Thesis writing manual

MASTERS DEGREE THESIS WRITING MANUAL

USING AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (APA) STYLE

GUIDELINES

PREPARED BY

C P RIJAL, PHD IN LEADERSHIP

DIRECTOR, MBA PROGRAM

GLOBAL COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

PREPARED FOR

GLOBAL COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL (GCI)

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

IN AFFILIATION WITH SHINAWATRA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY (SIU)

PATHUM THANI, THAILAND

LAST UPDATE

AUGUST, 2015

Thesis Writing Manual by Dr Rijal Page 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SN CONTENTS PAGE

1 DOCUMENTING THE PAPER…………………………………………2

2 PAGE MARGINS & FONTS……………………………………………63

3 BUILDING THE REFERENCE INFORMATION……………………..63

4 USING QUOTATIONS FROM OTHER SOURCES…………………..64

5 PERFORMING TEXT CITATION IN APA STYLES………………….66

6 PREPARING REFERENCES IN APA STYLES……………………….69

7 REFERENCES………………………………………………………….74


1. DOCUMENTING THE PAPER

1.1. MEDIUM OF LANGUAGE

Generally, the research reports/thesis must be written in English language. Exceptions

may be made, if appropriate, in appendix material or if the employer or the course

instructor gives special waiver for any other language. For uniformity of style,

American English is preferred.

1.2. PARTS OF THE PAPER

Primarily, the documentation of a well-written thesis report will comprise of

following three parts:

A. PREFATORY PART

Normally, prefatory part maintains small case roman number system with no paging

in the cover/title page with following key contents:

Title page

Title fly

Acknowledgements

Declaration

Recommendation

Letter of approval

Certificate of Acceptance

Abstract

Table of Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

Note: The pages must be paginated in small case roman numbering system, starting

from Acknowledgements.

B. MAIN BODY

However, the exact heading-wise coverage will be slightly different in different

projects using respective methodological approaches; the following is a tentative

outline of the contents required while developing a document of a thesis research

report:

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the Study

1.2. Gap Analyses

1.3. The Missing Link

1.4. Purpose of the Study

1.5. Statement of the Problem

1.6. Research Questions

1.7. Statements of Hypotheses

1.8. Rational of the Study

1.9. Issues Governing the Study

1.10. Definition of Key Terminologies


1.11. Limitation and Delimitations of the Study

1.12. Organization of the Thesis Report

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Reviews of Theoretical Perspectives

2.3. Review of Related Policy Documents

2.4. Reviews of Related Studies

2.5. Conceptual Framework of the Study

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Methodological Paradigms

3.3. Research Design

3.4. Population of the Study

3.5. Locating the Study

3.6. Sampling Strategies

3.7. Sources of Information

3.8. Units of Results Analyses

3.9. Development of Data Collection Tools

3.10. Test of Validity and Reliability

3.11. Mechanism for Research Administration

3.12. Mechanism for Minimizing Research Errors

3.13. Techniques of Data Reduction and Analysis

3.14. Bases of Results Interpretation

3.15. Respondent/Participant Information

3.16. Work Schedules

3.17. Socio-Ethical Compliances Made

CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION & ANALYSES

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Develop research question or issue-based headings to make detailed

presentation and analyses and also run relevant statistical testing

4.3. Kay Findings of the Study

CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Summary

5.3. Discussions

5.4. Lessons Learnt

5.5. Conclusions

5.6. Suggestions for Managerial Implications

5.7. Suggestions for Further Research

C. SUPPLEMENTARY PART

This part follows the continuing paging as in main body and normally contains three

key sections – References, Appendices and Annextures.


REFERENCES

To be developed following the given style guidelines in this document.

APPENDICES

Should include different models used, survey questionnaires and other data collection

forms and formats.

ANNEXTURES

Should comprise extended data forms generated through primary as well as secondary

sources, which are discussed in the main body of data presentation and analyses. For

example, Annual Reports consulted for analyses, time series data used for analyses,

etc.

1.3. GUIDELINES FOR PAPER DRAFTING

A. PREFATORY PART

A full page, title page should be prepared as follows:


SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF YETI AIRLINES: CUSTOMER PERCEIVED GAP

ANALYSES

A Thesis Research Report

Submitted by

Padam Raj Shahi

SU Regd.: 7-2-371-10-2015

Master of Business Administration

Global College International

Submitted in

partial fulfillment of the requirement for Master of Business Administration (MBA)

degree

Submitted to

Office of the Deal

Faculty of Management

Shinawatra University

………., Thailand

Submitted on

December 21, 2015

Single line spacing,

font 12 in all caps,

centered document

alignment

5 lines gap

with single

line

spacing and

font 12,

centered

document

alignment

Font type: Only

Times New Roman or

Ariel, or Courier New


A Title Fly contains the same information as presented in the Title Page; will be

placed inside following a blank page after Title Page.

SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF YETI AIRLINES: CUSTOMER PERCEIVED GAP

ANALYSES

A Thesis Research Report

Submitted by

Padam Raj Shahi

SU Regd.: 7-2-371-10-2015

Master of Business Administration


Submitted in

partial fulfillment of the requirement for Master of Business Administration (MBA)

degree

Submitted to

Office of the Deal

Faculty of Management

Shinawatra University

………., Thailand

Submitted on

December 21, 2015


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A few paragraphs to acknowledge the support provided by the respective supervisor,

external evaluator, college and university department; finally closed with the name of

Degree Candidate without signature. It should not exceed one page.

Padam Raj Shahi

Degree Candidate

Note: Commence the page number from this page using lower case Roman

Numbering system, placed to the right side of this page and continue it till the end of

prefatory part.

Bold, all caps, font 12, single

line spacing, paragraph before 0

and after 30 points spacing

Bold, all caps, font 12, single line

spacing, paragraph before 0 and

after 30 points spacing


DECLARATION

I, Padam Raj Shahi, the degree candidate, hereby declare that the work presented in

this dissertation is a genuine work done originally by me under the closer guidance

and supervision of the respective Supervisor, following the stipulated guidelines and

the same report has not been submitted elsewhere for the award of any degree. All

sources of information referred in this work are acknowledged with reference to the

respective authors. I firmly understand that this document becomes a university

property on its acceptance and promise to abide by the respective norms of the

university in this respect.

signature

--------------------

Padam Raj Shahi

Degree Candidate

Justified

paragraph

with 1.5

lines, ‘0’

point

before

and after spacing


RECOMMENDATION

We are please to certify that Mr. Padam Raj Shahi has completed his dissertation

work entitled SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF YETI AIRLINES: CUSTOMER

PERCEIVED GAP ANALYSES as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for

Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree under our supervision following

the respective guidelines for paper documentation.

We, therefore, recommend the dissertation for acceptance and approval.

signature signature

------------------- -----------------------------

Prof. Dr. Prem Raj Pant Dr C P Rijal

Thesis Supervisor Program Director, MBA


Note: This page should be printed in the Official Letterhead of the Institution of study.


LETTER OF APPROVAL

On recommendation of the respective Supervisor and Program Director, the

dissertation submitted by Mr. Padam Raj Shahi entitled SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF

YETI AIRLINES: CUSTOMER PERCEIVED GAP ANALYSES has been approved

and forwarded to the Research Evaluation Committee, Global College International

for final evaluation before submitting to the university for awarding Master of

Business Administration (MBA) degree to the respective candidate.

signature

-------------------------

Dr Karan S Thagunna

Principal


Note: This page also should be printed in the Official Letterhead of the Institution of

study.


CERTIFICATE OF ACCEPTANCE

Following a successful presentation and evaluation by the Research Evaluation

Committee, this dissertation entitled SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF YETI AIRLINES:

CUSTOMER PERCEIVED GAP ANALYSES submitted by Mr. Padam Raj Shahi

has been accepted and forwarded to the University for awarding Master of Business

Administration (MBA) degree.

Research Evaluation Committee

Prof. Dr. Prem Raj Pant Signature: __________________

Thesis Research Supervisor Date: ______________________

Dr. C. P. Rijal Signature: __________________

Member, Research Evaluation Committee Date: ______________________

Prof. Dr. Radheshyam Pradhan Signature: __________________

External Examiner Date: ______________________

Dr. Karan Sing Thagunna Signature: __________________

Chairman, Research Evaluation Committee Date: ______________________


ABSTRACT

An abstract should be prepared by condensing the overall study report. In fact, there is

no hard and fast rule on writing an abstract. Generally, an abstract should be limited

to one to one and half page document that comprises of 3-5 paragraphs revealing the

purpose and nature of the study, crux of study methodology, key findings of the study,

lessons learnt and conclusions made on the basis of the present research.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………i

DECLARATION……………………………………………………...ii

RECOMMENDATION………………………………………………iii

LETTER OF APPROVAL……………………………………………iv

CERTIFICATE OF ACCEPTANCE………………………………….v

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………..vi

1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………..1

1.1. Background of the Study…………………………………….1

1.2. Objectives of the Study………………………………….......5

1.3. The Missing Link……………………………………………5

1.4. Research Questions………………………………………….6

1.5. Working Hypotheses…………………………………….......6

1.6. Scope of Works………………………………………….......7

1.7. Significance of the Study……………………………………7

1.8. Definition of Key Terms…………………………………….8

1.9. Limitation and Delimitations of the Study…………………..9

1.10. Chapter-wise Organization of the Study Report…………….9

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE………………………………………...10

2.1. Introduction…………..…………………………………….10

2.2. Review of Theoretical Perspectives of the Study…..………14

2.3. Review of Governing Policies……………...………………17

2.4. Review of Related Studies…..………….………………….19

2.5. Conceptual Framework of the Study…......24

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY………………………………….....25

4 DATA PRESENTATION & ANALYSES…………………………..35

5 SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS……………………………………52


REFERENCES………………………………………………………59

APPENDICES……………………………………………………….64

ANNEXTURES……………………………………………………...68


LIST OF TABLES

Follow the pattern of page formatting as similar as that of Table of Contents in the

pattern of Table Number, Table Name and Page.

Note: List of Table is applicable if there are at least two tables used throughout the

study report.


LIST OF FIGURES

Follow the pattern of page formatting as similar as that of List of Tables in the pattern

of Figure Number, Figure Name and Page.

Note: List of Figures is applicable if there are at least two figures used throughout the

study report.


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Prepare the list of abbreviations in a dictionary order following the given pattern of

examples as follows:

FDI : Foreign Direct Investment

GAAP : Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

GCI : Global College International

SIU : Shinawatra International University

Note: Apply Roman Numbering system in the lower case till the end of this section.


B. MAIN BODY

Based on the nature of research, writing style and pattern will slightly vary. For

example, a document following a fully qualitative research methodology may be

completely different from that of based on a fully quantitative research methodology.

Thus, the exact heading-wise coverage will vary across the different projects using

respective methodological approaches. The following is a tentative outline of the

contents required while developing a document of a thesis research report:

To begin your first chapter, it is recommended but not necessary, to place the study

title in ‘all caps’ fonts placed in the top center and maintain a single line spacing with

before ‘0’ and after ‘30’ points of paragraph spacing. Similarly, the chapter heading

will also follow the same pattern. Please check out the example as follows:


SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF YETI AIRLINES: CUSTOMER PERCEIVED

GAP ANALYSES

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION


The best way to work on background of the study is to explore some relevant

literature that reveals some urgency of conducting research in a particular area of

specialization which is of your interest.

For example, in a study entitled, SERVICE EFFICIENCY OF YETI AIRLINES:

CUSTOMER PERCEIVED GAP ANALYSES, Thebe (2015) has commenced the

dissertation paper as follows:


A scholar has stated argued that achieving and maintaining quality of product and

customer satisfaction are the two most important factors leading towards success in

organizations (Kondalkar, 2007). This scholar has further stated that to achieve these

twin objectives, an organization has to marshal various resources, plan their usage

over a period of time and produce a products or services to meet the consumer needs,

desire and aspirations. On the other hand, the customers naturally, compare the

service they ‘experience’ with what they had ‘expected’ and when it does not match

the expectations, a gap arises (Zeithaml et al., 2012; as cited in Rijal, 2014).

