master report guidelines

8/6/2019 Master Report Guidelines

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Université Paris-Dauphine

Master Report GuidelinesTable of Contents

Table of Contents ................................................................................................... 2

1- The Importance of the Master Report ................................................................. 3

2- The Standard Expected of the Master Report ..................................................... 3

3- The Content of the Master Report ...................................................................... 3

4- Sources .............................................................................................................. 4

5- Planning and Guidance ....................................................................................... 5

6- Submission ......................................................................................................... 6

7- Arrangement of Master Report ........................................................................... 7

8- Master Report Format ........................................................................................ 8

9- Footnotes .......................................................................................................... 9

10- References ...................................................................................................... 9

Sample A: Title Page ............................................................................................. 11

Sample B: Vita ...................................................................................................... 12

Appendix 1 : some consulting reports .................................................................. 13

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Université Paris-Dauphine

Master Report Guidelines

1- The Importance of the Master Report

The Master Report is an important part of the Master program. It is essential that youtake care to put together a Master Report of sufficiently high standard to satisfy the examinersof the Master. The following guidelines have been produced, in consultation with the Faculty,to give you an idea of what the examiners will be looking for.

2- The Standard Expected of the Master Report

The Master Report should be a demonstration that you have sufficiently mastered the study of an area of Management to make a contribution which merits attention by other scholars and

practitioners in the field.

The best Master Reports can be of a standard which leads to serious consideration for publication as a professional report from a consulting group, a professional organization or an

investment bank. Some references are provided in appendix 1. Even if the content of your Master Report does not meet that criterion, the quality of presentation, especially with regardto footnoting and references, must be of that standard. This should look like a report

published by a consulting group, an professional organization or an investment bank.

3- The Content of the Master Report

A good Master Report poses an interesting, focused question, and provides a reasoned answer to this question.

A Master Report needs to have a central integrating argument. The argument should belogically developed, building up a case point by point, and displaying a critical and analyticalapproach to the subject. Descriptive material which does not contribute to such an argumentshould normally be omitted.

It is not writing about the collection of books and articles which you have read about thetopic. A good Master Report needs to contain your assessment of existing knowledge about

the topic plus contributions which you yourself may have made to that knowledge through

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original research from primary sources of fieldwork. It should be an expression of your thoughts and conclusions.

Your argument should have depth and balance. Avoid making superficial claims which willnot stand up to scrutiny. Important alternative views must be met. Similarly, do not ignoreevidence that does not support your case. Examine the evidence. If a candidate adopts asingle perspective, s/he must demonstrate a critical awareness of its strengths and weaknesses.

The Master Report should relate to the content of at least one course of the Master program.You should clearly demonstrate the link between the topic or case(s) studied and a recognisedcorpus of literature that was taught in Management in the Master program and this link should

be made explicitly.

4- Sources

Students are encouraged to gather as much data and information as is possible within theallocated time. You may find the Internet a useful tool for this purpose, but your corporationor institution should rather be the primary source of these data. Data might be :

1. Books

2. Press articles (that you may find in bookshops, libraries or on the internet)

3. Professional reports (that you may find in bookshops, libraries or on the internet)

4. Internal reports

5. Interviews (that may be anonymous: for instance, Mr X, director of Business Unit Y)

6. Your own observations (not mandatory)

7. Questionnaires (not mandatory)

By all means use primary source material (from interviews, fieldwork, surveys, or analysis of original documents) if you wish and if it is available to you. But, given the shorttime available to you for research, you should make sure that any fieldwork or primaryresearch that you do is strictly ‘containable’ within the time-frame for the Master Report.

Moreover, you should note that the use of primary source material is not a requirementof a successful Master Report, and that a Master Report which is closer in style and approachto an extended tutorial essay than to a mini doctoral thesis is perfectly acceptable, so long as it

has a clear and convincing argument and achieves adequate depth.

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Do make sure well in advance that the material you hope to use is actually available.Some earlier candidates postponed work on their Master Reports until early July, only todiscover, at this stage, that their expected sources did not exist or were inaccessible.

While it is obviously necessary to identify the major sources relating to your topic,you do not need to engage in the sort of exhaustive literature search, which would be moreappropriate for a research degree.

AVOID PLAGIARISM AT ALL COSTS. The definition of ‘plagiarise’ is ‘ to take and useanother person's thoughts, writings, or inventions as one's own ’. The most obvious form isusing someone else's words without any acknowledgement, but there are other kinds of

plagiarism. For example, using a verbatim passage without quotation marks would be plagiarism even if the source was acknowledged in a precise reference. If you use verbatimmaterial from other sources it must both be in quotation marks and precisely referenced.When the work of other people is referred to, there should always be an acknowledgement.Proper citation of sources is an elementary but critical mark of the presentation of scholarlywork, and you should observe the standards used in top refereed journals. The examiners arevigilant in cases of plagiarism, and a Master Report containing plagiarism will be referred tothe university authorities.

