There are many ways of presenting information about a factory or a company in the business environment. Most of the companies resort to compiling a business report, which is an evaluation of a specific issue or financial transactions that relate to the performance of a business (Gray, 2019). Others recur to using traditional academic research, which endeavors to answer the research questions and include many statistics, case series, surveys, and data analysis. Due to the difference between these forms of writing, they both are efficient for presenting data. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of an academic research project and identify whether an IKEA case study can be presented in a form of academic research.
How can the IKEA Case Study become an academic research project report?
The IKEA Case Study is represented in the form of a business report; however, technically, it can turn into an academic report. First of all, there should be a clear abstract stating the goals of the paper, the methods used, results obtained, and other significant elements of abstract. As there is no specific goal set in IKEA Case Study, the entire website is merely descriptive. Moreover, the case study presented does not have a required academic structure; therefore, there is a necessity to add the missing elements such as introduction, discussion, conclusion, and others (Quinlan et al., 2019). Another step to transform this case study into a dissertation or thesis is to implement more of statistical or quantitative data, tables, or charts to impart more relevance and conclusiveness of the report.
Normally, the language of a thesis or dissertation is quite complex, as it is more lexically dense, grammatically elaborate, and vocabulary varied. As the language of the case study lacks grammatical and lexical complexity, this point should also be altered in order to become an academic report. The other aspect concerns the use of reference: there are not enough resources used for the academic report; thus, there should be applied to more scientific articles.
What did you like/dislike from the IKEA Case Study?
I think that the IKEA Case Study is an excellent example of how the information can be organized in a formal but smoothly comprehensive manner. Moreover, the analysis of IKEA’s activity is presented through the website, which makes it more appealing as many graphical and visual information is demonstrated (Ong et al., 2015). To my mind, all the data is thoroughly collected and divided into sections properly, thus, one can orientate well throughout the wisely organized structure (How to write a business report, 2017). The language style is not complicated though quite expressive for the business report; thus, it can be comprehended by any person reaching this material (Akkayan & Aydin, 2018). What is more, the facts in each section are precise and devoid of irrelevant information that would distract the reader. I assume that despite its clarity, there is a slight drawback concerning the lack of statistical data. The prevalent part of the information is presented textually; thus, not enough evidence is provided for the reader. Therefore, the information is rather general, making the case study look less credible.
What are the pros and cons of using the traditional academic research project structure?
The traditional academic research project suggests representing a material at a higher level of thinking. It presumes that one should have an ability to logically summarize, connect, analyze, find patterns, note one’s standpoint, evaluate sources, and criticize. Such writing demands a thorough approach and consideration as it includes multiple components that might be confused, misinterpreted, or omitted. Therefore, structure writing has both pros and cons.
First and foremost, the traditional academic research project writing is beneficial as it allows to establish a precise outline to follow. The typical structure includes preliminary sections (title page, abstract, acknowledgments, etc.), the body of the work (introduction, literature review, results, discussion, conclusion, etc.), and supporting sections (bibliography, appendices) (Murray, 2008). Such a structure can significantly alleviate the process of compiling the material, communicating the findings, and further perceiving it. Moreover, if one while checking wills to skip some sections, it can be quickly done due to the numbered pages. In addition to this, when someone tries to identify if the set goals and results correspond, they can look through several sections to validate the correspondence.
On the contrary, there are still drawbacks the academic research project writing as it implies an elaborate sequence. Many authors struggle to compose coherent introduction so that it has links to further articles; therefore, after the review, the framing of the work may alter. Academic research typically includes much data that is compiled into tables, graphs, or charts; therefore, there might be confusion due to the inconsistent information (Murray, 2008). Furthermore, the writing demands thorough bibliography formatting and proper reference style.
Conclusion
Taking all aspects into consideration, it seems reasonable to restate that academic research projects such as a thesis or dissertation demand an elaborate approach due to their complexity in comparison with other writings. Despite the multilevel structure where some elements can be misinterpreted, it presents a well-organized paper comprising logically interconnected articles. The IKEA Case Study may be transformed into such writing by complementing the missing elements and extending the amount of data.
References
Akkaya, A. & Aydin, G. (2018). Academics’ views on the characteristics of academic writing. Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, 13(2), 128-160. Web.
Gray, D. E. (2019). Doing research in the business world. SAGE Publications Ltd.
How to write a business report. (2017). Victoria University of Wellington.
Murray, N. (2008). What are the different components of a research project? In Murray (ed.), Writing up your university assignments and research projects: A practical handbook (pp. 137-176). Open University Press.
Ong, W., Lee, D., Ye, A., Wu, C. and Liao, S. (2015). IKEA Case Study. Web.
Quinlan, C., Babin, B., Carr, J., & Griffin, M. (2019) Business research methods, 2nd ed. Andover.