Universität St.Gallen | Lehrstuhl für Organisation

Requirements: There are no specific requirements to write a thesis at our chair. However, it is advisable that before applying, you have already attended a course with Prof. Blagoev or have prior knowledge of qualitative organizational research. We expect that you possess basic knowledge of academic work and strongly recommend reading our "Guidelines for Term Papers and Thesis" before applying.
Topics: Please use the kick-off page (available in the downloads section) to submit a topic proposal. If the proposed topics align with the profile of the chair, you are free to choose your topic. However, we also offer a range of topics from which you can choose. Depending on the topic, you will be assigned a supervisor.
Qualitative research: Are you planning to conduct empirical research? At this point, we want to emphasize that we only supervise works with a qualitative research approach. If you do not have prior knowledge in this area, we strongly advise you to take the online courses linked in our guidelines.
Conceptual works: Are you planning to conduct empirical research? At this point, we want to emphasize that we only supervise works with a qualitative research approach. If you do not have prior knowledge in this area, we strongly advise you to take the online courses linked in our guidelines.

Familiarize yourself with the topic you want to work on. This means selecting scientific literature on your topic and reading it to get an overview.
Clearly formulate your research interest and the problem that concerns you, to concisely convey what the content of your thesis should be.
Consider how you want to tackle the (theoretical or practical/empirical) puzzle. What method do you want to use and why?
Document your preliminary thoughts, including the literature used up to this point and a rough timeline, on the kick-off page provided by us. These brief outlines of your initial ideas will already be immensely helpful and will also serve as a basis for supervision.
Send the kick-off page to org-studies@unisg.ch.
We will contact you, if supervision is possible and arrange a date for an initial consultation.
Note: Our approval of supervision does not equate to an official registration of the thesis.

After submitting the kick-off page and having the initial consultation, we will commission you to write an exposé.
You can consider the exposé as a precursor to your thesis, as it should already contain all the essential elements. It will help you refine your research question, structure the course of your work, and, most importantly, kick-start the writing process.
Treat the exposé like a "short paper," a condensed version of your thesis, in which each section is dealt with, even if they are only initial sketches.

Register your thesis independently by retrieving the necessary documents for registration from the StudentWeb for Theses (Bachelor and Master) and submitting the corresponding forms to the Dean's office within the deadlines. Once this is done, the final submission deadline will be displayed to you on Compass.
You can also find the deadlines for submitting the theses through the link above.
Please inform us once your registration is successful.
Feel free to contact your supervisors at any time if you have any questions!
For further guidance on writing, please refer to our Guidelines.
Happy Writing!

Thesis Supervision