BUS3100: Business Research Proposal (A1)
Case study 1: WAFL
Sport marketing and fan-based research has mainly been focussing on professional elite-level sport (e.g., AFL). However, understanding supporter behaviour and connection is important for all tiers of competition. It is largely because sport clubs can benefit from having a loyal spectator base, as they contribute to achieving organisational goals as well as developing further connection and value for the communities. As such, the positive benefits of community sport clubs are evident, there are numerous challenges encountered. In the Australian sport context, financial and human resource constraints confront many clubs. As recently discussed in the Australian media, while the value of professional/elite sport continues to rise, numerous local and state-league clubs are struggling to survive. In past decades, state league Australian Rules football matches would attract thousands of fans; whereas today stands are mostly empty. This is despite the professional Australian Rules Football League (AFL) being recognised as the most financially viable sport in Australia.
Based on the background, please design a research to help the WAFL clubs in Western Australia to improve match day and ongoing experience, and to increase engagement between attendees and the clubs.
Case study 2: National Multicultural Festival
Festivals and special events (e.g., aboriginal cultural festival, ethnic community festival) are not only emerging as one of the fastest growing types of tourism attractions, but also understood as one of the most common forms of cultural celebrations. They are an important expression of human activity that contributes to our social and cultural life. Similar to Canada and the U.S., Australia is a multicultural country where there are numerous residing ethnic groups and populations and where cultural diversity and social harmony and integration among the different ethnic groups are respected and promoted. For this important reason, state governments and regional and local councils need to realise the market potential of such ethnic cultural and multicultural festivals in their tourism promotion, given the fact that they provide an opportunity for the outside people to experience unique and authentic culture of diverse ethnic groups within a limited time frame.
Based on the background, please design a research to help the local government in Canberra to improve on their promotion of National Multicultural Festival and to make the festival more appealing for a wider audience range.
Assessment 1 Guideline
PROPOSED TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION (150 words)
PROBLEM DEFINITION (200 words)
RESEARCH PARADIGM AND RESEARCH DESIGN (up to 3000 words)
-Summary of the research project: purpose, method and expected outcomes
HOW GOVERNMENT OF CANBERRA CAN IMPROVE THEIR PROMOTION OF NATIONAL MULTICULTURAL FESTIVAL TO MAKE THE FESTIVAL MORE APPEALING FOR A WIDER AUDIENCE RANGE
INTRODUCTION
The national festivals are an important source and expression of human activities that contribute towards social and cultural engagement. Australia is being one of the most attractive countries due to its diversity, cultural and social influences that attract visitors from outside the country (Home - Multicultural Festival, 2020). The national multicultural festival is one of the national events which promote such cultural and social diversity; although due to lack of time and resources the festival might not get enough promotional grounds. This might have limited the audiences to visit this festival.
The research aims to discuss and research the ways which can be used for improving the national multicultural festival of Canberra to make the festival more appealing for a wider audience. The research proposal will introduce a brief overview over the research topic; it will make a detailed assessment over the research methods, tools, techniques and procedures which will help to retract information on this research topic.
PROBLEM DEFINITION
Management Problem
Canberra is one of the attractive tourism destinations in Australia, in 2018 about 957650 tourists has been visited the city. In the year 2018, the number of visitors at the National multicultural festival has been reported that about 200000 visitors have been attended the festival (National Multicultural Festival Economic Impact & Research Report, 2020). Most of the population or audiences visited the festival were local population of Australia. Within the visitors, about 4410 were from the overseas and the rest of them were either interstate or local population visiting in the festival. Thus, there is a low rate of awareness about the festival within the interstate and overseas tourism market. The national multicultural festival has not been able to attract a large volume of audiences, might be due to lack of events, functions or any attractive course of facilities or features of the festival.
Research Statement
The research will be investigating the reason behind the low rate of visitors in the national multicultural festival of Canberra. It will present the easy which might help to promote and increase the attention of the large audience to visit the festival. The research will be focused on the attractions, competitive edge and unfair advantage of the festival which can increase the attention of wider audience/.
