(b) Read the extracts below from introductions to articles and decide which of the
components listed opposite they illustrate.
(i) The goal of the present study is to complement the existing body of knowledge on
HR practices with a large scale empirical study, and at the same time contribute to
the discussion on why some firms are more innovative than others.
(ii) We consider three dimensions of customer satisfaction: service, quality and price.
We argue that employees most directly influence customer satisfaction with
service. We test this proposition empirically, and then examine the links between
customer satisfaction and sales.
(iii) Corporate governance is a set of mechanisms, both institutional and market-
based, designed to mitigate agency problems that arise from the separation of
ownership and control in a company, protect the interests of all stakeholders,
improve from performance and ensure that investors get an adequate return on
their investment.
(iv) This study will focus on mergers in the media business between 1990 and 2009,
since with more recent examples an accurate assessment of the consequences
cannot yet be made.
(v) The rest of the paper is organised as follows. The second section explains why
corporate governance is important for economic prosperity. The third section
presents the model specification and describes the data and variables used in our
empirical analysis. The fourth section reports and discusses the empirical results.
The fifth section concludes.
(vi) The use of incentive compensation, such as bonus and stock options, is an
important means of motivating and compensating executives of private companies,
especially executives of technology-orientated companies.
(vii) There is no clear empirical evidence sustaining a ‘managerial myopia’ argument.
Pugh et al.(1992) find evidence that supports such theory, but Meulbrook et al.
(1990), Mahoney et al.(1997), Garvey and Hanka (1999) and a study by the Office
of the Chief Economist of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1985) find no
evidence.
2 Introduction structure
Not every introduction will include all the elements listed above.
Decide which are essential and which are optional.
There is no standard pattern for an introduction, since much depends on the
type of research you are conducting and the length of your work, but a common
framework is:
1.10:Introductions and Conclusions 71