What framework helps start a dissertation proposal with no sources?

The quickest way to get a dissertation proposal off the ground when you’ve got almost no literature to cite is to lean on a conceptual framework that lets you build a logical scaffold first and then populate it with sources later. In practice that means starting with a well‑known strategic‑management model—say the resource‑based view, Porter’s five forces, or a dynamic capabilities lens—and using it as the backbone of your introduction, research question, and proposed methodology. By articulating how your niche topic fits into that broader theory, you can demonstrate relevance and rigor even before you’ve uncovered the specific case studies you eventually want to discuss. The key is to make the framework explicit, outline the variables you expect to examine, and sketch a tentative hypothesis or set of propositions that you’ll test once the empirical material arrives. A common misconception is that a proposal must be a miniature literature review with dozens of citations. In reality, committees are looking for a clear problem statement, a justification for why the problem matters, and a plausible plan for answering it. If you can show that your research question fills a gap in an established theory, you’ve already satisfied the most important part of the review. The trade‑off, however, is that you’ll need to be transparent about the provisional nature of your source base. In the proposal you can write something like, “Preliminary scoping suggests limited empirical work on X; this study will address that void by examining Y through the lens of Z.” That signals you’ve done the homework you can do, and it gives you room to add the concrete cases once you locate them. Let’s imagine you’re interested in how mid‑size tech firms in emerging markets adapt their supply chains after a sudden regulatory shift. You could start by framing the issue with the resource‑based view, arguing that these firms’ unique capabilities are the primary driver of resilience. Then you outline three research propositions: (1) firms with diversified supplier portfolios will experience less performance volatility, (2) firms that invest in digital tracking will recover faster, and (3) the regulatory environment moderates these relationships. Even without a single case study in hand, you can describe the data you plan to collect—interviews, secondary financial reports, perhaps a short survey—and justify why those methods fit the framework. By the time you present, you’ll have a coherent narrative that shows you understand the strategic‑management literature and have a clear plan to contribute to it. What depends on your exact situation is how tightly your professor wants you to tie the proposal to existing empirical work. If the course emphasizes methodological rigor, you might need to spend a bit more time in the proposal outlining how you’ll locate and select case studies, perhaps by describing a systematic search strategy you’ll follow in the next week. If the focus is more on theoretical development, you can afford to lean heavier on the conceptual side and treat the literature review as a “gap‑identification” paragraph rather than a full synthesis. Either way, using a recognized strategic‑management framework as a scaffold gives you a solid foundation to meet the word count, satisfy APA formatting, and give your classmates a clear sense of where your research is headed. This approach lets you move forward confidently while you continue hunting for those elusive case studies.