Research Objectives:
The objectives designed for this research as follows:
RESEARCH PARADIGM AND RESEARCH DESIGN
Research Paradigm
The research paradigm is a system of belief and assumptions which is carried out within the community of research. The research paradigm includes the tools and techniques, which helps to explain and observe the set of events through assumptions. For extracting information and introducing proper guidance through the research, the paradigm is focused on the three basic aspects (Stingone et al., 2017). In ontology, it explains about the reality of a specific event or situation, epistemology evaluates the sources of the evidence that provide knowledge and information to an individual or about an event. The methodology aspect of the paradigm is focused on the tools and techniques which can help to find reality and information. It has been stated that there are two forms of research paradigm which have been explained as follows
Figure 1: Research Paradigm
(Source: Watson & Floridi, 2018)
Interpretivism: The nature of the interpretivism research paradigm is to interpret and understand the key elements of the research variables. It has stated that the human connection is necessary in course of introducing the Interpretivism research, as through connections, language and communication, the information about research elements are extracted. In the smoke of the cases, it has been stated that the principles of research might not provide aa proper understanding of the social world, In this case, the interpretivism explained that the social world might be understood and analysed through subjective manner (Brown & Dueñas, 2020). Therefore, the prime characteristics of interpretivism are subjective, this means observation is made based on the business and laden perspectives of the human being. The interpretivism believes that every individual has their own set of choices, believes and assumptions, which does not support the law of nature or science.
The advantage of interpretivism is it presents qualitative data and information which is easy to understand and related to the requirement of the research. It presents the subjective information which increases data and knowledge about an event, situation or a matter which represents the research study (Iedema, 2019). It provides validity and evidential proof to justify the information. However, interpretivism approach might provide incorrect or misleading information which might reduce the quality of the research. The information is too general, which makes an in-depth analysis of a research topic.
Positivism: The nature and concept of the positivism research paradigm are related to the objectivism. It has stated that the nature of this paradigm is to provide an option of giving own assumptions and assessment over the social prowled, related events or situations. The nature of this research paradigm is to college a large amount of data and information on the social connection for detailing the crux of the research. The characteristics of the positivism are to extract information and data through observation, experimentation and assessment of the attitudes and behaviours of human beings (Stingone et al., 2017). Additionally, the objectivity is the primary trait of this paradigm that includes observation, measurement and extraction of the data and information. The advantage of the positivism is, it is based on the quantitative research that includes an in depth analysis and data gathering process to ensure the validity of the information. This paradigm includes observation of a structured procedure of collecting the data effectively. However the positivism believes that measurement and calculation is key to every data, it lacks the aspect of flexibility that comes from the change in behaviour, attitude and responses of the population.
Justification: According to the nature of this research, the researcher will be introducing positivism research paradigm which advances the data and information over the national multicultural festival and its potentiality to attract visitors. The positivism paradigm will be favourable to observe measure and calculate the reasons and aspects which attract the audiences to the festivals. This might help the research to extract the ways which can increase promotion of the festival for a large audience.
Research Methodology
The researcher will be introducing a mixed method for this research for extracting information about the national multicultural festival and the ways to attract visitors towards it. The mixed research method is been used for the collection of data and information and researching the tools of qualitative and quantitative methods (Fletcher, 2017). It has been stated that the mixed methods are used by the researcher when there is a requirement of validating the data and information collected from different sources. In this research, the searcher will be using a survey questionnaire for extracting information from the selected participants. Additionally, the researcher will also design open-ended questions for introducing an interview session to extract information about the festivals (Snyder, 2019). The quantitative research will be helpful for the research to generate information about the factors and reasons for visiting the national multicultural festive. This will help to understand the elements that increase the interests of the visitors. On the other hand, the qualitative research questions will be representing questions to the national multicultural event organisers to understand the governmental inputs, current and plans over the festival and its visiting rates.
Figure 2: Mixed research method
(Source: Zangirolami-Raimundo, Echeimberg & Leone, 2018)
In the mixed methods, the usage of the convergent design is been made for comparing the outcomes gathered from the qualitative and quantitative sources. It has been used to generate information from both of the methods at the same time and analyse the similarities of information between them. These connectivity's and comparison of the outcomes produce a valid conclusion which helps to justify the objective of the research. The mixed research method is been introduced, when a researcher tries to use one method of research to provide support to the information generated from other research methods (Attia & Edge, 2017). This increases the overall conclusion to validate and verify the designed objectives of the research. In this case, the researcher will be using the information of qualitative research to validate the information gathered from the selected respondents of the research through quantities research. The mixed methods are used by the researcher when there is a requirement of elaborating the findings from different research methods to increase the validity and reliability of the data (Fletcher, 2017). With the usage of the qualitative and quantitative research methods, the researcher will be able to validate the information about the present situation of the national multicultural festival.
