M136LON Business Research Methods Assignment Sample 2023
Introduction
The Covid-19 pandemic has become a worldwide threat for humankind in the year 2020. This pandemic situation is caused by the spread of a new kind of novel virus named Coronavirus, also known as Covid-19. The level of threat of the pandemic is high because there has been no discovery of any effective treatment to this pandemic. Moreover, the virus is contagious, which means it can spread through touch.
The construction industry is an industry, which requires many human resources to be engaged with the projects. Moreover, it includes many activities that will cause many things to be touched by multiple people. This increase the chance of spreading the novel virus.
Thus the pandemic situation will increase and break out more. The lack of an effective cure will make the situation worse. This is the main reason behind conducting this research so that it can provide brief guidance on the risk management framework that is to be followed in construction projects to avoid the risk as much possible.
This research paper consists of a brief literature review which provides a brief knowledge of the pandemic situation caused by Covid-19. This knowledge will help in making risk management strategies more efficient.
Research questions and research objectives
This research will be conducted to find the answer to the following questions:
- What is the main reason behind this pandemic situation?
- What is the impact of this pandemic situation on the construction industry?
- What are the most effective solutions available yet to prevent this situation?
The objectives of the research are as follows:
- The research focuses on gathering information on the main reason behind the pandemic situation. Having greater knowledge of the situation will help in developing risk management strategies more effectively.
- The research focuses on discussing the possible and available strategies for preventing this pandemic situation. Prevention of the spreading of the disease will help people in surviving this pandemic until there is an effective solution to the problem.
- The research focuses on understanding the impacts of the pandemic situation on the construction industry. Having a better understanding of the situation and its impact on the construction industry will help in developing the risk management framework more efficiently.
- The research focuses on discussing all possible escape plans from the effects of this pandemic and the aftermaths of using each escape plans. Having a wide knowledge of these topics will help in deciding which plan to use depending on the situation.
Literature review
What is a pandemic?
A pandemic situation is basically an outbreak of an infectious virus or any living organism causing an epidemic throughout the whole world or covering a large geographical area or crossing an international area.
This condition becomes more severe in the geographical regions having high population or high population density. There are several epidemics that spread across a large piece of land affecting many people in a season. These seasonal epidemics are not counted as pandemics despite their spread and the number of affected people.
What is Covid-19, and why is it dangerous?
Covid-19 is a newly discovered member belonging to the virus family named Corona. Coronaviruses are viruses that are found in animals and humans, causing illness. Most of the members of this virus family are bound to animals, causing harms to them.
However, there are some of the members of this family who have evolved and have started transmitting to human bodies and affecting them. The names of such capable viruses are MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, having over 10,000 cumulative cases since the last twenty years (emro.who.int, 2020).
The Covid-19 has been added to this group recently, in the year 2020. Generally, it takes a minimum time gap of two to three years for organisms like viruses and bacteria to evolve themselves. However, in the case of Covid-19, the virus has evolved in the past few months, becoming capable of attacking human bodies.
The main threat posed by Covid-19 is that there has been no effective and definite treatment for the illness caused by the virus (who.int, 2020). There have been no vaccines developed yet throughout the world, which can guarantee safety to the human lives against the attack of Covid-19.
There is no specific treatment for the disease, which means that there is no guarantee that a person will survive the attack and become cured. However, the doctors have been treating the patients, and the recovery rate is quite high despite the absence of any definite solution. The treatments are going according to the symptoms that the patients have been showing individually, thus the treatment process being varied individually.
How does it affect human lives?
Covid-19 has the potential to leave its impact on the human lives in various aspects, such as physically, mentally, socially and economically.
The disease caused by the virus has no definite cure, causing the success rate of the treatment to be unstable and uncertain. Doctors cannot guarantee a person who has been infected by Covid-19 that the person will survive the infection.
Moreover, there has been no discovery of a vaccine against this virus, which will stop the future infection of the virus. Thus, the virus plays with the mortality of people, causing them to face extreme suffering in respiration, which is very painful. Thus, in the view of Walker et al. (2020), the virus impacts human lives physically.
People are forced to stay at their home all the time due to this massive outbreak of the virus. This generates a feeling of being jailed at home. Moreover, people who have been accustomed to remain a large amount of time outside the home are getting too much bored and frustrated by remaining at home. This is causing a massive change in the behaviour of these people. Thus, this virus has been influencing the people mentally (Chatterjee et al., 2020).
