Application

For your application for the master thesis at the chairs of J.Prof. Apffelstaedt (Organizational Economics), Prof. Burmeister (Organization), Prof. Dr. Sliwka (Human Resources), Prof. Dr. Heinz (Strategy), J.Prof. Dr. Hofer (Organizational Behavior*), Prof. Dr. Irlenbusch (Business Ethics), Prof. Dr. Mensmann (Innovation and Entrepreneurship), and Prof. Dr. Schwens (Interdisciplinary Management) within the Corporate Development Department please use the following ILIAS-Link (click path: Magazin > WiSo > BWL > Area Corporate Development > Bewerbungen Masterarbeiten in der Area Corporate Development (Application Master Thesis Department Corporate Development).

After a successful application you will be directly contacted by your assigned supervisor. Please note that the start date does not represent the official registration of the thesis with the examination office. Before the official registration, there is a phase in which you develop your research question and outline, plan your approach and conduct an initial literature search.

Requirements

As a requirement for registering a master's thesis, you must have at least 60 ECTS (at the time of formal registration). You can apply in advance if you meet the prerequisite by the time of the formal registration, e.g., due to still pending examination results or credits from abroad. Primarily we supervise master theses from students of the Corporate Development and CEMS major. Students from other major programs can only be supervised if the capacities of the department are not fully utilized by the aforementioned students and they present a particularly convincing concept for the thesis. In this regard, please get in touch with the contact person named in ILIAS.

Topics

Principally we would like the candidates to make their own suggestions concerning the topic of their thesis. The topics can be very diverse. Besides classic literature-based theses we also offer theses which empirically address cuurent questions in research. We also welcome practice-oriented empirical ideas for topics, especially in cooperation with a company. In addition, students can also design and conduct their own online surveys or, if necessary, independent laboratory experiments.

You are welcome to discuss your topic ideas with our research assistants or professors in a consultation hour before you apply. 

Supervision

After a successful application, a research assistant from our seminar will accompany you as an advisor during the whole processing time of your thesis. Usually, the processing time for the master thesis amounts to 6 months. For students of the CEMS-Master the processing time is 3 months.

Submission of the thesis to the examination office

The thesis must be submitted to the examination office by the set deadline. The submission takes place digitally via the WiSo-Inbox. Please note the current requirements of the examination office.

Further information

The length of the master thesis must not exceed 40 pages for the main part. However, together with appendix and explanations, the thesis can be up to 60 pages long. Using our template is compulsory. We expect master theses written in English.

If you have any further questions about theses at our department, please feel free to contact the office office-cdwiso.uni-koeln.de.

* Applications are only possible in winter term!