Qualitative Research
Justification of the data collection method: focus groups
In the qualitative research, the researcher will be introducing focused group research which will be presented as an interview session. The focused group in the qualitative research is a group based interview which is conducted with 6-12 numbers of individuals having the same set of interests and connections (Shekhar et al., 2019). The researcher will be introducing an open-ended questionnaire, which will be presented in the form of a group interview. As per the nature of the research topic, the research will be approaching the event organisers of the national multicultural festival in Canberra. The researcher will be sending an electronic mail to get an appointment with the organisers of the festival. After getting an appointment, the researcher will be taking a telephonic interview with the selected organisers of the festival based on the focused group interview. It has been stated the organisers of the festival will have one common connection which is a national multicultural festival. On the other hand, they will be sharing one common interest that is development and improvement of the festival on a larger scale.
In this research, the researcher will be selecting the focused group, as it will be presenting much in-depth information and data over the research. The focused groups are introduced to generate information over the subjective matters; the specific procedure helps to extract detailed information through making a brief conversation with the targeted individuals (Kaur et al., 2019). The research topic will be about the social and cultural aspects, it will be focused on finding out the attraction points of tourists which could be used to increase visitors to the festival. Thus, the subjective approach will play a vital role in learning the tactics of presenting the festival in wide audiences. Thus, in this perspective, the focused group will be a suitable option for qualitative research. In addition to it, focused group procedure favours the procedures and methods engaged in quantitative research (Brown et al., 2017). It has been stated that the information generates from the focused group can be measured and evaluated through the quantitative data collection approach. Thus, the data of a focused group can be easily related and collaborated from the quantitative data. In this research, the researcher will be using mixed methods, which will include both qualitative and quantitative means (Fremeth, Holburn & Richter, 2016). Therefore, the usage of the focused group will be suitable to validate the data and information of both the methods. Overall, the justification of using the focused group method is its characteristics, which will help the researcher to generate information and validate it as per the research objectives.
Justification of the target population, sampling methodology and method, and sample size
The sampling is a procedure of selecting a certain number of individuals to participate in specific research. It has been stated that the sampling procedure includes the selection of participants who contributes in the research in the form of information and data based on asked questions. These participants or respondents are stated as the targeted population of the research. The researcher will also be approaching four organisers off a national multicultural festival of Canberra. A telephonic interview will be planned for generating information from these targeted populations. Overall, the total targeted population for this research will be 69 individuals. The sampling methodologies are stated to be the methods which are used for the selection of respondents for the research.
The sampling methods are categorised as probability sampling methods and non-probability sampling methods. Non-probability sampling methods are used by the researcher when there is less number of participants are available (Liu, Benson & Charikar, 2019). Under the non-probability sampling methods, the different types of methodologies like convenience sampling, quota sampling, judgemental sampling and snowball sampling methods are used. All the sampling methods are been selected as per the nature of the research topic, it has been stated that most of the non-probability sampling methods have a complex way of selection except convenience non-probability sampling method. The convenience sampling method under the non-probability method will be selected by the researcher for approaching the organisers of the festival (Fremeth, Holburn & Richter, 2016). The convenience non-probability sampling method helps the searcher to select the participants based on their will, availability and approvals. Thus, the researcher will gain easy access to several organisers to participant in the research
Figure 3: Non probability sampling
(Source Brown et al., 2017)
Specification of the data collection procedure
According to the data collection procedure, the researcher will be approaching to the participants through telephonic conversations. In the first stage of the data collection procedure, the researcher will be sending electronic mails to all the selected participants of the research including organisers of the festival. On approval, the researcher will request for an appointment with the organisers of the festival. The second stage will be make telephonic conversation to the organisers of the research. Additionally, the call recording system will be used to record the responses of organisers over the designed open-ended questions on the research topic. It has been stated that the researcher will gather all the data and interpret them to extract the findings over the research topic using the tools of qualitative methods.
For the qualitative respondents, the researcher will be following certain regulations and standards under the ethical consideration of research. The researcher will not make repeatedly approach the respondents to participate in the research. The information of the participants will be kept \confidential if it has been requested by the respondents. The researcher will be ensuring proper consent approval to be taken from the organisers of the festival to take small research conducted over the national multicultural festival (Kaur et al., 2019). The researcher will not try to ask any extra questions beyond the commitment made to the respondents. The information and learning found from the participants will be used by the researcher for this research only.
List of focus group questions in a table
Objectives of the research have been presented as follows:
Questionnaire for the researcher will be designed as following
For Quantitative Research: Survey Questionnaire
Question 1: How frequently you visit Canberra city for holidays?
Question 2: How frequently do you visit the National Multicultural festival in a year?
Question 3: When visiting the National Multicultural Festival, who do mostly travel with?
