaviour (and how)?
 Is such research and its findings likely to be significant; would it affect practice

Notes:
1. While being critical to your overall argument, it is commonly expected that the first and last parts of the assignment (Sections 1 and 3) will be shorter than the more substantive section of the assignment (Section 2).
2. It is up to you how you organise the separate sections of your assignment and whether you add visual, supporting material such as tables, figures,
photographs, etc.
3. Screenshots (e.g. of written material and of figures, tables, data collection
instruments, etc.) should be fully referenced, both in-text and in the final
Reference List.
4. You may decide to clearly mark (or not) each section with sub-headings.
Irrespective of the approach that you take, you will be expected to cover all of the issues/aspects/ingredients of the assignment, as explained above, in this section of the coursework brief.
5. A list of references should be provided at the end of the report, presented in accordance with the APA Referencing System. The references in the final
Reference List do not contribute towards the final word count.
6. Please show an accurate word count at the beginning/end of the report.
7. If Appendices are provided, they should appear on a new page, after the references. Multiple appendices are labelled with letters (Appendix A, Appendix
B). A single appendix is labelled without letters (Appendix). Refer to all appendices in the main body of the report. Do not include everything you have found out on the subject in the hope that you will get extra marks.
8. Please include page numbers in the header or footer of your submitted document. This helps me to provide feedback by being able to refer to page numbers.