| Course | BUSI 885 Research Concept (BUSI885) |
|---|---|
| Module/Week | 5 |
| Assignment | Research Questions |
| Paper type | Dissertation research questions with alignment discussion |
| Length | about 487 words, 2 double-spaced pages plus title page and references. Course guide: the course guide sets the research questions as a 25-point submission reviewed before the full concept paper and places its template inside the course; this sample gives three research questions with subquestions and about 400 words of alignment discussion with current APA references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| Points | 25 |
| School | Liberty University Online |
| Program | DBA |
| Where it sits | Module/Week 5 in Liberty's published BUSI 885 course guide; current sections can differ |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for BUSI 885 Week 5
Research Questions for a Multiple-Case Study of Succession Planning in Family-Owned Manufacturers
[Student Name]
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 885: Research Concept
Concept Paper: Research Questions
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The research setting is a composite standing in for the student's own; the books and the published research are real; the week, points and requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for BUSI 885, which places the full Concept Paper Instructions inside the course.
Research Questions for a Multiple-Case Study of Succession Planning in Family-Owned Manufacturers
Research Questions
RQ1. Why do owners of family-owned manufacturing firms in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley delay or avoid formal succession planning?
RQ1a. How do owners describe the role of family relationships, including the presence, readiness and willingness of potential successors, in their decisions about planning?
RQ1b. How do owners describe the role of outside advisers, boards and other governance structures in prompting or discouraging planning?
RQ2. How does the absence of a succession plan affect the transfer of the founder's technical knowledge, customer relationships and supplier networks to the next generation of leaders?
RQ2a. How do owners and potential successors describe the knowledge and relationships that would be hardest to replace?
RQ2b. How do owners and potential successors describe the ways, if any, that this knowledge is currently being shared?
RQ3. What did owners who completed a formal succession plan do differently from those who did not?
Alignment and Rationale
The three questions follow the structure of the specific problem statement, which named the failure to plan and its consequence. RQ1 addresses the failure itself by asking why owners delay or avoid planning. Its subquestions draw on De Massis et al. (2008), whose model groups the obstacles to intra-family succession into individual, relational, contextual, financial and process factors, and on Umans et al. (2020), who examined how family governance practices, boards of directors and owners' emotions relate to whether a plan exists. RQ1a explores the relational and individual factors, and RQ1b the governance and contextual ones. Gilding et al. (2015) argue that owners' motives for planning, whether family continuity, family harmony or neither, lead to different outcomes, so RQ1 is worded to let owners describe their own reasons rather than to test a list.
RQ2 addresses the consequence named in the problem. In the knowledge-based account of Cabrera-Suárez et al. (2001), what a founder knows without being able to write it down is often the firm's chief asset, and it passes to a successor only through years of working side by side. If planning is absent, that interaction may never happen, and RQ2 asks participants to describe what is at stake. RQ3 provides contrast: in the Australian interviews reported by Bozer et al. (2017), transitions went better where successors had grown up inside the business and had also worked elsewhere, and comparing planners with non-planners can show which practices made planning possible. Including owners who did plan turns a study of failure into a study of what works.
All three questions begin with why, how or what, which Creswell and Poth (2018) describe as typical of qualitative inquiry, and none asks for measurement. They are answerable by the participants the study will recruit, owners and potential successors in six to eight firms, and they fit a multiple-case design in which firms that planned and firms that did not are compared. The questions deliberately exclude the financial valuation of firms and the tax aspects of transfer, which matter but would require a different study.
References
Bozer, G., Levin, L., & Santora, J. C. (2017). Succession in family business: Multi-source perspectives. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 24(4), 753-774. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-10-2016-0163
Cabrera-Suárez, K., De Saá-Pérez, P., & García-Almeida, D. (2001). The succession process from a resource- and knowledge-based view of the family firm. Family Business Review, 14(1), 37-46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.2001.00037.x
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.