Question 4: What attractions National Multicultural festival has attracted you?
Question 5: In general, do you prefer to travel in the Peak or Off-Peak season at the festival?
Question 6: What is your source to visit the National Multicultural Festival of Canberra?
Question 7: Do agree that National Multicultural Festival is crowded?
Question 8: How far are you satisfied with the attractions of t National Multicultural Festival?
For Qualitative Research: Focused group questionnaire
Quantitative Research
Justification of the data collection method: a questionnaire survey
In quantitative research, the researcher will be selecting a survey questionnaire for extracting data and information on the research topic. The researcher will be using the close ended survey questionnaire distributed through online distribution, as it will be less expensive in comparison to any field survey (Brown & Dueñas, 2020). As per the survey questionnaire, it includes different forms of questions, which helps to provide information in a much detailed manner. It has been stated that the researcher will be using the survey questionnaire as it will help to provide exact information required for validating the research objectives. It will be suitable for the research as it will be helping to make an in-depth analysis and information gathering over the national multicultural festival and its related attractions which rise the interests of the visitors.
Justification of the target population, sampling methodology and method, and sample size
In this particular research, the researcher will be selecting a target population of 65 tourists visiting the national multicultural festival. These visitors will be approached by the researcher for providing information about the festival, its attractiveness, and reasons for visiting the festival. The respondents will help the researcher in finding out about the factors which increase the interests of a tourist to visit a national festival (Stingone et al., 2017). As part of the research, these researchers will be approached through electronic mails and an online survey will be conducted for generating information over the research topic.
Under the probability sampling method, the researcher will be selecting a simple random probability method for selection of the visitors or tourists of the national multicultural festival of Canberra. It has been stated that the simple random sampling method is a process, in which the research makes a random selection of the population for participating in the research. The simple random sampling method helps to make a selection of populations from a large number of audiences (Watson & Floridi, 2018). Therefore, the specific sampling method will be used by the researcher for selecting a few from a large number of visitors to the national multicultural festival. The sampling size is been stated as the total number of respondents or participants will be ensured for contributing to the particular research. In this research, the sampling size will be 65 visitors organisers of Cantabrian national multicultural festival.
Specification of the data collection procedure
In the process of conducting quantitative research, the researcher will be using online media tools such as internet and electronic mails, as these sources will be less costly compare to other methodologies. According to the research procedure, the researcher will be sending an initial through electronic mails to all the visitors of the festival for participating in the research (Iedema, 2019). Based on the responses the research will be sharing the online link for the survey questionnaire, which will be required to fill by the respondents. These survey questionnaires will be submitted and collected through the electronic mail chain. After that, the data and information from the visitors will be collected through electronic mail and will be saved in the computer system. According to the ethical considerations, the researcher will not pressurise any participants to participate in this research. The researcher will not be manipulating the respondents to provide any favourable answers to the asked questions. Additionally, the researcher will not be sharing information of the research with any of the third party, who is not related to this research.
Table of measurement
Research Objectives | |||
| # (question number) | Survey question statement | Type of data: Nominal, ordinal, interval, etc. | |
| To evaluate the factors that attract audiences to visit national festivals | Quantitative question 3,5,6,7 Qualitative question 1 | Factors create attraction and interest of the visitors | Normal |
| To analyse different attractions of national multicultural festivals of Canberra | Quantitative question 4 Qualitative question 2 | The attraction that influences people to visit the festival | Ordinal |
| To evaluate the contribution of the government of Canberra for the national multicultural festival | Quantitative question 7 and 8 Qualitative number 3 | To analyse the promotional activities of the government to increase awareness about the festival | Interval |
| To recommend the options to promote and improve the audience appeal of a national multicultural festival | Quantitative number 8 Qualitative 4 | Options to improve promotion for the festival to increase its appeal to a large audience | Normal |
There are a lot of visitors who come to Canberra city of Australia for their holiday vacations, although the National Multicultural Festival receives very fewer audiences in comparison to it. The research project presents a brief discussion on the process and options, which can be used to increase the audience appeal of the National Multicultural festival of Canberra. The purpose of the research is to investigate the promotional strategies that might be applied by the government to create awareness for the national multicultural festival. This researcher will be considering positivism research paradigm for this research topic. Also, the researcher will be introducing a mixed method for the research, in which the qualitative and qualitative methods will be making an in-depth analysis of the research topic. The researcher will be using simple random probability sampling method for selecting 65 visitors to the festival and convenience non-probability sampling method for selection of 4 organisers of the festival.
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