UCL Research Proposal Example: Management applicant deciding business strategy or public policy (Score 93)

This proposal asks: under what conditions does management-derived evidence influence public-sector strategic decisions, and which framing mechanisms mediate that influence? Policy memos and strategy documents routinely draw on management analysis, yet the translation from evidence to adopted decision remains poorly specified. A bounded study of how framing choices affect policy uptake offers a tractable, postgraduate-scale contribution. Two bodies of scholarship bear on this question. Research on evidence-based policy (Cairney, 2016; Nutley et al., 2007) documents barriers to research use in government but focuses on scientific evidence rather than management analysis. Strategic management literature on framing and sensemaking (Weick, 1995; Kaplan, 2011) examines how decision-makers construct problems but rarely tests these mechanisms in public-sector contexts. The gap lies at the intersection: no systematic account explains how management-style framing—stakeholder mapping, scenario analysis, cost-benefit structuring—alters the probability that policy actors adopt a recommended course of action. Phase one: structured content analysis of approximately 40 publicly available policy strategy documents and accompanying management memos from two UK central government departments (2015–2024), coding for framing type, evidence citation, and stated rationale. Phase two: semi-structured interviews with 10–15 policy analysts who contributed to those documents, exploring perceived influence of management framing on decision outcomes. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) will identify necessary and sufficient framing conditions associated with adoption. QCA suits small-to-medium N designs where causal configurations matter more than average effects. Phase-one documents are accessible via GOV.UK and Freedom of Information requests. Interview recruitment will target analysts through professional networks; UCL ethics approval will be sought before fieldwork, with anonymisation and storage protocols following UCL Research Data Policy. The main risk is interview non-response; a contingency substitutes additional documentary sources. Timeline: months 1–3 document collection and coding; months 4–7 interviews and QCA; months 8–10 writing and review. This schedule fits a one-year MSc research project. UCL School of Management's research in strategy, organisations, and public policy provides the disciplinary home for this question. The School's qualitative analysis software and connections to UK policy research networks support both phases. I intend to engage with faculty working on organisational decision-making and public management to refine the QCA framework during proposal development.