| Course | GB815 Applied Research Topics |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Direction feasibility memo |
| Length | About 830 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB815 Unit 2
Four Ways Into One Interest: A Unit 2 Direction Feasibility Memo on Franchise and Independent Startups
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB815: Applied Research Topics
Unit 2 Direction Feasibility Memo
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Harrowgate Community Bank and every rating are composite and illustrative; the data sources and studies cited are real.
Memo
To: GB815 instructor From: Doctoral candidate, senior credit analyst, Harrowgate Community Bank Re: Four research directions and how each fares against six criteria
The Shared Interest
The interest behind all four directions is whether affiliation with a franchise system makes a new small business more likely to last and to repay its debts. My bank's loan committee assumes it does. The published evidence is mixed: Bates (1995) found franchise startups survived less often than independent ones in Census data from the 1980s, while research on new franchisors suggests the franchise system's own health matters a great deal (Shane, 1996). Each direction below approaches the question differently.
Six Criteria, Defined Before Any Direction
Existing evidence: how much published research already addresses the direction, and whether a new study would add something. Data availability: whether the data exist in usable form. Access cost: what it would cost in money, permissions and relationships to obtain them. Time to finish: whether one part-time researcher could complete the study in about eighteen months. Practitioner use: whether a decision maker would act differently on the answer. Candidate position: whether my role helps or complicates the study. Each will be rated from one, weak, to five, strong.
Direction A: Loan Outcomes From Public Records
Question: Were SBA 7(a) loans to new franchise units written off at a lower rate than loans to similar independent newcomers? Likely data: the Small Business Administration's public loan-level data, which record each guaranteed loan's approval date, amount, industry, a franchise code where the borrower is a franchise unit, and the loan's status, including whether it was charged off. Who controls access: no one, since the data are published, and Glennon and Nigro (2005) showed they can support survival analysis of default. What could stall it: the franchise code may be incomplete, and charge-off is not the same as business closure. Provisional rating: existing evidence 4, data 4, access 5, time 4, use 5, position 4.
Direction B: Unit Closures in Franchise Disclosure Documents
Question: How often do units of young franchise systems close compared with units of established systems? Likely data: franchise disclosure documents filed with states that publish them, whose tables report each year's openings, closures and transfers by system. Who controls access: the states that post filings, and some require requests. What could stall it: documents report system totals, not individual outcomes, and coding hundreds of tables by hand is slow. Provisional rating: evidence 3, data 3, access 3, time 2, use 3, position 3.
Direction C: How Lenders Weigh Franchise Affiliation
Question: How do community bank loan officers describe the weight they give franchise affiliation? Likely data: interviews with fifteen to twenty loan officers. Who controls access: banks and the state lenders' association that could introduce me. What could stall it: competitors' loan officers may be reluctant to talk to a credit analyst from another bank. Provisional rating: evidence 4, data 3, access 2, time 4, use 4, position 2.
Direction D: Franchisees' Financing Experience
Question: How did franchisees in Missouri finance their units, and how did those who closed differ? Likely data: a survey distributed through a regional franchise association. Who controls access: the association. What could stall it: franchisees who closed are no longer members, recreating the problem from Unit 1. Provisional rating: evidence 3, data 2, access 2, time 3, use 3, position 3.
The Summary Grid
Totaled across the six criteria, Direction A scores 26, Direction C 19, Direction B 17 and Direction D 16. The grid shows A strongest on data and access and B weakest on time.
The direction with the best data is not yet the direction to choose, because the criteria have not been tested against evidence.
Why I Am Not Choosing Yet
The ratings are provisional. Two of them, A's data rating and C's access rating, rest on assumptions I have not checked: that the franchise code in the loan data is reliable, and that loan officers at other banks will not talk to me. Units 3 and 5 will test the evidence and the data. Choosing now would let the most convenient direction win before those tests are run. I will return to these criteria in a later matrix once the evidence is in.
One criterion deserves a note now. My position as a credit analyst at a lender helps in Direction A, because I understand how loan records are kept and what a charge-off means, but it complicates Direction C, because loan officers at competing banks may see me as gathering intelligence. The ratings above reflect that asymmetry, and the access seminar later in the term will test whether I have judged it correctly.
