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MN1105 Quantitative Methods
Resit Coursework: Essay (60%)
Deadline date: Monday 20th August 2018 - 12.00 midday (London Local Time)
Assignment task (1500 words):
A critical essay entitled ‘Critique of Quantitative Methods Journal Paper’. This assignment builds on your weekly seminar papers for discussion and is concerned with critically evaluating and interpreting a business and management journal article that adopts quantitative methodology.
You are asked to interpret and evaluate the following journal paper (attached) published this year:
Gerrard, B., and Lockett, A., (2018), Team-specific Human Capital and Performance, British Journal of Management, Vol. 29, pp.10-25.
Guidance:
• Introduction: Key research gaps that the paper is trying to fill (~50 words)
• Critique of current theory illustrating incoherencies, inconsistencies and uncertainties and demonstrating alternative theories and conflicting empirical evidence. You will need to look at recent journal papers to support your arguments. Please place any citations under your References. I will look favourably at citations that are not part of the original paper. References are not part of your word count. (~250 words).
• The nature of sample used in the study and an appraisal of its fit for the research question as well as its shortcomings (~200 words).
• The major part of your paper (~800 words) is to describe the most significant statistics in the paper and what they mean. Be discerning about the critical statistics and don’t try to put everything in. Also, don’t regurgitate material directly from the paper!
I would like you to appraise the journal article in your own words rather than copying material straight from the paper. This will show me that you have thought about the paper deeply and developed your own understanding. This exercise is aimed at helping you deconstruct quantitative journal articles and develop a reflexive critique towards future articles you may read on your undergraduate programme. References are not part of the word count.
General Guidelines:
• Please submit your file with in the following format: MN1105_Candidate number
• Ensure that you receive an automated receipt once you have submitted.
• Monitor your Royal Holloway email account for any messages from your Administrator, which will include faulty submissions.
Key Points
1. Word limit is 1500 words [Note this limit is strict, and even 1501 words will attract a penalty].
2. The submission must be word-processed.
3. You should use 12 font in Arial, double line spacing and wide margins.
4. There should be one line spacing between paragraphs
5. There should be a reference list, only listing out the sources that you have used and noted in the main text.
6. Please note that the reference style must be Harvard: Author (Date). Footnote referencing styles are not permitted.
7. Please include a front cover sheet with your candidate number, course unit title, course unit code, title of the assignment and a word count.
8. Please see the UG Handbook for more information regarding the penalties for overlength work.
9. Please see your Essay Writing and Referencing Guide and the Handbook for a full discussion of assignment expectations in the School.
General Guidance on Resit
Please refer to the MN1105 Moodle 17/18 page for support material – such as the course outline and lecture notes – to help complete your resit coursework.
Quantitative Methods (Article analysis following a guideline)
Candidate Number
Course Unit Title
Course Unit Code
Introduction
This paper examines how performance is affected by team-specific human capital (TSHC) (Gerrard & Lockett, 2018, p.10). This objective is achieved through the delineation of the two dimensions of TSHC regarding the team manager and members while focusing on the interaction between these dimensions and the effect on influencing performance.
Critique of the current theory
According to Li et al. (2017, p.26), proponents of the resource-based view (RBV) theory argue that firms outdo each other because of human capital (HC). Nonetheless, empirical evidence from recent meta-analyses points out that the relationship between performance and resources remain inconclusive (Gerrard &Lockett, 2018, p.10). Besides, the existing evidence on the same from various meta-analyses is ambiguous. The authors indicate that this ambiguity can be linked to pre-existing studies that use variables that are logically appropriate but less suitable from an HC perspective. The inconsistencies of the RBV theory also arise from the control of cross-sectional study designs that fail to result in performance enhancements as a result of resource-accumulation processes.
To overcome the RBV incoherencies the authors of this article focused on an isolation mechanism by differentiating the general and specific HC. To effectively explain the relationship between resources and performance of a firm the authors could also have utilized Porter's Five Forces. Smith (2018, p.73) opine that Porter's five-force framework utilizes a specific area of a firm most especially the resources as the unit of analysis to determine the achievement of profit maximization through enhanced performance. Investigations on this framework reveal that there is a notable relationship...