Different scholars have recognized customer satisfaction differently but in common,

they agree that attainment of customer satisfaction is a never-ending goal of doing any

business. For example, Kotler, Bowen and Makens (1996) have recognized that

customer satisfaction refers to the product perceived performance by the customers in

delivering value relative to a buyer’s expectations, otherwise, the buyer becomes

dissatisfied. If the customer perceived level of performance exceeds the expectation,

then the buyer is known to be satisfied. Customer gap represents the difference

When you commence

the first chapter, it is

recommended to use

the study title on its top

and then start from the

chapter title.

Single line spacing

with 30 points after

paragraph to commence the first heading.


between customer expectations and perceptions of service performance (Rijal, 2014;

& Zeithaml, & Bitner, 2003).

In the service industry, understanding the service gaps creates an essential tool for

understanding how the customers take and analyze the services on offer of a firm.

Such information may have tremendous institutional value in course of enlarging

marketing growth and decisions in services. Effective services marketing is a complex

undertaking involving many different skills and tasks aimed at heightened customer

satisfaction, always. Therefore, the scholars have recognized that the gap model is the

key concept that begins the customer and builds the organization’s tasks around what

is needed to close the gap between customer expectations and perceptions (Zeithaml,

& Bitner, 2003; & Rijal, 2014).

These scholars are of the opinion that the service marketing strategy focuses on

delivering processes, experiences, and intangibles to customers rather than physical

goods and transactions. Services organizations have long struggled with how to

approach service design and delivery in an organized manner. In order to view the

delivery of service quality in a structured and integrated way, gaps model of service

quality assessment plays a crucial role. The gaps model positions is the key concepts,

strategies, and decisions in delivering quality services by providing a comprehensive

and integrating framework for delivering service excellence and customer-driven

service innovation in a continued manner. On the other hand, it serves as an essential

tool for establishing formal communication linkage between the provider and

receivers of the services of an entity.

To quote it from Zeithaml and Bitner (2003) –

Customer expectations are beliefs about service delivery that

function as standards or reference points against which performance

is judged. Because customers compare their perceptions of

performance with these reference points when evaluating service

quality, thorough knowledge about customer expectations is critical

to services marketers. Knowing what the customer expects is the first

and possibly most critical step in delivering quality service. Being

wrong about what customers want can mean losing a customer’s


business when another company hits the target exactly. Being wrong

can also mean expending money, time, and other resources on things

that don’t count to the customer. Being wrong can even mean not

surviving in a fiercely competitive market (p. 60).

It means that high performing organizations should place customer perceived message

on top of their decision-making for sustainable business management and keeping

intact the customers.

According to gap model there are two types of gaps -- customer gaps and provider

gaps. Customer gaps may be referred to as the difference between the level of

customer expectation on service and customer perception on delivered quality of

service. ‘Customer expectation’ is referred to as the service standards or reference

points that customers bring into their reference prior to service experience. ‘Customer

perception’, on the other hand, may be referred to as the actual quality of service

delivered, as evaluated by the respective users of such offerings (Rijal, 2014; &

Zeithaml, Bitner, & Gremler, 2009).

Provider gap arises when the providers fails to understand the expectations and

demands of the customers. Provider gap itself constitutes of four different types of

gaps (Zeithaml et al., 2012) – 1. listening gap, 2. service design and standards gap, 3.

service performance gap, and finally, 4. communication gap (Zeithaml et al., 2012; as

cited in Rijal, 2014).

As analyzed in Rijal (2014), the listening gap is the difference between customer

expectations of service and company understanding of those expectations. A primary

cause in many firms for not meeting customers’ expectation is that the firm lacks

accurate understanding of exactly what expectation are. This scholar has assessed at

least four reasons of happening of the listening gap. These include inadequate

marketing research (MR) orientation, lack of upward communication, insufficient

relationship focus and inadequate service recovery (pp. 11-14).


According to this scholar, inadequate MR orientation is the result of insufficient

marketing research (MR), research not being focused on service quality and

inadequate use of market research information in decision making.

Similarly, lack of upward communication is the outcome of lack of interaction

between management and customers, insufficient communication between contact

employees and managers, and too many layers of communication between the contact

persons and top management in the organization.

Additionally, lack of proper market segmentation, too much of focus on transactions

rather than relationships, and Focus on new customers rather than relationship

customers are the symptoms of insufficient relationship focus of the firm.

Finally, inadequate service recovery is caused due to lack of encouragement to listen

to the customer complaints, failure to make amends when things go wrong, and no

appropriate recovery mechanisms in place for service failures.

The service design and standards gap has been recognized as an outcome of

management failure to timely act with bringing forth relevant quality standards and

performance norms to guide the overall process of design, production and delivery of

organizational services. The scholars have recognized that this sort of gap may arise

when the management or service provider correctly perceives what the customers

want, but may not set a performance standard to respond accordingly. In other words,

service design and standards gap may be referred to as the difference between

management perceptions of customer expectations and customer driven service

designs and standards in place. Basically, there are three types of service design and

standard gaps as propagated by Zeithaml et al. (2012). According to these scholars,

poor service design and standardization gaps include poor service design, absence of

customer-driven standards, and inappropriate physical evidence and services cape.

Poor service design is considered as the sum total of unsystematic new service

development process in place; vague, undefined service designs in practice; and

failure to connect service designs to service positioning by the organization.


Lack of customer-driven service standards, absence of process management to focus

on customer requirements, and absence of formal process for setting service quality

goals refers to the absence of customer–driven standards.

Similarly, inappropriate physical evidence and servicescaping will be witnessed due

to failure to develop tangibles in line with customer expectations, servicescape design

that does not meet customer and employee needs, and/or inadequate maintenance and

updating of the servicescape.

Further, Zeithaml et al. (2012) are of the opinion that the service performance gap is

the difference between development of customer-driven design and service standards

and actual service delivery or delivered service performance by the company. Once

the service design and standard are in place, it would seem that the firm is well on its

way to delivering high quality services. This assumption is true but is still not enough

to deliver excellent services. It could happen due to poor training, incapability or

unwillingness to meet the set service standard.

These scholars have pointed out that the service performance gap may comprise of

deficiencies in human resource (HR) policies, failure to match demand and supply,

customers not fulfilling the roles, and problems with the service intermediaries.

Zeithaml and Bitner (2003) have claimed that the deficiencies in HR policies are the

outcomes of ineffective recruitment, role ambiguity and role conflict, poor employee-

technology job fit, inappropriate evaluation and compensation systems, and lack of

empowerment, perceived control, and teamwork. Similarly, failure to smooth peaks

and valleys of demand, inappropriate customer mix, and over-reliance on price to

smooth demand reveals failure to match demand and supply. Customers not fulfilling

the roles may be considered as the result of customers lacking knowledge of their

roles and responsibilities, and customers negatively impacting to each other. Finally,

the problems with service intermediaries is resulted due to channel conflict over

objective and performance, channel conflict over costs and rewards, difficulty

controlling quality and consistency, and tension between empowerment and control

(Rijal, 2014; & Zeithaml, & Bitner, 2003).


Furthermore, the scholars have recognized that the communication gap is the

difference between service delivery and what is communicated externally to

customers. Consumer expectations are highly influenced by statements made by

company representatives and advertisements. The gap arises when these assumed

expectations are not fulfilled at the time of delivery of the service.

According to these scholars, this gap is considered due to lack of integrated services

marketing communications, ineffective management of customer expectations,

overpromising, inadequate horizontal communication, and inappropriate pricing.

Lack of integrated service marketing communications is the result of tendency to view

each external communication as independent, absence of not including interactive

marketing in communications plan, and absence of strong internal marketing program.

Another equally important area of provider gap in respect with communication is

ineffective management of customer expectations. Time again, the firms may lack in

managing customer expectations through all forms of communication.

Similarly, overpromising is another factor contributing to provider gap in respect with

marketing communication. Some of the key attributes to overpromising include

overpromising in advertising, overpromising in personal selling, and overpromising

through physical evidence.

Tolpa (2012) has stated, “Airline industry has always been famous for its continuous

struggle, cutting costs, managing fluctuating demand, keeping up with tight quality

requirements while trying to maintain superior services and satisfy needs of various

customer groups.” Nowadays airline industries have faced crucial stages of

development; one of the most important parts of this program is a gap between

passengers' expectations and passengers' perceptions about services.

According to the scholar Rafati and Shokrollahi (2011), customer perceptions of

service quality are divided into technical quality and functional quality. The technical

quality can be perceived from the evaluation of the buyer based on its service quality

but the functional quality perceived from the evaluation the service delivery process


which is based on the customers’ experiences. Nowadays, in order to reach the higher

market share in the Middle-East, for example, Mahan Air aims to gain the right

perception from the perspectives of tracking the needs and wants of the passengers.

So, in order to target the market economy, the company firmly realizes that each

passenger has its own expectations before he/she having an experience with specific

airline based on some attributes such as last experience, publications, news releases,

friends or relative' speech or recommendations, advertising and so on. After having

the experience with that airline, he/she will have the perceptions based on his/her

expectations. The gap between customer's expectations and perceptions is now a

significant issue for finding out in which parts the airline has strengths or weaknesses.

Similarly, Jensen (2009) has explored the concept of service quality and customer

satisfaction with low cost airlines in Copenhagen Airport. The assessment was

focused on exploration of in-flight service quality and customer satisfaction from the

passengers’ perspective. For this, the core objective of the survey was to identify,

conceptualize and evaluate the service dimensions which influence the passengers’

degree of in-flight satisfaction, in order to devise priorities for improvement. As the

company is best known for being a low cost carrier, the research inputs were worth to

re-craft the in-flight service strategy of the carrier. An integrated model which

measures the passenger gap between expected and perceived service was found

suitable to evaluate perceived in-flight service quality and overall satisfaction.

Furthermore, an importance-performance analysis was applied to identify priorities

for improvement, which forms the managerial implications and future in-flight service

proposition.

On tracing the historical development of the aviation industry in Nepal, Civil Aviation

Authority of Nepal ([CAAN]), 2013; as cited in Gautam, 2013) has pointed out that

the development of Civil Avaition commenced from the late 1940s only when a single

pilot flew over the Kathmandu sky with a single-engine airplane and landed at the

pasture land of Gaucharan, which is the present site of Nepal’s only the international

airport, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).

In 1950 the charter flight named Himalayan Aviation Dakota from Gaucharan to

Calcutta flew for the first time. It was the first passenger aircraft and similarly in


1955, the then King Mahendra inaugurated Gaucharan Airport by turning the grassy

land into a concrete and renamed it as Tribhuvan Airport. Again, in the same year,

Department of Civil Aviation was established (CAAN, 2013; as cited in Gautam,

2013). Later in 1958, realizing the importance of internal and external trade, Royal

Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC) was established with one Douglas DC-3

(Gautam, 2013).

In September 1988 Yeti Airlines Domestic Private Limited was established with two

DHC-6/300 Series Twin Otter aircrafts flying to remote areas with short take off and

landing (STOL) airports like Lukla, Phaplu, Lamidanda, Rumjatar and Mid-Western

Region based airports in Dolpa and Jumla (Chalise, 2011; as cited in Chiluwal, 2013).

Chiluwal (2013) has further explored that within the last 13 years, Yeti has

strengthened and grown to become Nepal’s leader airline and have got largest fleet of

Seven British Aerospace`Jetstream-41 covering its domestic flight on major cities

within Nepal from mountains and hills to Terai regions connecting Kathmandu,

Bhadrapur, Biratnagar, Janakpur, Bharatpur, Pokhara, Bhairahawa, Nepalgunj and

Dhangadi also making the airlines having largest domestic destination connection

network in Nepal.