Due to the home quarantine situation, people are not able to socialise with other people much. This is influencing the people socially.
People are not being able to go to their offices much, which is causing many unemployment cases. The pandemic has caused the global business industry facing a downfall in the sales, which is also causing many unemployment cases (Baker et al., 2020). Thus, the pandemic has influenced human lives economically.
What is the impact of Covid-19 in the UK?
The statistics obtained from the WHO (World Health Organisation) website shows that there has been a total of 307,188 confirmed cases of Covid-19, of which 46,364 people have faced their ends of life.
There are also 891 new cases confirmed in the country. The country has acquired in 9th position globally in the top 10 most affected countries hit by Covid-19 cases. This statistic shows that the country is not in much good position. The statistic includes information from February 1, 2020, to August 6, 2020.
Figure 1: Statistic of Covid-19 cases in the UK
(Source: covid19.who.int, 2020)
What are the ways available to people a solution?
There has been no definite solution to cure the disease caused by Covid-19, which why it is not possible to line out an exact strategy to fight the pandemic situation. However, there is a proverb that “Precaution is better than prevention”. Therefore, it is suggested to avoid the chances of getting infected by the virus.
If not infected, there will be no need for finding an emergency cure which is also not able to guarantee the recovery. In the view of Montemurro (2020), people will be able to wait for the development of the exact cure to the disease. Some of the precaution guidelines against this pandemic are as follows:
- As the virus spreads through contact, people are advised to skip touching other people, which will provide brief security.
- The virus can spread through body fluids like cough and saliva. Therefore, it is suggested to skip getting into contact with other people’s body fluids as much as possible.
- Wearing masks will be able to guard the splitting of saliva or cough while coughing or sneezing.
- Washing hands and other body parts frequently will wash of the virus is there is any on the skin. In the absence of water, alcohol-based sanitisers can be used for washing hands.
- If a person notices any symptom of being infected by this virus, the person is requested to quarantine themselves from the reach of others, so that the other people do not get infected from him. The person is also requested to inform the doctors on his own about his condition and seek medical assistance from them.
Why is it necessary to analyse the impact of Covid-19 while developing risk management framework?
A risk management framework is the organisational guideline for protecting its employees from any kind of unnecessary threats. This pandemic situation is a potential threat to the lives of the people. Therefore, it is the sole responsibility of the organisation to ensure that the lives of its employees are safe and sound.
Moreover, the size of the outbreak of the virus is so massive that the whole world is terrorised by it. According to Lisi et al. (2020), there is no guarantee when this will be completely cured, or even there will be a permanent solution. Therefore, an organisation ha to consider the effectiveness of the pandemic and the virus while developing the post-pandemic risk management framework.
Research methodology
The research methodology is the peer description of the way followed throughout the whole research process. The research methodology consists of different attributes such as the research approach, research design, data collection method, data sources etc.
The research approach can be divided into two varieties, namely inductive and deductive approach of research (Ferrel et al., 2020). the inductive approach allows the researcher to discover new theories, models and information on the research topic; while the deductive approach allows the researcher to find out new information by using and analysing the existing information. In this context, the researcher has used the deductive approach of research.
The research design can be of three types, which are the explanatory, exploratory and descriptive design of researches. The explanatory design focuses on the cause rather than finding a solution to the problem. The exploratory design helps in understanding the research topic further when there is not much availability of relevant information.
According to Kumar (2019), the descriptive research design helps in the proper identification of the issues found in the research topic. In this context, the researcher has chosen the descriptive design to follow in order to complete the research successfully. The topic of this research is the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the construction industry of the UK.
The reason behind choosing the descriptive design for this research is that there are sufficient relevant data available throughout the internet and available for public access. The design of the research is a crucial part of the research; the researcher must choose the design very carefully so that the research process goes without any error.
The data collection method is another very important part of the research process, as it consists of the data, which is the fundamental element of research. Choosing the wrong method for data collection will make the researcher end up in a situation in which the researcher does not have sufficient data on hand.
As per the view of VanKooten (2019), there are two different methods available for the collection of the necessary data, namely the qualitative and quantitative method. The qualitative method provides detailed information on the research topic provided by experts.
This can be harvested from different data sources. The quantitative data collection method focuses on the numerical and mathematical figures and tools for harvesting the required data. In this context, the researcher has put the focus on the qualitative method mainly as there are many people who can provide necessary data, but they are not much in mathematical forms.