5- Planning and Guidance

Start planning your Master Report early. Obviously, you should pick a topic that closelyinterests you, but make sure that it fits with the course material. You should discuss thegeneral scope and approach of your Master Report as well as your proposed source materialwith your supervisor.

Once you have selected and defined your topic, and done some initial data gathering and

reading, draw up a draft plan. In the first instance, the plan is likely to be simply a list of questions to be asked; new aspects will be added as you do more research, while others will

be eliminated as irrelevant. Do not expect your first plan to remain fixed; it is likely tochange as you develop your reading and research. Often your Master Report will developwith a cyclical process: you begin with a rough idea of what might be found or argued; youmodify this idea as you get into the topic; discard some ideas and concentrate on others; refinethe research question; and so on.

A supervisor will be assigned to you according to your chosen topic of study. By default your

supervisor will be the director of the Master Program. It is up to you to contact your supervisor on the subject, and you should make sure that you do so in good time. You should

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not expect your supervisor to give detailed comments on drafts. The purpose of the Master Report is to give you a chance to show your capacities to contribute to the advanced study of Management, and it should be your own unaided effort.

Supervision will not be provided after the end of July. Therefore, it is your responsibility toensure that any advice you may need from your supervisor is obtained before the end of July.

6- Submission

The Master Report should be submitted in duplicate to the administrative assistant of theMaster Program. She will write down the date and time of your submission. Late submissions

will be penalised this way: 2 points after each day of late submission, and zero after 1 week.

Please note: If you are sending your Master Report by post it should arrive in theadministrative office at the due date. Failure of the postal services is not a valid excuse. If theMaster Report arrives in the AO after the deadline then normal penalties for late submissionwill apply.

Do not post your Master Report to any other address. You should also enclose a completed

copy of the coursework submission form. Although this will not act as receipt we still needyou to sign the plagiarism statement. We will email you when your Master Report arrives andthis will act as your receipt.

The Master Program cannot accept work sent electronically (by email).

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7- Arrangement of Master Report

Each thesis or report must be arranged in the following order. Italicized pages are optional.

1. Title Page (Sample A) Include this page in the pretext page count, but do not place a page number on it.

2. Abstract. Continue pretext page numbering with lowercase Roman numerals.

3. Table of Contents. Continue pretext page numbering with lowercase Romannumerals.

4. Acknowledgements and/or Preface. Begin placing pretext lowercase Romannumerals at the bottom of this page, counting all preceding pretext material except for the fly page. Page numbers are centered one inch from the bottom of the page.

5. Text . All pages from the first page of text through the Vita are numberedconsecutively in Arabic numerals, beginning with Arabic numeral “1” on the first pageof the thesis or report text.

6. Bibliography. Other possible titles are “References” or “Works Cited.” (not includedin the page number counting)

7. Vita (sample B)This brief biographical sketch of the author is always the last page of the thesis or report and the last page listed on the Table of Contents. (not included inthe page number counting)

8. Appendix. Stop page numbering with Arabic numerals. (not included in the pagenumber counting). Please do not hesitate to include many appendix.

9. Glossary. Stop page numbering with Arabic numerals. (not included in the pagenumber counting). Please do include a glossary when you refer to many technical terms.

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8- Master Report Format

Candidates are required to submit two copies of the Master Report.

a. Font

A single font must be used throughout the thesis or report, the only exceptions being in tables,graphs, and appendices. Headings may be bolded and no more than 2 points larger than therest of the text. Recommended font is Times New Roman

b. Margins

All theses and reports must have consistent margins of 2,7 centimeters at the top, bottom, left,and right edges of the page. Page numbers must be placed at least one inch from the bottom of the page. Margins which are smaller than those required are acceptable, but larger margins arenot.

c. Spacing

The thesis or report must be single -spaced.

d. Numbering of Pages

Beginning with the first page of the Acknowledgements or Preface, if used, all preliminary pages preceding the actual text must be numbered in lowercase Roman numerals; e.g., iii, iv,v, etc. These numerals must be centered under the text with at least one inch of space betweenthe number and the bottom of the page. If no optional pages are used, the page numbers must

begin on the Abstract. Do not number the copyright page, signature page, title page, or dedication, but do include each of them in the pretext page count. The first page of the text

begins at Arabic numeral 1. All pages within the text must contain an Arabic page number, bottom-centered, at least one centimeter from the bottom edge of the page.

e. Length

The length of your Master Report should be 150 pages (exclusive of appendices andcitations).