According to Tripathi (2013), most domestic private sector airlines in Nepal are not in

good in terms of their financial health. This scholar has further pointed that a majority

of them have always been struggling for existence. There are number of private

airlines which had been closed down long years back by closing downed their flags

from the Nepali sky, for example, Necon Air and Cosmic Air. Their contemporary

airlines such as Skyline Air, Shangril-Lai Air, Mountain Air, Nepal Airways, Lumbini

Air and Everest Air also closed down. The scholar has raised need for exploration of

such demises.

Tripathi (2013) has further identified that in terms of the number of passengers carried

and profit made annually, Buddha Air came into number one position in the country,

leaving behind Yeti Airlines in the number two position in market. This scholar has

also recognized the situation of stiff competition among a couple of other private


airlines for the number three position in the domestic aviation market with altogether

15 private airlines (9 fixed-wing and 6 rotary-wing) in operation at present.

In this context, it seems urgent for Yeti Airlines to maintain effective information

update from the market so as to identify a room for improvement to steal the number

one position in near future. For this, among the numerous ways out, conduction of a

survey research with an aim to analyze customer perceived gap of its services so that

the loopholes could be effectively identified and addressed on time. For this reason,

the present researcher firmly believes it would be an academically as well as

professionally responsible proposition to conduct a research entitled ‘service

efficiency of Yeti Airlines: a customer perceived gap analysis’ as part of masters

degree thesis research.

1.2. The Missing Link

The missing link is something that influenced or motivated you to perform a research

in this specific area of study. A closer sensing of growing situation appealing the

future career prospect may be good idea. Following serves as an example for you:

In reference with the above analyzed situation, the present researcher could discover

the service efficiency of Yeti airlines, as Zeithaml and Bitner (2003) have stated that

the strategies and decisions in services marketing in a manner that begins with the

customer and builds the organization’s task around what it is needed to close the gap

between customer expectation and perceptions.

Moreover, the present researcher was also determined to develop the professional

career in this sector of tourism and hospitality, so it was believed to conduct a

research in this particular topic and sector. The present researcher, currently

undergoing Master of Hospitality Management (MHM) degree, was quite interested

in observing customer perception and understanding the level of effectiveness in

fulfilling the expectations.


1.3. Objectives of the Study

State the primary or general aim of the study here in the first paragraph, followed by

the specific objectives in the second paragraph. It is recommended to use the terms

like assess, explore, observe, examine, evaluate, compare, determine, propagate, etc.

while crafting the objective statements. Please avoid use of ‘To’ more repeatedly.

For example, Nepal (2015) has developed research objectives in a Masters’ Thesis

Research as follows:

The general objective of this study was to assess the impact of internship exposure in

hotel management graduates of NATHM for developing professional career readiness

among them. To attain this main objective, the present researcher was further

interested to explore following aspects as part of specific objectives of the enquiry:

a. Assess the impact of internship exposure to transform in graduates with

relevant cognitive development required to live a professional life.

b. Examine the level of impact of such an exposure to harmonize graduate

learning with adequate personal behavioral transformation making them ready

for a more successful professional career.

c. Confirm the significance of having internship work exposure during college

life to transform job relevant practical skills for a successful professional

career.

1.4. Statement of the Problem

Statement of the problem refers the broad query governing the overall inquiry of the

research. It may be composed in an interrogative or affirmative form.

Again, to refer to Nepal (2015), the statement of problem was as follows:

This study was guided with a notion relating to the assessment of NATHM students’

ability to deal with the organizational circumstances after the completion of their

Internship as an outcome of this practice-blended academic initiative.

To attain this specific purpose, a statement of the problem was taken into

consideration to govern the overall research -- What is the perceived level of


professionalism development in students through internship exposure and what are the

determinants that lead to the development of such skill competencies?

After stating the statement of the problem, you need to elaborate it further to reveal

the various functional constructs to be considered as part of holistic observation. For

example,

More specifically, the present researcher was concern to establish a scientific

observation on internship work exposure and its impact to transform the knowledge,

behavior and practical skills among hotel management students of NATHM. For this,

the present researcher wanted to disclose the extent of real impact made as perceived

by the graduates themselves.

1.5. Research Questions

Give a brief background to link up with the statement of the problem and research

questions and then establish a few research questions by defusing the statement of the

problem into stand-alone lean ‘Wh’ or ‘Yes/No’ questions. For example,

Taking into consideration the background of the study, missing link, objectives and

statement of the problem, the present researcher has composed a set of three research

questions (RQs) with an aim to access the overall impact of internship exposure in the

NATHM graduates of hotel management program.

RQ1: As perceived by the past BHM graduates of NATHM, how instrumental was

the internship exposure for them to harmonize their cognitive skill development

required for hotel management careers?

RQ2: What, if any, behavioral changes were perceived by the graduates in them after

having internship exposure?

RQ3: How did the graduates value the impact of such an exposure to develop in them

practical skills required for hotel management careers?


Note: Many graduates get confused with Research Questions by taking them like the

survey questionnaires. Please do not be confused, Research Questions represent the

set of researcher’s queries in the ongoing research project.

1.6. Statements of Hypotheses

Generally, working hypotheses are developed in case the researcher is undertaking

Causal Research Designs. Such hypotheses can be better composed in the format of

‘null hypotheses’ and while composing the hypotheses, you should try to establish the

assumed associations between at least one independent and one dependent variable or

construct of study.

For example, for above stated purpose Nepal (2015) wrote --

The present researcher took into consideration a number of propositions in the form of

null hypotheses (H0) to confirm the statistical significance of the association between

different selected constructs of the study. For example, in the case of above stated

purpose, level of overall impact was considered as the ultimate effect of internship

exposure and the factors determining the level of impact were considered to be gender

of intern, total length of internship duration, location of the internship institution,

nature of works exposure received, guidance and supervision received, workplace

environment and nature of peer and their cooperation received. Considering these

constructs, the following working hypotheses were generated for statistical testing:

H01: The overall level of various types of transformation [cognitive, practical skill,

behavioral] in the interns and their gender are independent of each other.


behavioral] in the interns may have no significant relationship with the year of their

internship engagement.


behavioral] in the interns may have no significant relationship with the country of

location of the hotels where they did internship.


Note: the best way to craft hypotheses is to align with the various bases of data

presentation and analyses. Generally, respondents’ cast-ethnicity, education

qualification, age, gender, nationality, length of experience, etc. are considered as the

bases of analyses. Here, we need to indicate the direction of relationship of these

bases with that of main outcome of the proposed study. Here, functional efficiency is

the main outcome of the study, which is known as dependent variable. So, each

hypothesis should try to establish the relationship between each basis (independent

variable, or cause) with the dependent variable (effect). Such a proposition is known

as causation effect. Remember, once a null hypothesis (H0) is written, its alternate

hypothesis (Ha) is self understood.

1.7. Significance of the Study

Here, you should try to establish the significances from at least three perspectives –

first, how would such a study outcomes be instrumental for the respective institutions,

communities, and governing bodies; how does it help the present researcher in the

process of acquiring the pragmatic knowledge and skill competencies; how can the

future researchers take benefit from such study. May be, working in three distinctive

paragraphs would be a good idea.

1.8. Issues Governing the Study

In this section, you should explore the ways how different socio-cultural, political-

legal, economic, technological, global, natural, pluralism, poverty, unemployment,

and other issues would affect the present study. It is not necessary for all these issues

to act together in all cases or situations.

1.9. Definition of Key Terminologies

In this section, you should establish a few terms and define them for the simplicity of

the readers of your study report. While defining them, please arrange in dictionary

order. For example, you may write your text as follows:

For the purpose of making it simple to the readers of this study report, the present

researcher has established the functional definition of selected terminologies in this

section.


Accommodations: For the purpose of this study, accommodations refer to hospitality

institutions that provide with food and lodge services to their guests with a purpose of

doing their business.

Experience economy: Here, in this study, experience economy refers to the collective

spectrum of all sub-sectors of hospitality and tourism industry.

Functional efficiency: In this study, the term ‘functional efficiency’ refers to the

extent of management competence to maintain cost-effective process outputs in

respect with managing the accommodations in terms of front office operations, F&B

production and services, room services, maintaining guest relationship and overall

administration of the institution as a business entity.

1.10. Limitation and Delimitations of the Study

You should be wise enough to frankly reveal the overall limitations and delimitations

of the ongoing research. For example, something occurring externally and imposing

your research scope to be narrowed down to some extent is the limitation.

Say, Rara Lake, being situated within Nepal Army Camp, the present research team

was asked by the concerned authorities to limit their assessment within focus group

discussion only. And thus, the nearby surroundings could not be physically examined.

This is an example of limitation.

As the study location was situated at a high altitude of 16,000 ft., the researchers

could not extend their stay around Rara Lake for a long time on the grounds of

personal health and safety. As a result, depth observation of public encroachment

affecting the wildlife could not be established and the overall observation was

accomplished in three days only. This is an example of delimitation.

1.11. Organization of the Thesis Report

In this section, you should produce a very short text describing in how chapters has

this report been developed and what is contained in which chapter. In fact, this section


serves as a preamble of the overall report. Please check out the following as an

example for you.

This thesis report has been organized in five distinctive chapters. The brief

background of the study with its introduction and the subject matter has been included

in the first chapter. The second chapter provides the review of literature from various

perspectives. Various methodological paradigms related to the study are

comprehended in the third chapter. Fourth chapter includes the diagnoses of the data

and its presentation. Finally on the basis of personal observation and research, closing

remarks and various implications of the study has been produced in the fifth chapter.


CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1. Introduction

You should write the chapter introduction following this pattern of writing:

The primary purpose of conducting review of literature was to get acquainted with

required theoretical and conceptual knowledge of the field of interest of the present

study. For this, the chapter as a whole has been developed in four distinctive sections

where the first section presents with the review of related theoretical and conceptual

perspectives followed by review of important policy documents related to present

study in the second section of the chapter. Similarly, the third section of the chapter

contains the reviews of other similar studies conducted in the Nepalese and

international context. Finally, on the basis of overall theoretical, conceptual,

procedural and pragmatic inputs gained through the review of different literature, the

present researcher has made a conceptual framework of the study in the fourth section

of the chapter. This conceptual framework of the study serves as the basis of

governing the overall ongoing study.

Note: for each review you perform, you must use direct and indirect citations and

provide full references of those materials using the style guidelines provided in this

manual in later sections.

2.2. Reviews of Theoretical Perspectives

In this section, you need to establish depth reviews of the related theoretical or

conceptual perspectives that are closely linked with your research. Please try to link it

with your statement of the problem and research questions to as to make sure that all

related conceptual perspectives are reviewed. Performing relevant book reviews is the

best source for developing this section.

The opening paragraph of this section should be something like this one:

For the purpose of establishing understanding of the basic conceptual insights on

customer perceived gaps analyses, the present researcher found the works of Kotler

and Armstrong (2014), Bowie and Buttle (2004), Mohammad, Abdullah and Ataur


(2011), Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2000, as cited in Shahin, & Dabestani, 2010),

Robbins and Judge (2013), Schermerhorn, Hunt and Osborn (2002), Parasuraman,

Zeithaml and Berry (2010), Shahin and Janatyan (2011), Zeithaml and Bitner (2003),

Rijal (2014) and Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler (2009, & 2012) as more relevant

resources. The detailed reviews of these works have been presented in the subsequent

part of this section.

2.3. Review of Related Policy Documents

This section should be developed by performing depth reviews of the related policies

governing the core issue of your inquiry. Such policies may include various Acts,

Laws, Bi-laws, System Standards, Working Protocols, Rules and Regulations at

national as well as international context. Please try to be selective enough to narrow-

down the scope of review works only to the required documents. Again, the pattern of

opening should be as presented in the previous section.

2.4. Reviews of Related Studies

You might have already performed a number of very brief reviews from other similar

studies right in Chapter 1 while developing your study background. Now, this is time

to have a detailed, depth review of these works once again and many others. While

opening this section, again follow the same pattern that you developed in the earlier

sections.