References
Bates, T. (1995). A comparison of franchise and independent small business survival rates. Small Business Economics, 7(5), 377-388. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01302738
Glennon, D., & Nigro, P. (2005). Measuring the default risk of small business loans: A survival analysis approach. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 37(5), 923-947. https://doi.org/10.1353/mcb.2005.0051
Shane, S. A. (1996). Hybrid organizational arrangements and their implications for firm growth and survival: A study of new franchisors. Academy of Management Journal, 39(1), 216-234. https://doi.org/10.2307/256637
The Purdue Global GB815 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 in GB815 asks you to set out several possible research directions and judge their feasibility. State the shared interest and what existing evidence says about it. Define your criteria before profiling any direction, with a scale for each. Then profile every direction with the same template: its question, likely data, who controls access, what could stall it and a provisional rating on each criterion. Total the ratings in a summary grid. Explain which ratings rest on assumptions you have not yet tested, and say how later units will test them. Consider how your own professional position helps or complicates each direction. Resist choosing too early if the evidence is not yet in. Address the memo to your instructor. Seven pages with one grid and four profiles of about a page each is a common format for this memo.
How this GB815 Unit 2 example is built
The memo opens with the shared interest and contrasts the loan committee's belief with Bates's survival finding and Shane's evidence on young franchise systems. Six criteria are defined first: existing evidence, data availability, access cost, time, practitioner use and candidate position. Four profiles follow one template. Direction A uses SBA loan records, which Glennon and Nigro used for default analysis. Direction B codes closures from disclosure documents, C interviews lenders and D surveys franchisees. The grid totals A at 26, C at 19, B at 17 and D at 16, and the highlighted sentence explains why the leader is not yet chosen. A closing note explains how a credit analyst's position helps one direction and complicates another.
GB815 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Points in the GB815 feasibility memo follow the fairness of the comparison. Instructors give credit for criteria defined, with a scale, before any direction appears. A single template applied to every direction is weighted because it makes the ratings comparable. Each profile should name who controls access and what could stall the work, which shows practical judgment. The summary grid should follow from the ratings. Identifying which ratings rest on untested assumptions, and planning to test them, is often a separate rubric line. Treating professional position honestly, as both help and hindrance, earns credit. Declining to choose before the evidence is in is a deliberate strength in this unit, not an evasion, when the memo says why and what will settle it.
Common GB815 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many GB815 Unit 2 memos give a favored direction a full page and its rivals a line each, which makes the comparison meaningless. Others invent criteria after describing the directions, so the criteria favor the direction already preferred. Access is often treated as a formality. Students frequently rate data availability without checking whether the data exist in usable form. Professional position is either ignored or treated only as an advantage. Choices are made before any test of the assumptions behind them. Define the criteria first, use one template, name who controls access, flag untested assumptions, assess your own position honestly and say what will decide between directions. If you have several directions in mind, a writer can help you set up the comparison.
Get a GB815 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Outline the broad interest you are developing and any directions already on your list, with the Unit 2 instructions and rubric. Criteria come before any profile in the memo prepared from that, every direction shares one template, and each rating says what would change it. Your first custom sample carries no charge and usually arrives in 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More GB815 papers and MBA samples
- GB815 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- GB815 Unit 3: Evidence Mapping Exercise
- GB815 Unit 4: Study Quality Appraisal
- GB815 Unit 5: Data Source Audit
- GB815 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- GB815 Unit 7: Scope Narrowing Exercise
- GB815 Unit 8: Practitioner Relevance Brief
- GB815 Unit 9: Comparison Matrix
- GB815 Unit 10: Research Prospectus
- GB794 Unit 2: Consumer Study Critique
- GB793 Unit 2: Theory Comparison Memo
- GB792 Unit 2: Empirical Study Critique
- GB791 Unit 2: Research Article Critique
GB815 Unit 2 questions, answered
How many directions does the GB815 memo need?
Three or four is typical, and the instructions set the requirement. More than five tends to produce thin profiles, while two rarely gives the comparison enough range. The directions should differ in what they would measure or explain, not merely in setting, so that the later evidence map and matrix have real alternatives to choose among.
Can a direction be rated low and still stay in the memo?
Yes, and often it should. A low rating with a reason documents thinking the course wants to see, and later units sometimes reverse early judgments once evidence is mapped. Dropping a direction before its obstacles are examined removes the record of why it failed, which weakens the eventual prospectus.
Should my professional position count as a criterion?
Many sections welcome it, provided it is treated honestly. Working inside an industry can open access and supply context, but it can also narrow what a candidate notices or create conflicts of interest. The memo names both effects for each direction instead of treating insider status as a pure advantage.
Where can I find a free GB815 Unit 2 sample paper?
A complete GB815 Unit 2 direction feasibility memo is on this page, rating four research directions on franchise and independent startups against six criteria defined in advance.
Why define criteria before profiling directions?
Criteria written after the directions are described tend to favor whichever direction the writer already prefers. Defining them first makes the ratings a test rather than a justification.