Making Recommendations

No matter how complete your study was, there will always be further research that will be required to shed more light on the research question, particularly if there is an interest in generalizing the findings beyond the study’s parameters. You will also have found areas within the literature itself that have considerable gaps that should be addressed, and to which your study may or not have contributed. Therefore, a summary section regarding recommendations for further study is appropriate.

If the research was undertaken on behalf of a client, then it is also important to provide the manager with a set of recommendations that directly address the management situation that led to the research being commissioned in the first place. However, as much as the manager may want far reaching recommendations, care has to be exercised that they are indeed anchored in the findings of the study and do not exceed its parameters.