Here are a few cautions, please do not emphasize on title of the study, study

population and sampling, as well as data presentation and analyses mechanism used

by the earlier scholars. Rather, your focus must be on their key findings and

implications.

2.5. Development of Conceptual Framework of the Study

On the basis of conceptual knowledge and pragmatic skill competencies gained

through the review of literature from different perspectives, taking into account the

overall statement of the problem, research questions and working hypotheses, you

should develop a conceptual framework of the study and discuss it in detail.

Normally, a conceptual framework of the study can be better presented in a graphical


form. Here is an example of conceptual framework of the study as developed in the

works of Thebe (2015).

On the basis of overall preliminary review of literature related to the present area of

interest of the study, the present researcher has developed a conceptual framework to

govern the research in a more systematic manner. Figure 2.1 presents with the

detailed elements of conceptual framework governing the present study.

Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework of the study

Gap Model of Service Quality

Customer

Customer gap

Performance gap Communication gap

Company

listening gap

Service design and standards gap

Adapted from: Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler. (2009). Service Marketing.

As presented in figure 2.1 above, the present research has been designed on service

gap model based on Perceptual Control Theory of Nickols (2007, as cited in Sheth, &

Malhotra, 2010). The gap model of service quality describes the five dimensions of

service quality. This model is particularly relevant in service strategy as it captures the

cross functionality inherent in service management. The model is anchored on the

customer and integrates customer focus throughout all gaps within the model. The

Expected service

Perceived service

Service delivery

Customer-driven service

designs and standards

Company perceptions of

consumer expectations

External communications

to customers


model shows that company primary goal should be to meet or exceed customer

expectations, and strategies used to achieve that objective are all focus on the

customer. This model offers an integrated view of the consumer company

relationship. It shows that each gap in the customer experience can be closed through

diligent attention from management.


CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction

Now, you can personally develop this section as you have already worked out in

Chapter 2. The pattern can be as: main purpose of this chapter, followed by the

number of sections developed in this chapter and finally, discussion on contents of

each section.

Note: for each methodological section, it requires some reviews to confirm the

relevance of particular methods and then only it should be followed by discussion

about the methods you have opted.

Please also note, if you are developing a research proposal, the entire chapter should

be written in a futuristic, proposed tone of sentence structure and in the event that the

research is already administered and you are developing the research report, it is

recommended to use accomplished tone.

3.2. Methodological Paradigms

Here, you need to first establish a few reviews on various methodological paradigms

to build an understanding about a right combination of such paradigms and then

discuss what methodological approaches were considered suitable in ongoing research

also discuss why you think the selected methods were more suitable over rest of other

methods.

Here, after making a choice of the most suitable methodological approach of research

[qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method], you need to confirm the use of different

tools and techniques for the execution of such a study.

3.3. Research Designs

Here you need to establish the research design relevant of the ongoing study in

confirmation with the quick review of established insights to confirm the

appropriateness of the chosen designs.


For example, before claiming the use of descriptive research design as a suitable

research design in a nation-wide survey to establish the level of general public

satisfaction towards the national governance and public security, you must first

perform a brief review confirming such a relevance and then swiftly tell why you

chose descriptive research design and also tell what particular activities were

performed to execute the ongoing research.

If you have already gained basic insights on different research designs, it takes on a

quite simple and inter-connected route – say, for example, to obtain approval to

conduct a survey research performed to establish the level of customer perceived

service delivery gap of Yeti Airlines, first of all you will have to explore a few

literature, perform a general situational analyses and establish the relevance of such a

study by defining the problem more narrowly and also tentative working hypotheses

will be set all by the help of exploratory research design. It means that an exploratory

research design serves as a point of departure in a research project as it helps us to

identify the problem, define it and set working hypotheses.

Similarly, as part of conclusive research design, a descriptive research design will

help obtain statistical facts and figures to measure the magnitude and intensity of the

problem considered for research. Different measures of central tendencies are a few

examples of outcomes of a descriptive research design which is normally executed

through surveys, interviews, observations, and experiments.

Finally, a causal research design takes on relevant statistical experimentation to

establish the cause and effect relationships between various constructs considered

while devising research hypotheses.

3.4. Sources of Information

Here, you need to identify relevant sources from where the information could be

retrieved for the ongoing research. Both primary and secondary sources should be

explored and communicated with sound logic why such particular sources need be

used as the information sources.


3.5. Population of the Study

In research, population of the study refers to the totality of individuals, institutions or

events that are to be represented by the study. So, take a few definitions of population

of the study from some established sources and then explain what your total

population of the study is all about.

Try to have a few desk reviews to figure out the exact size of population. If the

population of the study is very large and widely dispersed in a big geographical

coverage, it can be further narrowed-down to some selected areas. That too, needs

logical explanation.

You need to have a display of population of the study on different bases using

multiple tables. Apply the same thing for the deducted segment of the population too.

In the event that your study population size and their where about is unknown, try to

explain it in some established categorical forms. Please never make your own

prediction about the size of population. Rather, you must take the established facts

about it and perform adequate acknowledgement of the source of information.

3.6. Locating the Study

After finalizing the population of the study, your next job is to establish the

proposition for locating the study. Locating simply refers to selection of study sites or

locations from where the study samples will be selected or census will be performed.

While establishing the locating of study, you need to explain the reasons why

particular locations were given with consideration for their selection as study

locations.

3.7. Sampling Strategies

If the research has to undergo through the study with population representatives as an

alternative of census, you need to explain which sampling technique was used and

how the sample size was calculated. For confirming the appropriateness and adequacy

of sample size, relevant confirmatory reviews are expected.


3.8. Units of Results Analyses

After taking decision on census versus sampling decision, your job is to establish a

few units of analyses of the results. For example, in a consumer survey research

conducted to assess the overall level of consumer perceived service delivery gap of

Yeti Airlines, the participating consumers’ gender, nationality, professional line of

engagement, age group, etc. could be a few, relevant units of results analyses.

You must align it with the various elements of problem definition [objectives of the

research, statement of the problem, research questions, working hypotheses, scope of

the study, etc.] while taking decision on determination of units of results analyses.

3.9. Development of Data Collection Tools

Now, based on all above established propositions, you need to take right decision on

determining the various tools of data collection in line with the established

methodological paradigms. While determining such tools, you need to tell why such a

tool was more relevant. The mix of data collection tools must correspond with the

research approaches established earlier. All tools need be placed in respective

Appendices and acknowledged in this section.

A few of the more commonly used data collection tools may include survey

questionnaires, interview schedules, observation checklists, field diary, etc.

3.10. Test of Validity and Reliability

In a more scientific research, the validity and reliability must be confirmed from both

the perspectives of methodology and construction of study tools and techniques.

A test of validity is required to confirm the technical appropriateness and adequacy of

the methodology of research and test of reliability stands for the confirmation of

information consistency to be maintained using specific tools of data collection.

Field and lab tests may be performed to confirm the validity and reliability of the

study tools and techniques. You need to select particular type of validity measure to


be taken and also tell about the particular type of reliability instrument to be used as

there are multiple options available for both the purposes.

3.11. Mechanism for Research Administration

Here, you need to explain the overall mechanism of research administration in terms

of who is to do what, when and how. All this needs appropriate reasoning. Also, the

information pertaining to seeking consent for participation needs be established in this

section.

3.12. Mechanism for Minimizing Research Errors

In this section, you need to explain how you will be encountering the various likely

errors that may take place during the research administration as well as during the

data processing and analyses. Equally important here is to confirm the quality of data

collection process and accuracy of each research input gathered.

3.13. Techniques of Data Reduction and Analysis

Here, you need to discuss the overall mechanism how data reduction [coding, editing,

transcribing, creating new variables, refining, etc.] and analyses [results display,

statistical testing and drawing inferences] will be performed. The entire process, tools

and techniques as well as their relevance has to be confirmed.

3.14. Bases of Results Interpretation

In the case of scale data to be collected through the research, you need to establish

relevant bases for the interpretation of the results. For this, you need to refer a few

established propositions taken place in past studies.

Here is an illustration for your help. It has been extracted from the work of Paudyal

(2011).

In reference with a number of conceptual frameworks developed by a number of

scholars in the fields of general management, leadership, behavioral sciences and

human resource management, the present researcher developed a set of rating scale

comprising of 3 components, 5 indicators in each component and 5 measurement


elements per indicator (Appendices A & B). The tool was named as MCL Rating

Questionnaires and the key elements of the instrument were depicted from the

managerial skill competencies as suggested by Robbins (2009), Robbins and Coulter

(2007), Lepak and Gowan (2009), and Fisher, Schoenfeldt and Shaw (2006).

Basically the tool contains three components of MCL rating -- conceptual skills,

technical skills and human skills. Each component includes 5 indicators and each

indicator includes 5 rating elements. Thus, a total of 75 (3 components x 5 indicators

per component x 5 elements per indicator) items or elements for rating the overall

MCL of the Nepalese private secondary school Headteachers. Each item was set for a

Likert rating scores of 1 through 5, where 5 being the outstanding level of managerial

skill competence. The tool was further customized for administering with the

Headteachers and teachers separately with minor wording personalization. Thus, the

tool was developed in two identical sets, one each for Headteachers and teachers.

Besides containing 75 Likert rating scale-based statements, the tool also contained a

number of personal information of the respondent as well as respondent perceived

problems facing MCL and their corrective measures, asked towards the end of the

tool.

In the instrument, the conceptual skills included understanding of school’s service

model, ability to identify managerial problems, ability to develop alternative

solutions, capability to evaluate the alternative solutions, and perfection of selection

among the best solution.

Similarly, technical skills included competence for school’s strategic thinking,

knowledge on school leadership, ability to execute curricular leadership, competence

for instructional implementation and ability to risk tolerance, and change

management.

Finally, the human skills included ability to lead and individual and work teams,

ability to motivate people, competence to promote interpersonal relationships, ability

to listen others and efficiency to communicate.

Following was the basis developed for deducting inferences over final study results:


1. MCL1 (300 –375 points of rating scores in aggregate) is also known as

outstanding level of competence which requires a rating score of 4-5 per item in

average of assessment.

2. MCL2 (225 – 299 points of rating scores in aggregate) is also known as high level

of competence which requires a rating score of 3 and above and less than 4 per

item in average of assessment.

3. MCL3 (150 – 224 points of rating scores in aggregate) is also known as low level

of competence which requires a rating score of 2 and above but less than 3 per

item in average of assessment.

4. MCL4 (75 – 149 points of rating scores in aggregate) is also known as critical

level of competence which requires a rating score of less than 2 per item in

average of assessment.

3.15. Respondent/Participant Information

In this section, you need to project the detailed information about the participants who

actually participated in the study. While doing so, various bases of analyses taken into

account must be considered. The sample distribution and participant information may

be quite identical; however there will remain some practical differences.

Here is an illustrative example extracted from the works of Nepal (2015) to help you

for learning how to develop respondent information.

Since the present researcher considered the gender, age groups, year of internship

project exposure, country of location of the internship hotel and functional

departments of work exposure as the key bases of analyses, the following discussions

present with respondent information in respect with these selected bases of analyses.

Table 3.3 presents with the age group and gender-wise respondent information.

Table 3.3: Age group and gender-wise respondent information

SN

Age groups

Gender Total

Male Female

N % N % N %

1 Up to 20 years 6 8.57 23 33.82 29 21.01

2 21-25 years 63 90.00 45 66.18 108 78.26

3 26 years and above 1 1.43 -- -- 1 0.72

Total 70 100.00 68 100.00 138 100.00


The information presented in table 3.3 reveals that almost 78 percent of the total

respondents of this survey themselves reported to be within the age group of 21-25

years which confirms that it was almost worthless analyzing the data based on

respondent age groups since a large majority of respondents fell into a single age

group. It may be as a result of considering last two consecutive years’ students in the

frame of sampling. The present researcher decided to omit respondent age group from

the consideration of the basis of data presentation and analyses as the large majority

of study sample was in a single age group.

However, the gender of the respondents was observed to be very much closely

distributed making it convincing enough for the consideration of gender as one of the

bases of results analyses.

