ABSTRACT
This chapter examines: stages in the planning of research projects; the formulation and presentation of research proposals and tenders. Planning, marketing or management frameworks from the applied literature may be used as the basis for the research framework. The development of a conceptual framework is arguably the most important part of any research project and also the most difficult. A conceptual framework explains, either graphically or in narrative form, the main things to be studied the key factors, constructs or variables and the presumed relationships among them. Frameworks can be rudimentary or elaborate, theory-driven or commonsensical, descriptive or causal. In particular, it seems inconsistent with apparently more open-ended approaches such as grounded theory and informal, flexible approaches used in qualitative research. The hypothesis format is more common in the natural sciences while the research question format is more common in the social sciences.
