Ideas for a Research Paper for a MBA?

[Ben_Dover]

I'm currently working on my MBA in Finance and have been assigned to write a research paper over the course of the next 8 weeks. It will be close to 12 pages long and will require extensive citings/sources to include a minimum of one government report. As this is for a class in the MBA pipeline, there also needs to be a business theme to it.
I'd like to focus it on something militarily but no great ideas are popping out at me.
Even though it might be a stretch to come up with 12 pages of cited documentation, I was thinking about a paper along the lines of "Could the US Navy have spent 1/2 as much money in creating a new PT uniform that has twice the quality of our current gear?"
or....
"Is it fair to require ship builders to build ships within their proposed bids?"
Thoughts or suggestions?

 

[HH-60H]

I'm currently working on my MBA in Finance and have been assigned to write a research paper over the course of the next 8 weeks. It will be close to 12 pages long and will require extensive citings/sources to include a minimum of one government report. As this is for a class in the MBA pipeline, there also needs to be a business theme to it.
I'd like to focus it on something militarily but no great ideas are popping out at me.
Even though it might be a stretch to come up with 12 pages of cited documentation, I was thinking about a paper along the lines of "Could the US Navy have spent 1/2 as much money in creating a new PT uniform that has twice the quality of our current gear?"
or....
"Is it fair to require ship builders to build ships within their proposed bids?"
Thoughts or suggestions?

Whoa 12 whole pages?!?! What JV school do you go to?

But seriously, I have thought about the PT gear thing before. I think you could narrow it down a little and explore how much did the T&E period cost the Navy vs ordering an off the shelf product (i.e. UA or Nike) and just slapping a Navy emblem on it and more importantly was it worth it? You could even look to sports teams as a model, do they custom order a whole set of crap and "test" it for a year before committing? I suspect not.

You would need to factor in the size difference of the Navy and probably more importantly the sales model i.e. a sports team buys them all under one contract and can return them accordingly if not up to spec. That's much harder to do for the Navy once the NEX sells them to the Sailors.

 

[Ben_Dover]

HH-60H,
Thanks for the reply. The JV school you speak of is the ever-clowned upon AMU. First class in the program so I can't speak for the validity of it yet.
I like the idea of comparing how the Navy goes about ordering their PT gear vs. a professional/collegiate team. The scope of sales will be tough to compare but overall procedure should be interesting to dissect. Thanks again.

 

[helolumpy]

If you are serious about wanting to do uniforms, discuss different military services to have separate uniforms. Is this important??

If you wish to do a serious research paper, perhaps you can analyse different counterinsurgency strategies used throughout history and draw conclusions to US strategy in Afghanistan.

In a liberal country (France) this should go over well. Discuss how modern military operations and a free press (with instantaneous conectivity) can not coexist peacefully. Look at how wars were fought:
Pre-electronic: WWI and earlier. Lots of autrosities and no one knew, therefore no one cared.
Early electronic: WWII & Korea. It took a couple of days to get the story in, so there was time to fact check. Since there wasn't a 24 hours cycle, there was no need to fill the time with sensationalism.
Today: The implications of the 'strategic corporal' (think Abu Ghraib) in the modern world. A small transgression couldl get spun out of control until it's a rallying cry for the enemy

Discuss if the benefit for the big deck carrier is worth the cost of building, operating and maintain. Since some countries (England and China are two examples) are pondering that question it may be worth a discussion. There should be lots of numerous historical vinettes you can use RE: carrier aviation.

If you want to stir up a hornets nest, look at the question of NATO's relevancy anymore. Since there is now the EU and they are working towards a EU military coalition, should the US withdraw from NATO?

Finally if you want to get off light, analyse French military victories...
Last French victory (alone) for conventional war was Napolean, and they had some victories in counterinsurgency in north africa.

 

[Pags]

But seriously, I have thought about the PT gear thing before. I think you could narrow it down a little and explore how much did the T&E period cost the Navy vs ordering an off the shelf product (i.e. UA or Nike) and just slapping a Navy emblem on it and more importantly was it worth it? You could even look to sports teams as a model, do they custom order a whole set of crap and "test" it for a year before committing? I suspect not.

Or you could talk about how the PT uniform took years to develop and yet after an extensive "development" process, resulted in a terrible product. And all they were doing is trying to field a yellow t-shirt and blue shorts with the word "NAVY" on them. Any half-way physically inclined officer or chief could have developed a far better solution in 20min for fractions of the cost. A wonderful exampe of how "none of us is as dumb as all of us."

 

[HH-60H]

Or you could talk about how the PT uniform took years to develop and yet after an extensive "development" process, resulted in a terrible product. And all they were doing is trying to field a yellow t-shirt and blue shorts with the word "NAVY" on them. Any half-way physically inclined officer or chief could have developed a far better solution in 20min for fractions of the cost. A wonderful exampe of how "none of us is as dumb as all of us."

I agree completely, the whole process as far as I understand it was just amazing and sad. That's kind of what I was getting at as well. PT gear is very simple and has already been researched to death by Nike, UnderArmor, etc.

 

[mjulian]

In doing research for Finance papers for business classes, you would be keen to pick a topic where the businesses are publicly traded. This is a key factor in the process because the SEC requires that they display their figures to the public. I would stay away from professional and collegiate sport, which is my major focus in school, because they almost never provide financial figures. the closest figures you can get are broad figures presented by forbes. also when approaching military contracted companies, I would be careful because most of the contracts and research are confidential and are conducted by privately owned companies.

since it is only twelve pages, I would go with the PT topic. the ship topic could be a potential 30-50 page thesis or a dissertation if conducted thoroughly.

Start off with the per unit cost of the current PT uniform. Then move on to how they could spend more efficiently by contracting with American companies like Nike. or if you really want to impress your professor I would suggest that the Navy contract with a smaller American company that would potentially stimulate a local economy; maybe a company like Wicked Smart or CI sport. research on these companies may be difficult but they are just suggestions.

Im taking finance right now and it sucks. Best of luck.

 

[HeyJoe]

Might want to lump the PT uniform in with all the recent uniform changes so you won't be dealing with a limited amount of references.

Another topic would be the Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE) and whether you can use best business practices from profit-based businesses to improve Readiness (ie which ones work and which ones don't) and how finances/budgeting are much handled much differently and could have unintended consequences. Plenty of info out there on advent of NAE!

 

[Pepe]

With all the gross overspending in gov't contracts, it wouldn't be too hard to pick something and analyze how and why it happens. The B-1 Bomber, F-22, the EFV. What about the new health care bill. You easily write 12 pages on the financial aspect of a gov't industry.

 

[HeyJoe]

I'm curious as to why you started this thread in the Surface Warfare Officer section?!?

 

[Ben_Dover]

1. Thanks, all, for the inputs.
2. Decided to go with Helolumpy's NATO suggestion and was able to find all kinds of good reference material last night. All in vain, however, as my OIC informed me this morning that I'm leaving around New Year's for a 6-monther in UAE. Decided to postpone the paper/course.
3. Posted in SWOdom cause I'm one of the lucky few that DOR'd a few years back and was selected SWO. Currently during a tour with a MSRON if anybody has any questions from the NECC standpoint. Thanks again, all.