There are two sources of data from which necessary data can be harvested. These are namely the primary sources of data and the secondary sources. The primary sources refer to the data that has been collected by the researcher form people on a face to face interactions. Surveys and interviews are an example of primary data sources.
On the other hand, the secondary sources refer to the data that the researcher has access, but it is collected by another person. Online articles, newspaper reports, journals are the examples of secondary data sources. In this context, the researcher has used both data sources.
However, the focus has been put on secondary sources. The main reason behind this is that people have been avoiding confronting interviews in this pandemic situation.
Research ethics
Research ethics are the rules and guidelines that are followed by the researchers, but these rules are not mentioned in any place. Despite the factor of not being mentioned anywhere, the researchers are bound to follow these rules so that they can obtain the required data and information without any trouble and perform the research efficiently. Some of the ethics followed by the researcher are as follows:
- The researcher will never disclose the identity of the person who has provided the necessary data and information without the consent of that person. This means the identity of the data provider will be safe with the researcher until the person decides on revealing himself.
- The researcher must take responsibility for the consequences of the outcome of their own research.
Research timescale
The research will be conducted in eight phases, which are the selection of the topic, collection of the data from secondary sources, selection of the research technique, collection of the primary data, data analysis and interpretation, development of the conclusion, formation of the draft and submission of the final work. The total work will consume seven weeks in total.
| Activities | First Week | Second Week | Third Week | Fourth Week | Fifth Week | Sixth Week | Seventh Week |
| Selection of the topic | ✔ | ||||||
| Collection of data (secondary sources) | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
| Research technique selection | ✔ | ||||||
| Collection of primary data | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
| Data analysis and interpretation | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
| Developing Conclusion | ✔ | ||||||
| Formation of draft | ✔ | ✔ | |||||
| Submission of final work | ✔ |
Research resources
The completion of the project will require access to several resources together. Access to the primary data sources is the most important, as access to the relevant secondary data sources is already very high.
In order to perform the research efficiently, the researcher is needed to travel a distance for a few numbers of time. This may incur a bit of charge. It may also consume a large amount of time for the research purposes of the days within the proposed deadline.
Expected outcome
It is expected from the researcher that the data will be collected by the researcher will be free of errors and falsified information.
The researcher is also expected to conduct the research by totally maintaining ethics. The researcher is also expected to submit the final submission within the limited deadline.
Conclusion
From the studies done so far, it can be concluded that Covid-19 has caused a severe pandemic situation. The virus belongs to the Coronavirus family and has attacked human lives unexpectedly quicker.
There is no certain treatment of the disease caused by this virus, which has made this pandemic more dangerous. Therefore, it is needed for the organisation to develop the risk management framework efficiently. The researcher has put the focus on qualitative data collection method and secondary data sources due to the higher availability of data. The total research work is proposed to be completed by seven weeks.
References
Baker, S.R., Bloom, N., Davis, S.J., Kost, K.J., Sammon, M.C. and Viratyosin, T., 2020. The unprecedented stock market impact of COVID-19 (No. w26945). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Chatterjee, K., Chatterjee, K., Kumar, A. and Shankar, S., 2020. Healthcare impact of COVID-19 epidemic in India: A stochastic mathematical model. Medical Journal Armed Forces India.
covid19.who.int (2020) The United Kingdom Situation Available at: https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/gb
emro.who.int (2020) About COVID-19 Available at: http://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/corona-virus/about-covid-19.html
Ferrel, M.N. and Ryan, J.J., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 on medical education. Cureus, 12(3).
Kumar, R., 2019. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications Limited.
Lisi, G., Campanelli, M., Spoletini, D. and Carlini, M., 2020. The possible impact of COVID‐19 on colorectal surgery in Italy. Colorectal Disease.
Montemurro, N., 2020. The emotional impact of COVID-19: From medical staff to common people. Brain, behavior, and immunity.
VanKooten, C., 2019. A research methodology of interdependence through video as method. Computers and Composition, 54, p.102514.
Walker, P., Whittaker, C., Watson, O., Baguelin, M., Ainslie, K., Bhatia, S., Bhatt, S., Boonyasiri, A., Boyd, O., Cattarino, L. and Cucunuba Perez, Z., 2020. Report 12: The global impact of COVID-19 and strategies for mitigation and suppression.
who.int (2020) Coronavirus Available at: https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1
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