Similarly, it was equally important to confirm the respondent information in respect

with their gender and year of internship accomplished. For this, table 3.4 presents

with necessary information.

Table 3.4: Year of internship and gender-wise respondent information

SN

Year of internship

accomplishment

Gender Total

Male Female

N % N % N %

1 Year 2013 26 37.14 23 33.82 49 35.51

2 Year 2014 44 62.86 45 66.18 89 64.49

Total 70 100.00 68 100.00 138 100.00

The information presented in table 3.4 reveals that almost 64 percent of respondents

participated representing the year 2014 internship program, whereas almost 36

percent of them reported to have participated in the year 2013 internship program.

The reason behind lower rate of representation of 2013 program could be the time gap

leading to graduate placement on the jobs in different places within and beyond the

country which resulted in lower level of convenience for the present researcher to

contact them for survey. However, the above distribution of the respondents was

considered fair enough for comparison and thus, year of internship accomplishment

was approved for considering as one of the bases of results analyses.


Further, as provisioned in the questionnaires, the present researcher also was

interested to observe the respondent perception on impact of internship exposure in

respect with the country of location of the hotels where internships were

accomplished. For this, table 3.5 serves the purpose.

Table 3.5: Country of location and gender-wise respondent information

SN

Countries of location of

the internship hotel

Gender Total

Male Female

N % N % N %

1 Nepal 16 22.86 15 22.06 31 22.46

2 India 5 7.14 4 5.88 9 6.52

3 Malaysia 49 70.00 49 72.06 98 71.01

Total 70 100.00 68 100.00 138 100.00

The information presented in table 3.5 reveals that almost 71 percent of respondents

were in Malaysia for their internship exposure, 7 percent of the respondents choose

India and almost 22 percent of the respondents selected Nepal for their internship

exposure project. The above mentioned three countries are found dominant for the

internship exposure, hence the present researcher considered the country of location

of internship hotels as one of the bases of data presentation and analyses.

Finally, table 3.6 presents the gender-wise respondent information in respect with

operations departmental exposure gained during the internship.

Table 3.6: Operational departments and gender-wise respondent information

SN

Operational departments of the

internship exposure

Gender

Male Female

N % N %

1 Front Office 25 35.71 36 52.94

2 F & B Production 26 37.14 28 41.18

3 F & B Services 66 94.29 64 94.12

4 Housekeeping 27 38.57 28 41.18

5 General Administration 2 2.86 1 1.47

As presented in table 3.6, a large majority of the respondents reported to have

working exposure in the F & B Services Department followed by Housekeeping and

Front Office, leaving Food Production Department in the fourth position of

operational exposure, whereas there were just three respondents reported to have


working opportunity in the General Administration Department. Quite a large number

of students reported to have working opportunity in multiple departments in a

rotational order. This information confirms high relevance of considering operations

departmental exposure as one of the bases of data presentation and analyses.

From this all presentation on successful respondent information, the present

researcher could establish the relevance of consideration of predetermined units of

analyses and confirmed that it was worth performing data presentation and analyses in

respect with respondent gender, year of internship accomplished, country of location

of the internship hotel and finally the operations departmental exposure gained. Thus,

the overall data presentation and analyses was accomplished in the next chapter

making these bases as the dominant aspects of performing this task.

3.16. Work Schedules

You should develop a Gantt Chart showing a matrix of different activities in a

sequential order in the rows and timelines of works accomplishment of these activities

in the columns. In the cases of more complicated and prolonged works, MS Project

can also be used.

Here is an example for your learning how to develop it.

The present research required almost eight months to accomplish this job. The

information provided in table 3.7 below presents with the display of plan of action

used in the present study.

Table 3.7: Plan of action

S

N

Activities

Months

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8

1 Development of preliminary

concept to explore the research

gap.

2 Development of detailed

research proposal, testing of data

collection tools and obtaining

consent for research conduction.

3 Collection of data.

4 Data coding, transcribing and

verification.


5 Development of first draft of the

thesis report.

6 Seeking supervisor feedback and

editing of the study report.

7 Presentation to the evaluation

committee and soliciting

feedback.

8 Final submission of the thesis

report.

As a systematic and scientific inquiry, the information presented in above table 3.7

reveals that the present research is an outcome of at least 8 months continuous effort

of the present researcher over above stated various concurrent activities with almost

full time engagement.

3.17. Socio-Ethical Compliances

As you are already aware that each research initiative must be carried out keeping in

view that it must be fully complied with existing socio-ethical and legal norms. Such

compliances should be addressed from the perspectives of treating in a sound manner

to the research assistants, participants, client organizations and also complying with

existing laws and bi-laws of the land/s of study.


CHAPTER 4

PRESENTATION & ANALYSES

4.1. Introduction

This section should serve as preamble of the entire chapter presented in a section-by-

section pattern to reveal the information pertaining to what is presented in which

section of the chapter. Development of various sections becomes a beautiful task if

you work it directly in line with various research questions considered in the ongoing

research.

4.2. Develop research question or issue-based main headings to make detailed

data presentation and analyses and also run relevant statistical testing

These sections should be developed in a coherent structural pattern of various issues

or problems considered in the ongoing research. The section headings should be

developed accordingly. Each graphical or tabular presentation must be followed with

specific graphical table numbering system and its discussion.

There should be five distinctive elements under each presentation – 1. introduce

briefly what is presented in the next figure or table, 2. present the interactive display

of information in defined table or figure, 3. briefly discuss the major elements of the

results, 4. perform needs-based statistical testing of the results, and 5. produce

generalizations or inferences based on test results.

The key information produced through data presentation and analyses must be

condensed in the key finding section at the end of this chapter and based on such key

findings, the summary, discussions, conclusions and recommendations will be

developed in the next chapter.

For example, Nepal (2015) has observed at least three domains of perceived

transformation in graduates as a result of Internship Project Exposure towards the end

of Bachelor of Hotel Management (BHM) course of Tribhuvan University. The

following is the initial part of presentation and analyses:


Since the present researcher was interested to assess the perceived level of

transformation in at least three forms, the presentation and analyses of the information

has been portrayed in three distinctive sections – Section 1: cognitive transformation,

Section 2: behavioral transformation, and Section 3: pragmatic transformation.

4.3. Cognitive Transformation

In this section, the present researcher has worked out to develop a detailed

presentation and analyses of information pertaining to respondent perception on

cognitive transformation realized by the participants of internship endeavor as an

integral component of BHM study at NATHM. Such a presentation and the analyses

has been developed with respect to chosen bases of analyses -- gender of the

respondents, year of internship project exposure gained, country of location of the

internship performed hotel and operations departmental exposure gained during the

internship period.

To commence the presentation and analyses in a more systematic manner, table 4.1

presents with information on gender and year of internship exposure based display of

respondent perceived level of cognitive transformation.

Table 4.1: Cognitive transformation by gender and year of internship

SN

Year of

internship

exposure

Cognitive transformation score

Total Male Female

N ̅ δ N ̅ δ N ̅ δ

1 2013 26 25.35 3.322 23 26.26 2.340 49 25.78 2.910

2 2014 44 22.66 3.403 45 24.16 2.844 89 23.42 3.204

Total scores 70 23.66 3.595 68 24.87 2.849 138 24.25 3.294

Level of

perception

OLPT

ELPT

ELPT

1. Chi-square test between respondents’ gender and their perceived level of

cognitive transformation = 0.065

2. T-test between respondents’ years of internship and their perceived level of

cognitive transformation = 0.000


As presented in table 4.1 above, in aggregate the overall perceived cognitive

transformation due to internship exposure was reported to be at the Exemplary Level

of Perceived Transformation (ELPT), however such an information came at

operational level of perceived transformation (OLPT) when compared within male

respondents only whereas the female respondents revealed with slightly higher level

of perception which in fact contributed positively for the overall results.

This information further reveals that among the male respondents, the level of

standard deviation was much higher than that of female respondents confirming that

the female respondents perceived with consistently high level of perception in respect

with cognitive transformation due to internship exposure.

However, such information needed be statistically examined. For this, the present

researcher used Chi-square test to examine the level of independence of the perceived

level of cognitive transformation between the genders and the P value of 0.065 at 5

percent level of significance indicated that the null hypothesis should not be rejected.

Similarly, the information presented in table 4.1 further reveals that the overall level

of students’ perception on their cognitive transformation as a result of internship

exposure happened to be greater in the year 2014 as compared to that of 2013 in

respect with both the genders.

Such information again required to be statistically tested. In this case, the present

researcher run T-test between years of internship and perceived level of cognitive

transformation and the test results revealed the P value of 0.000 which is less than

0.05 at 5 percent level of significance, meaning that the null hypothesis should be

rejected. It implies that there is significant difference in average level of perception

regarding the impact of internship exposure among the students undergoing this

program in different years, which is apparently confirmed as the average results are

different across the two years of internship exposure observed. It may be also because

the previous year students already got time and work experience to have a feel about

the impact of internship exposure whereas, the students undergoing internship

exposure in the year 2014 were yet to go for job placements till the time of present

survey.


Thus, it can be inferred that there was significant difference in the level of perception

among male and female students while disclosing their perceived level of cognitive

transformation where the female students have perceived with relatively higher level

of transformation in them as a result of internship exposure as an integral element of

practical learning of the BHM program at NATHM. At the same time, it also can be

inferred from above information that there was no significant difference in perceived

level of cognitive transformation when statistically compared between years of

internship accomplished.

Further, it was equally important to observe the systematic relationship between

gender of the respondents and country of location of the hotel offering internship

opportunities while examining the overall level of cognitive transformation due to

such a practical exposure. The information presented in table 4.2 serves this purpose.

Table 4.2: Cognitive transformation by gender and country of hotel location

SN

Country

of hotel

location

Cognitive transformation score

Total Male Female

N ̅ δ N ̅ δ N ̅ δ

1 Nepal 16 23.94 3.855 15 24.27 3.305 31 24.10 3.544

2 India 5 24.80 1.643 4 27.25 1.258 9 25.89 1.900

2 Malaysia 49 23.45 3.675 49 24.86 2.731 98 24.15 3.297

Total scores 70 23.66 3.595 68 24.87 2.849 138 24.25 3.294

Level of

perception

OLPT

ELPT

ELPT

Test of ANOVA of the perceived level of cognitive transformation between the

groups by country-wise locations: [Sig. = 0.306]

The information presented in table 4.2 confirms that among the different country-wise

locations, the students doing internship in India perceived with higher level of

cognitive transformation as compared to that of Malaysia and Nepal. Such an

information required confirmation through test of significance of the difference for

which test of ANOVA was run and P value of 0.306 at 5 percent level of significance

implied that the null hypothesis should not be rejected. It means that the overall

perceived level of cognitive transformation in the interns has been found with

statistically no significant difference across the countries of location of the hotels

where they did internship.


4.4. Behavioral Transformation

[Discussion on behavioral transformation related issues]

4.5. Pragmatic Transformation

[Discussion on behavioral transformation related issues]

4.6. Kay Findings of the Study

As the final section of the chapter, here you need to produce the quick summary of

key findings of the study. While producing the key findings of the study, please

review the entire problem definitions designed in the first chapter of the study report.


CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS

5.1. Introduction

Your write up for this section should be something like this one as follows:

The main purpose of this chapter was to formally conclude the study report and bring

it to the closure. For this, the present researcher has developed the chapter as a whole

in six distinctive sections where summary of the study has been presented in the first

section, followed by relevant discussions to compare and contrast the present research

with selected past studies in the second section. Similarly, the lessons learnt through

this discourse and conclusions made on the basis of overall study exposure have been

presented in the third and fourth sections respectively. The fifth section deals with the

suggestions made for managerial implications and finally, the suggestions for further

research have been outlined in the sixth section of the chapter.

5.2. Summary

Here, summary means the overall summary of everything that you have done right

from chapter 1 through 4; not only the summary of findings. It is a recap of overall

works in somewhat 8-10 paragraphs including the introduction of the problem of

inquiry, study methodologies used, and major findings identified.

