Business Research

Sharon Brabham

August 1, 2010

Unit 1 Individual Project

MGT600

Instructor: Dr. Gail Fults

Formal research and business proposals differ yet have some commonalities. A commonality between formal research and business proposals is that the findings in both cases may or may not be presented with headings and subheadings (Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, 2009). Such restrictions are not applicable in the reports that contain the findings either from formal research or from business proposals.

Formal research is looked at as academic in nature, while a business proposal has a more practical orientation to it. Formal research has no financial implications but when dealing with business proposal, financial implication is its most important characteristic. The main objective of a business proposal is to identify a need which must be addressed in order to generate either financial savings or greater revenue (Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, 2009). Those type financial implications are not relevant in formal research. Formal research is not concerned with generating findings that are practicable. Formal research generates a wide variety of findings that may be made applicable in a wide variety of contexts. The advantage of business proposals is that they contextualize the findings from formal research in an existing organizational structure.

However, as mentioned before, formal research will inevitably always have an academic orientation(http://www.prismleadership.com/600/compare.htm).. It has value in the practical business world only to the extent in terms of providing the starting point for further research. For example, formal research has identified that HR managers should play four roles: the employee champion, the change agent, the administrative expert and the strategic partner. However the research project stops here. When it comes to a business proposal, the proposal must list recommendations for creating a suitable structure that can incorporate the...