Students who wish to do a dissertation in strategic management first need to write a proposal for the project which they need to submit to the university board. Only when the board approves it will they get the funding and the resources to go ahead with the project. So what do they need to do to write a compelling proposal?

First the students need to write an introduction about the origins of strategic management and its relevance in the business world of today. They should also discuss the changes that are taking place in the business environment they are examining.

They should then write the problems that the business environment is facing with regard to strategic management. There will be more than one problem, and it is a good idea if the writers were to list all the problems either in the form of bullet points or in the form of a number list.

From this the content should lead to the questions that the researchers intend to examine over the course of their investigation. The questions should be stated very clearly with no room for ambiguity. They should state the depth of analysis that they intend to do, the controls and feedback mechanisms they will be looking at, and the systems they will be surveying. Leadership traits, organisation culture and internal control mechanisms all play an important role in a project of this nature and it is essential to list them all carefully.

The main objectives of the research might be only three or four, and they need to be listed before writing the significance of the study and how it will help organizations manage their operations better. Some studies will be large in scope encompassing a vast organization or many organizations across an entire industry. Others might be small and focused in nature devoting their attention to just one aspect of an operation. The students need to clarify this as well.