For example, Karanjit (2014), on observing the prevalence of corporate social

responsibility (CSR) initiatives in the Nepalese five-star hotels, has developed the

summary of works as follows:

This research study was based on an exploratory approach to meet the objectives of

the present research through qualitative methodology. This observation based

methodology was applied due to less number of five star category hotels in

Kathmandu Valley, and in Nepal as a whole. Moreover, simply the survey approach

would not have been adequate to meet the objectives of the research study.

The present researcher was interested to explore if the five star hotels, as the key

hospitality institutions in the country, were aware regarding CSR initiatives, the


nature and extent of implementing CSR initiatives by the selected five star hotels in

the Kathmandu Valley.

The present researcher’s curiosity in societal welfare activities led to consider this

area positively. Apparently, with time the present researcher’s curiosity and

enthusiasm towards societal welfare gradually developed into an interest of

professionalism within hospitality business. Hence, the present researcher observed

this particular area of corporate sector to be the focused area of the thesis research.

With the purpose of understanding the CSR practices in the selected five star hotels of

Kathmandu Valley, the present researcher adopted a systematic methodology of

observation in this study.

With the guidance of the present researcher’s supervisor, appropriate research

approach and designs were applied to meet the overall objective of the research. For

the simplicity of the research, only five hotels of five-star category were chosen for

data collection.

For the proceeding of the research, the KII checklist was used as the data collection

tool which was prepared by considering the CSR operating indicators from the study

of the conceptual framework which focused on the approaches regarding the research

to assess how much the existing literature already covered the area in the selected

hotels.

Before, conducting the depth interview, the researcher obtained the consent for

facilitating KII in selected hotels and pursued the studies. In order to find the best

answers to the pre-set KII checklist, the present researcher personally interviewed the

key informants handling CSR or related initiatives in the selected hotels.

For the purpose of making the study socio-ethically more neutral, the present

researcher considered socio-ethical principles. For this, the present researcher used

pseudo names of the hotels observed and the participating managers’ names and

gender also were kept confidential. The researcher did not pressurize the participants


for their response. Every meeting with each participant was conducted following a

pre-consent of the respective member.

The conversations in the interview were recorded in a form of recording diary where

each selected hotel was given a unique name to protect the anonymity. Five individual

cases were prepared by means of information provided by the KII participant and the

researchers’ personal observation. Lastly, the overall cases were integrated to produce

the key findings from the overall study on CSR initiatives practices in these hotels as

the final findings of the study.

Based on the key findings from the overall study, the present research revealed that

the chain hotels were more involved in CSR initiatives and had systemized plan for

CSR initiatives as compared to the non-chain hotels. The major reason identified for

this difference was that the chain hotels were funded for carrying CSR initiatives from

their respective head chain, and moreover, there were strict policies for carrying out

such initiatives and was an essential etiquette in chain hotels. While in the case of the

non-chain hotels, there were no sufficient funds for carrying such initiatives, and

moreover, no strict policies were made for carrying out such initiative and such hotels

were not very much serious regarding making CSR a major priority for the time

being.

Depth focus is yet to be put on CSR as a specific department in these hotels.

However, various areas of CSR initiatives covered included submerging different but

CSR related initiatives into the core functional activities of the hotels. The major CSR

relating decisions were taken by the owners and its stakeholders in the non-chain

hotels. In the chain hotels, such decisions were mainly taken by the head chain itself.

The chain hotels had their own professional staff for carrying out CSR initiatives but

the non-chain hotels collaborated with specialists for some specific areas where it

lacked expertise. The benefits from CSR initiatives came mostly in the intangible

forms for which the expense was made without any hope of receiving material

benefits. However, carrying out such initiatives benefitted the entire hotel and also the

environment, various stakeholders, and the society at large. CSR was perceived to be

a responsive investment and a cost control mechanism for preventing future losses


rather than a cost. The study also revealed several external environmental challenges

and problems the hotels were facing against their mission to design and implement

CSR for a more sustainable business prospect.

5.3. Discussions

This too may be a completely new topic for you. In fact, in the discussions section,

you need to closely compare and contrast between the major findings of the present

study with that of selected past researches.

Again, let’s refer the work of Karanjit (2014) for your help in this respect.

The present research shares a number of similarities with different works conducted

earlier. For example, Carroll (1979) has suggested at least four elements to be

considered as the pillars of corporate social responsibility of a business. In this study,

the present researcher has considered economic, ethical, and philanthropic

contributions as the CSR initiatives, whereas legal expectations could not be assessed

in this study. Though the hotels were not asked mandatorily to have focus on these

elements, they were complying with such requirements as their moral obligations.

Several practitioners have provided different approaches to CSR implementation. For

example, Porter and Kramer (2006) have suggested that the concept in general

encompasses the firm’s obligation to operate in an economically, socially and

environmentally sustainable manner, while also considering stakeholder’s interests in

a way that results overall positive impact from the society’s perspective, whereas the

present study revealed that these aspects need be considered from the industry’s

perspectives too as most of the hotels reported to have implemented numerous

initiatives considering them as their institution’s moral obligations.

ILO (2006) has come up with a number of policy directives on CSR initiatives of the

institutions, which include compliance with national and international codes, local

practices, social policies, development priorities, and also the employees should be

provided the best possible wages, benefits and conditions of work, within the

framework of organization’s ongoing policies. However, the present research revealed


that the Nepalese five star hotels hardly considered such initiatives as the obligatory

initiative.

The principles recommended by the UN Global Compact (2001) for the purpose of

encouraging companies to adopt environmentally and socially responsible policies

and to embrace, support and endorse a set of core values in the areas of human rights,

labor rights, environment, and anti-corruption. In this study, the present researcher did

not compulsorily question these hotels to concentrate on all those components.

However, various areas of CSR initiatives covered these components by submerging

them into the core functional activities of the hotels.

The present study also can be directly compared and contrasted with the work of

Knop (2010), which highlights the importance of applying the guidelines provided by

internationally accredited standards for firms on executing CSR practices, filling the

gaps and setting a benchmark for hotels already practicing CSR activities. Whereas,

for those hotels not practicing CSR activities, it guides on developing the base for

CSR practices. It exhibits a clear picture of CSR, its characteristics, principles,

practices, and most importantly, steps in implementing and promoting CSR practices

in the organization. It also assists the firms to know who their stakeholders are and

stresses the importance of their involvement. It provides guidelines regarding the core

areas to focus on. Such as legal bodies, fair treatment and rights of employees, client

issues, ecology, and involving and uplifting the community, etc. The standards

enumerate the principles of CSR, so that the hotels know where to start from. It

stresses that the hotel should operate being responsible towards the economical,

ethical, legal, and societal aspects, international standards, its stakeholders and human

right issues. The work of the present researcher also revealed such initiatives to be

taken into account by the industry.

In general, CSR might just be understood as giving away charity or just another

philanthropic activity or just concerned with the personal relation department of an

organization. But the fact is that management should show interest in adapting and

executing CSR strategies in the organizations. Hotels should have a separate CSR

management committee so that each committee’s CSR objectives are met.


5.4. Lessons Learnt

In fact, an academic research should be taken as one of the crucial platforms of

learning for life from both personal and professional perspectives. Here, you need to

present with a few (2-3) key lessons learnt as a result of the ongoing research

exposure.

Karanjit (2014) has produced the scholar’s learning reflections as follows:

The present researcher experienced both sweet and bitter moments while conducting

the overall research study. Being a hotel management graduate and hotel being one of

the interest areas of the present researcher, the researcher believes to have received an

opportunity of visiting renowned five star hotels of Nepal. Interacting with such top

level management employees and being familiar with such establishment was itself a

great opportunity for building networks in the hospitality industry. The researcher

realizes the positive change that has developed both in the field of academic writings

and speaking.

The present researcher happened to face a few of the disappointing incidents

experienced while in the process of conducting and building the research study. In the

beginning while the present researcher tried seeking for permission with the

respective participants for the in-depth interviews, it was difficult for the managers to

arrange time. But gradually after the first meeting, the remaining meetings went

smoothly.

The present researcher is firmly convinced through this experience that one day there

will be a certain point occupied by definite people to oversee CSR related initiatives

in most of the high rank institutions including five star hotels of this country.

5.5. Conclusions

Conclusions are the final drawings made on the basis of overall research exposure.

Such statements may be crafted in the form of generalization, or claim, or conviction

with evidential logic. The conclusions must be linked with the problem statements

and key findings.


Let’s refer it to the works of Karanjit (2014) again:

On the basis of overall study findings and discussions, the present researcher

concludes that –

1. the status of the hotels, i.e., international chain or non-chain, has affected

the overall extent of CSR practices in the Nepalese five-star hotels,

revealing that international standardization positively influenced

management decision to go for CSR initiatives, and

2. in the context of Nepalese five-star hotels, CSR implementation has

exceeded institutionalization of such initiatives as the hotels have been

heavily launching numerous initiatives even without having a separate

department to look after CSR activities, especially in the case of non-chain

hotels.

5.6. Recommendations for Managerial Implications

If it is an applied research, it is worth recommending a few decisional and strategic

suggestions to the concerned management for improving their business. Such

recommendations should be developed following a loop of what – why – who –

when/where – how – what [what needs be done, why is it required to be done, who is

to do it within what time lines or locations, how to do it, and finally for what

outcomes].

5.7. Recommendations for Further Research

After going through the ongoing research passing across so many limitations and

delimitations, you must have now made a firm recognition of what additional things

could have been explored or observed to make it a more complete phenomenon in a

more realistic manner. For this, what you can do now is to be wise to recommend for

such studies here in this section.


C. SUPPLEMENTARY PART

This part follows the continuing paging as in main body and normally contains three

key sections – References, Appendices and Annextures.

REFERENCES

To be developed using the given style guidelines in the next section. The list of

references should follow the guidelines as set out by APA. After every citation in the

main body of the text, you should immediately prepare the detailed listing of the

sources of information. Remember, bibliography is not the list of references!

<page break>

APPENDICES

Should include different models used, survey questionnaires and other data collection

forms and formats.

<page break>

ANNEXTURES

Should comprise extended data forms generated through primary as well as secondary

sources, which are discussed in the main body of data presentation and analyses. For

example, Annual Reports consulted for analyses, time series data used for analyses,

etc.

An Annex or Appendix is included in a paper when the writer wishes to extend or

support the information presented in the main body of the paper. This may include

data tables or other types of materials. Each of the information should be identified as

a separate Annex or Appendix. Materials which are not the work of the present

researcher should include the source with proper documentation (use APA style).


2. PAGE MARGINS & FONTS

Margin and Fonts

All research reports should be easy to read. Therefore, the pages should have margins

of least 1.5” on the left side and 1” on all other sides (excluding page numbers, which

may be within a one half inch margin).

In addition, specific font types should be selected making it easy for the reader. For example, you are now reading in a type known as Arial size 10. In the next section you will see

examples of the Courier 12 pitch font. Many other fonts are available, but the

following fonts are more commonly used:

Arial 10/ Arial 11, Prestige 12 pitch (12, Courier font (12), Times

New Roman (10) or Times New Roman (11) or Times New Roman (12).

If you want to consider using the alignment setting so that margins are even on both

sides of the page, then you should use a font that has automatic (proportional) spacing

between letters and words. Fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman are examples

of these fonts. Fonts such as Prestige 12 pitch (12) and Times New Roman

(10) should be used with “align left” only.

Heading and Paragraphs

Chapter Heading: It should be written in font 12, CAPITAL letters, text bold and

centralized format with single line spacing before 0 pt. and after 30 pt.

Main Headings: Should be written in font 12, Title Case letters, text bold and

justified format with single 1.5 line spacing before 0 pt. and after 6 pt.

Sub-Heading: It should be written in font 12, Sentence case letters, followed by bold

italicized text without numbered format with 1.5 line spacing before 0 pt. and after 6

pt.