De Massis, A., Chua, J. H., & Chrisman, J. J. (2008). Factors preventing intra-family succession. Family Business Review, 21(2), 183-199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.2008.00118.x
Gilding, M., Gregory, S., & Cosson, B. (2015). Motives and outcomes in family business succession planning. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(2), 299-312. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12040
Umans, I., Lybaert, N., Steijvers, T., & Voordeckers, W. (2020). Succession planning in family firms: Family governance practices, board of directors, and emotions. Small Business Economics, 54(1), 189-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0078-5
What the BUSI 885 Week 5 instructions ask
In Module/Week 5, BUSI 885 asks for the Research Questions, worth 25 points, alongside the week's 10-point progress report. According to the course guide, the problem statement and research questions are both reviewed before students move forward with the complete concept paper, whose first draft follows in Module/Week 6; students take the exact format from the instructions document posted with the assignment. Research questions are where a DBA study becomes concrete. They must answer to the problem stated the week before, fit the design the student intends and be answerable with data the student can collect. A reviewer will read them side by side with the problem statement.
How this BUSI 885 Week 5 example is built
The sample lists the three questions first, with subquestions indented beneath them. RQ1 asks why owners delay or avoid formal succession planning, with subquestions on family relationships and on advisers and governance. RQ2 turns to what is lost: the founder's know-how, customers and suppliers when no plan exists. RQ3 asks what owners who completed plans did that others did not. The discussion then shows how each question maps to a phrase in the specific problem statement, explains why how and why wording suits a qualitative design, connects RQ1 to De Massis and colleagues and Gilding and colleagues, RQ2 to the knowledge-based view and RQ3 to Bozer and colleagues, and notes what the questions deliberately leave out.
BUSI 885 Week 5 grading rubric: where the points go
Reviewers judge research questions on alignment, clarity and feasibility. Each question should follow directly from the problem statement, use language that fits the intended design, be specific enough to guide data collection and be answerable within a DBA timeline. Subquestions should divide the main question rather than add new topics. In a qualitative study, questions usually begin with how or what and avoid yes-or-no phrasing or variables to be measured. Grounding each question in the literature shows the reviewer why it matters. Typical reasons for revision include questions that drift from the problem, that presume their answer or that the chosen participants could not answer. The course instructions set the format.
BUSI 885 Week 5 help: mistakes that cost points
Draft your research questions with the problem statement open beside them, and make sure each key phrase of the problem is addressed by at least one question. For a qualitative study, start with how, why or what, and rule out any wording a participant could settle with a single word. Keep subquestions to two or three per question and make sure they are parts of the main question. Ask whether your participants could actually answer each question from their own experience. Cite the literature that suggested each question, so the reviewer sees its origin. Finally, check that nothing in the questions commits you to a method you do not intend to use, such as measuring or comparing quantities.
Related BUSI 885 sample papers
Other BUSI 885 weeks
- BUSI 885 Week 4: Problem Statement: Succession
- BUSI 885 Week 6: Concept Paper First Draft
- BUSI 885 Week 8: Concept Paper Final Draft
More DBA sample papers
- BUSI 750 Week 5: Forum 3: Calling and Careers
- BUSI 760 Week 5: Dissertation Prospectus: Stalled CI
- BUSI 815 Week 5: Case Study: Three Family Firms
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BUSI 885 Week 5 questions, answered
What is the BUSI 885 Research Questions assignment?
A short Module/Week 5 deliverable carrying 25 points, the second piece of the BUSI 885 concept paper, reviewed with the problem statement before the full concept paper is drafted.
Where can I find a free BUSI 885 Week 5 sample paper?
This page presents a complete BUSI 885 Week 5 set of research questions for a multiple-case study of succession planning in family-owned manufacturers.
How many research questions should a DBA concept paper have?
Usually two or three main questions, each with a small number of subquestions, aligned with the problem statement and the chosen design; the course instructions set the exact expectation.
How should qualitative research questions be worded?
Open with how, why or what, keep the focus on participants' experiences or on a process, and avoid both yes-or-no phrasing and the language of measuring variables, which signals a quantitative study.
What comes after the research questions in BUSI 885?
The full concept paper, first as a 100-point draft in Module/Week 6 and then as a 160-point final version in Module/Week 8 that answers the reviewer's feedback.
Use it as a model, or ask for your own
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