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9- Footnotes

There are several conventions, and it does not matter which one you adopt providedthat you cite sources properly, giving all the necessary information, and keep to the same

convention throughout. The ‘Harvard’ system is briefly described below and is used by moststudents. If you choose to adopt an alternative convention, make sure both that it is anacceptable one and that you use it consistently. Students will be penalised for poor,inconsistent or sloppy references.

Footnotes are used to take care of the occasions when you have a piece of information to give but it is inconvenient to break up the text. Traditionally, footnotes appeared at the bottom of the reference page in a smaller font, and the advent of more sophisticated word-processing

packages has given this type of footnote a new lease of life. Alternatively (and the morecommon modern style), put all ‘notes’ at the end and signal them in the text by a number in

brackets (), in a single numerical sequence.

10- References

References are scholarly acknowledgements of work referred to or quoted. The ‘Harvardsystem’ requires you to put in the text of your work the surname of the author, the date of

publication, and the page number, all within brackets. At the end of the Master Report you

then give a single list of all the references you have used. This list of references should bearranged alphabetically with full bibliographic information. The alphabetical list shouldinclude all the references which have been used (books, articles, reports, internal corporationreports, government publications, etc.). The references in the alphabetical list should be setout thus:

Books

Johnson, B. (1991) The Art of Referencing. London, Macmillan.

Journal Articles

Johnson, B. (1978) "The Harvard System" Academic Sciences Quarterly, 28(2): 184-207.

Chapters of Books written by one author, edited by another .

Johnson, B (1989) Referencing. In R.Smith and A.Jones (eds). Scholarly Practice.London, Pergamon.

Where the author's name is not obvious (e.g. corporation or government report)

IBM (1991). Information Technology Report. Armonk, New York, USA.

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Early identification of a fairly precise topic will help you enormously with sources, since the processes of ‘serendipity’ and chance sightings of books and articles during the pursuit of your other studies (as long as you make a written note of them at the time) will save time

later, while reflection on your topic in advance of solid work on it may help you to developideas which can elude you in mid-summer.

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Sample B: Vita

VITA

Emmanuel Monod , Paris Dauphine University (France) is visiting associate professor atGeorgia State University (Atlanta, USA), and currently Associate Editor for InformationSystems Research (ISR). He is also editorial board member of Information Systems Journal (ISJ), Database for Advances in IS and Information Technology and People . He was

previously associate editor for Communication of the AIS (CAIS) and Journal of the AIS (JAIS).

He was vice-president of the AIS from 2003 to 2008 and conference track chair for ICIS(2004 and 2005), ECIS 2005 and AMCIS (from 2004 to 2007). He created (and was leader of)two AIS Special Interest Groups “e-culture e-tourism” and “philosophy and epistemology of IS”. He has previously held executive positions in IBM (France and USA), France Telecomand the French Company of External Trade (COFACE), depending of the French Ministry of Finance. At Paris Dauphine University, he is the director of the Master of InternationalBusiness (MIB), co-director of the EDBA (Executive Doctorate in Business Administration),co-director of the Master of New Communication Technologies and Tourism (MCT) anddirector of the dual doctorate-PhD program with Georgia State University (Atlanta)

He published in Information and Organization, Information System Journal (ISJ), European Journal of Management, Communications of the AIS (CAIS) and 3 French journals recognized by CNRS (French equivalent to NSF) : Systèmes d’Information et Management (SIM) , Réseaux (networks) and Annales des Telecommunications . He was guest associate editor for MISQ and guest editor of a special issue of ISJ

.

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Appendix 1 : some consulting reports

Forrester

http://www.forrester.com/rb/businessdata.jsp?cm_re=Navigation_010710-_-business_data_tab-_-business_data

Standish group

http://www.marketresearch.com/vendors/viewVendor.asp?VendorID=2514

ABI research

http://www.abiresearch.com/home.jsp

Accenture reports :

http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/By_Industry/default.htm

IBM reports

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/glt-landing-2009.html

World Competitiveness Report : http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm

Travel and tourism competitiveness report

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/TravelandTourismReport/index.htm

Global Information Technology Report

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Information%20Technology%20Report/index.htm

US Government SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) (all companies):

http://searchwww.sec.gov/EDGARFSClient/jsp/EDGAR_MainAccess.jsp

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http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm















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