Sub-sub-heading: It should be written in font 12, Sentence case letters, followed by

no bold, italicized text without numbered format with 1.5 line spacing before 0 pt. and

after 0 pt.

Paragraphs: All paragraphs must be separated by 1.5 line spacing, before 0 pt. and

after 0 pt. spacing.

3. BUILDING THE REFERENCE INFORMATION

The best time to make a record of the reference materials you have consulted is at the

time of reading it, before you perform writing the stuff from your review works. For

this, you should establish a system for making a complete record of materials

consulted. This will save time and effort in the writing a well-documented paper.

Your note making system should be established to record the following information in

the sequence suggested below:

Name(s) of Author(s): Family name and given names in full; Editors and Chapter

writers also should be considered accordingly in case of an


edited volume or a book containing identifiable chapter

writers.

Date of Publication: Note date for current edition in English dates; take copyright

year in the case of multi-impression issue following an

edition.

Title and Edition: The notes should be clear whether this is an article in a

journal or magazine, a chapter in a book, or other source;

edition other than first should be recorded.

Publisher: For book: city and publisher name. For journal or magazine:

may not be needed if the source is a recognized journal.

Volume and Issue: Needed for journal and magazines; should include page/s

where the article is located; Vol: ---, No.: ---, pp. ---.

Pages: Citation of a chapter in a book and article in a journal or

magazine should always include pages where the article is

located; also the pages are required for the materials that are

used for direct citation.

Online Sources: Identify www, http, or any other search engines and

newsgroup postings and e-mail; year of publication; APA

system requires full link of Internet sources of reference

materials; also you must record the date of retrieval.

Other Information: Any other information to verify your sources.

The reason behind building such an information system is to help you in the

subsequent phases of works to easily figure out important materials whenever

required for review during different stages of report writing. It serves just like an

inventory of materials for your review works. In fact, this is what a bibliography of

reference materials. You must prepare a separate diary for this. Or, a separate file in

your computer will work more effectively. You can even develop a mobile APP or

use your IPAD for this. Many cases, the evaluation jury may ask you to show with

evidence of such documentation during the time of thesis defense.

4. USING QUOTATIONS FROM OTHER SOURCES

Authors of scholarly papers are expected to give credit to the work done by other

scholars. Therefore, a format for citation of works in the text of the paper is needed.

Each citation in the text of the paper must be included on the reference list at the end

of the paper.

The following examples have been adapted from Diana Hacker’s 1997 publication, A

Pocket Style Manual (2nd

ed.), and the 1994 Publication Manual of the American

Psychological Association (4th

ed.). They have been contextualized for Nepal. For

additional examples and updates, follow the latest edition of the Manual.


In general, the APA style requires use of past tense (Smith reported …) or the present

perfect tense (Smith has argued …) in the sentence which introduces materials that

are being cited. A variety of situations are explained below.

Direct quotation: When introducing a quotation, the author’s family name and date of

publication should be identified; the page notation appears in parenthesis at the end of

the quotation. Note that this quotation is less than 5 lines in length.

Cross (1990) has stated, “Most of us are naïve observers

of teaching and naïve practitioners of the art and

science of teaching as well” (p. 10).

OR:

One scholar (Cross, 1990) has stated, “Most of us are

naïve observers of teaching and naïve practitioners of

the art and science of teaching as well” (p. 10).

Alternatively, when the author’s name does not appear in the introductory sentence,

then the author’s last name, the date, and the page number should be placed in

parenthesis at the end of the sentence.

“We don’t know enough about the intricate processes of

teaching and learning to be able to learn from our

constant exposure to the classroom” (Cross, 1990, p. 10).

Summary or a paraphrase: For a summary or a paraphrase, include the author’s last

name and the date either in the first phrase or in parenthesis at the end. A page

number is not required, but it may be included to help your readers find a specific

passage in a long work.

An idea being promoted (Cross, 1990) for the …

An idea being promoted for the improvement of college

teaching is that teachers should be helped in knowing how

to use higher level of cognitive skills, i.e., ability to

diagnose, analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information

(Cross, 1990).

Quotations with more than 40 words or 5 lines: Quotations with more than 40 words

should be shown as a free-standing block of typewritten lines as shown below. Note

that the block quotation starts on a new line and is indented five spaces from the left

margin (in the same position as a new paragraph). All subsequent lines are typed flush


with the indent (align left) and the right margin is similarly indented. Note that when a

quotation is set apart by indentation, quotation marks are not used. In a double spaced

document, the entire quotation may be either double-spaced or single-spaced. The

format that is chosen should be used throughout the paper. The example below is

single-spaced.

In a study of memory and comprehension

activities in Sri Lanka primary school

classrooms, it was found that memory-related

activities were less than 30 percent of all

learning activities, ranging from 37.01

percent in the first year to 24.94 percent in

the third, and 24.13 percent in the fifth

year. Furthermore, the critical thinking and

problem solving type of activities were found

to be less than 10 percent of all learning

activities in all years (Gorrell et al., 1995,

p. 87).

Quotation or citation of a work discussed in a secondary source. Many times an

author will make reference to publications that are not available to you, the scholar.

These publications become a “secondary source” for you. For example, you are

reading a document written by Wagley and Mumaw which mentions a study

published in a journal article written by Heyneman. Heyneman’s article is the

“primary source” and Wagley and Mumaw’s document is the “secondary source”.

Example will be discussed in later part.

5. PERFORMING TEXT CITATION IN APA STYLES

One author (one work): The author’s name and year of publication are essential for

the citation. For example,

Rijal (2003) has claimed that leadership commitment is

the key to lead organizations onto success.

Two authors (one work): Name both authors in the initial phrase or parenthesis each

time you cite the work. In the initial phrase use “and” between the authors’ name; in

the parenthesis use the Ampersand (&) between the authors’ names.

Cooper and Mueck (1990) have defined cooperative learning

as a structured, systematic instructional strategy in

which small groups work toward a common goal (p. 69).

Cooperative learning can be distinguished from other

forms of team learning by the characteristic features of

“positive interdependence” where all members of a


learning team are responsible for the learning of other

members (Cooper, & Mueck, 1990).

Three, four, or five authors: Identify all authors the first time you cite source. In a

phrase it would appear as Gorrell, Kularatna, Dharmadasa, and Abeyratne (1995). In

the parenthesis format it would appear as: (Gorrell, Kularatna, Dharmadasa, &

Abeyratne, 1995). In subsequent citations, use the first author’s name followed by “et

al.” in either the phrase or the parenthesis, i.e., Gorrell et al. (1995) or (Gorrell et al.,

1995). The example below assumes the citation is after the first one.

Studies of memory and comprehension activities in primary

school classroom show varying results. A study of Sri

Lanka classroom activities, reported in Gorrell et al.

(1995), the memory-related activities were less than 30

percent of all learning activities and ranged from...

Six or more authors: If a work is written by a group of authors which included

Brightman, Bhada, Felhaus, Giovinazzo, Mansfield, Rue, Schaffer, and Schreiber

(1990), then use only the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in all citations

(Brightman et al., 1990).

Corporate author: If the author is a government agency or other corporate

organization with a long and cumbersome name, spell out the name the first time you

use it in a citation, followed by an abbreviation in brackets. In subsequent citations,

simply use the abbreviation. FIRST CITATION: (Research Centre for Educational

Innovation and Development,

Tribhuvan University [CERID], 1995)

LATER CITATION: (CERID, 1995)

Unknown author: If the author is not given or known, either use the complete title of

the work in the phrase or use the first two or three words of the title in the

parenthetical citation. Titles of articles appear in double quotation marks followed by

a comma (“Gender and Education,” 1997); titles of books are underlined or italicized

(Universal Primary education, 1987). If “Anonymous” is specified as the author, treat

it as if it were a real name (Anonymous, 1996). In the list of references, use

anonymous as the author’s name.

Authors with the same last name: To avoid confusion, use initials with the last names

if your list of references contains two or more authors with the same last name; for

example, Rita Dunn and Kenneth Dunn have many publications as single authors and

as a team as well (Dunn, & Dunn, 1993).


“Research on the Dunn and Dunn model of learning styles

is more extensive and more thorough than the research on

most previous educational movements” (Dunn & Dunn, 1993,

p. xi). Other research has focused on homework (R. Dunn,

1985) and small group techniques (K. Dunn, 1985).

Personal communication: Conversions, memos, letters, e-mail, and similar

unpublished person-to-person communications should be cited by initials, last name,

and precise date:

(S.R. Sharma, personal communication, 13 May 1998).

Do NOT include personal communications in the list of references.

Two or more works in the same parentheses: When your parenthetical citation names

two or more works, put them in the same order that they appear in the list of

references, separated by semicolons (Patton, 1990; & Wagley, 1995).

Research scholars agree that in both qualitative and

quantitative studies, statistics can be a useful tool in

presenting the analysis of research findings (Patton,

1990; & Wagley, 1995).

Citations from secondary sources: A primary source is one which is published but

which you cannot access directly. You want to cite the original (primary) source. For

example, you are reading a publication written by Wagley and Mumaw. In the

document a reference is made to study published in a journal article written by

Heyneman. You do not have Heyneman’s article (the primary source) but you want to

mention the study as reported by Wagley and Mumaw (the secondary source). The

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (1994) gives two

rules to guide your decision on citations of secondary sources.

Rule 1: Paraphrase of information

If you paraphrase the information from Heineman as reported by Wagley and

Mumaw, then give only the secondary source in the reference list as follows:

Wagley, M. P., & Mumaw, C. R. (1998). Development of training curricula for the

improvement of quality education in Dhulikhel Municipality: a needs

assessment study. Kathmandu: Kathmandu University.

In the text you are writing, name the original work (primary source), but give a

citation for the secondary source, similar to the following:

The Summary review of World Bank projects by Heyneman (as

cited in Wagley, & Mumaw, 1998) indicated that very few


teaching tools are available to primary school teachers

in developing countries.

Rule 2: Direct quote from secondary source

If you quote directly from Wagley and Mumaw, then you would follow Rule 1 and,

in addition, add the page number to the citation as follows:

The Summary review of World Bank projects by Heyneman (as

cited in Wagley, & Mumaw, 1998) indicated, “typically,

primary school teachers in developing countries have few

teaching tools, and even these are of poor quality” (p.

3).

6. PRPARING REFERENCES IN APA STYLES

The list of references should be organized so that the listing is in alphabetical order

according to the author’s family name, and from “A” to “Z”. In the examples that

follow, observe all the details, especially the order in which the information is given

(names, date of publication, publisher information) and the way it is presented

(underlining, capitalization, abbreviations, full stops, etc.). The examples have been

adapted from Diana Hacker’s 1997 A Pocket Style Manual (2nd

ed.) and the 1994

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th

ed.), and have

been contextualized for Nepal.

A. Books

Basic Format for a Book

Brookfield, S. D. (1990). The skillful teacher on technique, trust, and responsiveness

in the classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Two or more authors

Best, J. W., & Kahn, J. V. (1996). Research in education. (4th ed.). London:

Routledge.

Crawford, D. K., Bodine, R. J., & Hoglund, R. G. (1995). The school for quality

learning. Champaign, IL: Research Press.

Corporate authors

Nepal South Asia Centre. (1998). Nepal human development report 1998.

Kathmandu: Author

United Nations Development Programme. (1998). Human development report 1998.

New Delhi: Oxford University Press.


Unknown Authors

Early childhood development and education. (1997). Kathmandu: Ministry of

Education, HMG/ Nepal.

Editors

Schultz, F. (ed.). (1997). Annual editions education, 1997/98. (24th ed.). Guilford,

CT: Dushkin Publishing Group.

Translation

Miller, A. (1990). The untouched key: tracing childhood trauma in creativity and

destructiveness. (H. & H. Hannum, Trans.). New York: Doubleday. (Original

work published 1988).

Heideggr, M. (1962). Being and time.

Editions Other Than the First

Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. (2nd

ed.).

Newbury Park: SAGE Publications.

Chapter of a Book

McGaghie, W. C. (1993). Evaluation competence for professional practice. In L.

Curry, J. F. Wergin, & Associates, Educating professionals, (pp. 229 - 261).

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Book Reprint

Dewey, W. C. (1993). How we think. Lexington, MA: Health. (Originally published

1910).

Multi-volume Work

Wiener, P. (ed.). (1973). Dictionary of the history of ideas, Vols. 1-4. New York:

Scribner’s.

One Volume of a Multi-volume Work

Gerhardt, H. P. (1997). Paulo Freire. In Z. Morsy (ed.), Thinkers on Education, Vol.

2. No. 87/88, pp. 439 - 458. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

Periodicals Note that APA always uses Arabic numerals for volume nos.)

Article in a Magazine

McGeary, J. (1998, May 25). India: The BJP’s big bang. Time, 151 (20), 26 - 33.

Article in a Daily Newspaper

Without author:

Web as a tool for gender and development. (1998, May 27). The Kathmandu Post, p.

3.

With author:

Adhikari, K. (1998, May 23). Schools or business houses? The Kathamandu Post, p.

4.


Article in a Journal Paginated by Volume

Bandura, A. (1989). Regulation of cognitive processes through perceived self

efficacy. Developmental Psychology, 25, 729 - 735.

ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL PAGINATED BY ISSUE

Mumaw, C. R., & Sugawara, A. (1995). Teacher efficacy and past experiences as

contributors to the global attitudes and practices among vocational home

economics teachers. Family and Consumer Sciences Research journal, 24 (1),

92-109.

Cooper, J., & Mueck, R. (1990). Student involvement in learning: cooperative

learning and college instruction. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 1

(1), 68-76.

Unsigned Article in a Periodical

Mushrooming growth of private schools. (2055 Baisakh) [Apr/May 1998]. Business

Manager for Managers, 1 (1), 14 - 17.

Review

McLaren, P. (1993). [Review of the book School subjects and curriculum change:

studies in curriculum history. (3rd

ed.), 1992)]. International Journal of

Qualitative Studies in Education, 6 (2), 171-177.

Letter to the Editor

Quadric, A. (1998). Leaders of the century [Letter to the editor]. Time, 150 (20), 5.

REPORTS, CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS AND UNPUBLISHED PAPERS

Reports

Ministry of Education, HMG/Nepal (1995). Cooperative hands in restoration,

advancement and growth - primary school teacher training in Nepal: a status

report. Kathmandu: Author.

Secondary Education Development Project, Ministry of Education, HMG/Nepal.

(1996, June). Micro study of school finances: final report. Kathmandu:

METCON Consultants.

Merchantile Office Systems. (1996, February). Computer systems analysis and

Microsoft software (Issue Brief No. 3). Kathmandu: Author.

Research Centre for Educational Innovation and Development [CERID], Tribhuvan

University. (1997). Gender and secondary education: a study report.

Conference Proceedings

Bhattarai, H. N. (1997). Quality management in higher education. In higher education

for twenty-first century. an interaction program. Proceedings, pp. 13 - 16.

Dhulikhel: Kathmandu University.

Unpublished Papers/Posters or Sessions

Eggert, G. R. (1991). Why certify?. Unpublished manuscript. Chicago: Institute for

Certification of Computer Professionals.


Lanktree, C., & Briere, J. (1991, January). Eqarly data on the trauma symptom

checklist for children (TSC-C). Paper presented at the meeting of the

American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, San Diego, CA.

Mumaw, C. T., & Sugawara, A. I. (1993, April). Predictors of global education

practices of high school foods and nutrition teachers in Oregon. Poster session

presented at the joint annual meeting of Oregon Dietetics Association and

Oregon Home Economics Association, Eugene, OR.

Thapa, B. K. (1989, March). Motivational level of primary school teachers in Nepal.

A paper submitted for EDAM 501. University of Alberta, Edmonton.

Master’s Thesis and Doctoral Dissertations

Thesis

Wagley, M. P. (1984). An evaluation of Southern Illinois Instrutional Television

Association programming activities for the years 1979-1984. Unpublished

masters’ research paper, Southern Illionis University, Carbondale.

Dissertation

Burt, L. S. (1993). Personal teaching efficacy and ethnic attributions as contributors

to Caucasian preservice teachers’ behavior toward international children.

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Oregon State University, Corvallis.

Dissertation Abstract

Treisman, U. (1983). A study of the mathematics performance of black students at the

University of California, Berkeley (Doctoral dissertation, University of

California, Berkeley, 1986). Dissertation Abstracts International, 47, 1641A.

Ernester, J. (1976). An examination of factors related to worldmindedness in

secondary school teachers. Dissertation Abstracts International, 37, 5205A.

(University Microfilms No. 77-2396).

Internet Sources

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Sites

Norusis, M. J. (1997). Data files for SPSS 7.5 guide to data analysis. ftp.spss.com.

The file location at the FTP site is \pub\spss\sample\datasets. The file name is

norusis. Exe (26 Feb. 1998).

Manning, G. Celas worldwide celtic music radio listening. Available at:

ftp.celtic.stanford.edu/pub/radio/.list. Retrieved on: April 26, 1996.

Online Journals

Tice, T. N. (1991). Learning styles: the brain. [Review of the symposium, “Learning

styles and the brain,” published in Educational Leadership, 48(2), October

1990, 3-81]. Educational Digest, 56 (8) [On-line serial], April 1991, 39. Item

Number: 9106101395. Available at: http://www.EBSCOHost.com. Retrieved

on: February 20, 1998.

ftp://ftp.spss.com/

ftp://ftp.celtic.stanford.edu/pub/radio/.list

http://www.ebscohost.com/


WWW Sites

Telnet Sites

Office of Financial Aid. Purdue University. The loan counselor. Available at: telnet

oasis.cc.purdue.edu. login: ssinfo.press 5. Retrieved on: May 5, 1996.

Gropher.

Newsgroup Posting and E-mail

Catano, D. (1995). Transforming ethics. [email protected]. Retrieved

on: January 6, 1996.

Other Sources

CD-ROM Abstracts

Mayers, J.W. (1984). Writing to learn across the curriculum. (Fastback 209).

[CDROM] Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. (ERIC

Document Reproduction Service No. ED 248 532).

Bower, D. L. (1993). Employee assistant programs supervisory referrals:

Characteristics of referring and nonreferring supervisors. [CDROM].

Abstract from: ProQuest File: PsycLIT Item: 80-16351.

Government Documents

Basic and Primmary Education Project, Ministry of Education, HMG/Nepal. (1996,

September). Annual plan of action fiscal year 1996/97 (2053/54). Kathmandu:

Author.

U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. (1991).

Healthy people 2000: national health promotion and disease prevention

objectives. (DHHS Publication No. (PHS) 91-50212).

Computer Programs

SPSS 8.0 basic professional. (1998). Chicago: SPSS, Inc.

Video Tape

National Geographic Society (Producer). (1987). In the shadow of Vesuvius.

(Videotape). Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.

No Date Given

When there is no date, indicate with “n.d.” in parenthesis as: (n.d.) this designation is

used for citation as well as for the reference list.

mailto:[email protected]


REFERENCES

Bowie, D., & Buttle, F. (2004). Hospitality marketing. Chennai: Newgen Imaging

Systems Private Limited.

Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate

performance. The Academy of Management Review, vol. 4, (4), pp. 497-505.

Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/257850. Retrieved on: August 23, 2013.

Chiluwal. D. (2013). Customer service analysis- a case study of sky club department

of Yeti Airlines, Nepal. An unpublished Bachelors degree thesis research

Otaniemi Laurea University of Applied Sciences. Available at:

https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/71477/Chiluwal_Debandra.p

df?sequence=1. Retrieved on: January 18, 2015.

Gautam, S. R. (2013). A study of ground handling services in Nepal Airlines

Coorpation (NAC). An on published master thesis report. Kathmandu:

Tribhuvan University (TU), Faculty of Management, Nepal Academy of

Tourism and Hotel Management.

International Labor Organization [ILO]. (2006). Tripartite declaration of principles

concerning multinational enterprises and social policy. Available at:

www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/---

multi/documents/publication/wcms_094386.pdf. Retrieved on: October 21,

2013. Author.

Jensen, R. L. (2009). Delivering excellent service quality in low cost aviation: a

process perspective on the passenger market in Copenhagen Airport. An

unpublished Masters thesis research, Copenhengen Business School.

Karanjit, S. (2014). A study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in five-

star hotels in Kathmandu. Unpublished masters’ thesis, Nepal Academy of

Tourism and Hotel Management (NATHM), Faculty of Management,

Tribhuvan University (TU).

Knop, C. (2010). Environmental policy and law: guidance on social responsibility

and its impact on the hotel industry. Available at:

www.environmentalleader.com/2010/09/29/guidance-on-social-responsibility-

and-its-impact-on-the-hotel-industry/. Retrieved on: October 20, 2013.

Environmental Leader.

Kondalkar, V. G. (2007). Organizational behavior. New Delhi: New Age

International Publishers. Available at: http://bookfi.org/dl/1250670/80a894.

Retrieved on: January 6, 2015.

Kotler, P., Bowen, J., & Makens, J. (1996). Marketing for hospitality and tourism. (3rd

ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/257850

https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/71477/Chiluwal_Debandra.pdf?sequence=1

https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/71477/Chiluwal_Debandra.pdf?sequence=1

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/---multi/documents/publication/wcms_094386.pdf

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/---multi/documents/publication/wcms_094386.pdf

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/09/29/guidance-on-social-responsibility-and-its-impact-on-the-hotel-industry/

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/09/29/guidance-on-social-responsibility-and-its-impact-on-the-hotel-industry/

http://bookfi.org/dl/1250670/80a894


Nepal, B. (2015). An impact assessment of internship exposure of the hotel

management graduates of Nepal Academy of Tourism and Hotel

Management (NATHM). Unpublished masters’ thesis, Faculty of

Management, Tribhuvan University (TU).

Paudyal, T. B. (2011). Managerial competencies of Nepalese private secondary

school Headteachers: a study of Kathmandu District. Unpublished masters’

thesis, School of Education, Kathmandu University (KUSoED).

Rijal, C. P. (2014). Rijal on service marketing: a graduate study manual. Kathmandu:

Author.

Rafati, D., & Shokrollahi, P. (2011). The impact of expectation and perception on

customer satisfaction in airlines industry: a case of Mahan Air. Sharif

University of Technology International Campus. Available at:

http://www.wbiconpro.com/520-Dariush.pdf. Retrieved on: August 15,

2015.

Thebe, S. (2015). Service efficiency of Yeti Airlines: a customer perceived gap

analyses. Unpublished masters’ thesis, Nepal Academy of Tourism and

Hotel Management (NATHM), Faculty of Management, Tribhuvan

University (TU).

Tolpa, E. (2012). Measuring customer expectations of service quality:case airline

industry. Department of Information and Service Economy Aalto University

School of Economics. Available at:

http://epub.lib.aalto.fi/en/ethesis/pdf/12898/hse_ethesis_12898.pdf.

Reteieved on: March 1, 2015.

Tripathi, A. (2013). Debate of the month. New Business Age. April 2013. Available

at: https://www.newbusinessage.com/Economy%20And520Policy/940.

Retrieved on: January 18, 2015.

United Nations Global Compact. (2011). Corporate sustainability in the world

economy: United Nations Global Compact. Available at:

www.ubcce.org/docs/GlobalCompact_brochure.pdf. Retrieved on: October 23,

2013. Author.

Zeithaml, V. A., & Bitner, M. J. (2003). Services marketing – integrating customer

focus across the firm. (3rd

ed.). New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Irwin Publishing

Company.

Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., & Gremler, D. E. (2009). Services marketing –

integrating customer focus across the firm. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin

Publishing Company.

http://www.wbiconpro.com/520-Dariush.pdf

http://www.ubcce.org/docs/GlobalCompact_brochure.pdf

Thesis writing manual

Education

Transcript of Thesis writing manual