Academic Career:

• 2023 - present: PhD in Marketing, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria 

• 2021 - 2023: MSc in Finance and Accounting, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

• 2017 - 2020: BSc in Economics and Finance (First Class Honours), University of London with academic direction from London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom 

Research Interest:

• Consumer Culture Theory

• Artificial Intelligence in Qualitative Research 

• Global Marketing

• List of all publications (PURE)

Office Hours:

• by arrangement

Supervision of Bachelor Theses:

• If you are interested in having me as your supervisor for your Bachelor Thesis, please feel free to contact me via email at any time. 

• Open topics can be found below. You are free to send me a proposal for your own topic as well (in the field of marketing with planned qualitative empirical methodology!). 

1. Topic: How Do Consumers Experience Their Engagement with Digital AI Content?

   When you're watching a video about Donald Trump, do you question whether it really represents what happened or some parts may be AI-generated? When buying digital art, do you wonder if it was actually painted by a human? While reading product reviews on Amazon, do you find yourself asking if a real person wrote them? Or when engaging in discussions on forums or YouTube, do you sometimes think, "Am I talking to a real human?" All these examples reflect how Generative AI (ChatGPT and co.) may be unsettling consumers' sense of reality in their everyday digital interactions.

   As part of your bachelor thesis, you’ll have the chance to explore how consumers experience their engagement with AI-generated digital content and how it affects their relationship with brands. By conducting in-depth interviews with consumers, you’ll look at how they think about, feel about, and engage with AI digital content—through their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You wil gain experience in qualitative research methods while exploring a very current and meaningful topic in marketing. It’s a perfect opportunity to work on something quite interesting and exciting for your thesis!

   If you are interested in exploring this topic for your bachelor thesis, please write me an email at milos.ivanis@wu.ac.at.

2. Topic: The Role of Quality in Qualitative Research in a Marketing Context 

   Compared to quantitative research dealing with numerical analyses, qualitative research often involves interviews, participant observations, and other methods that dive deep into understanding phenomena. Interviews, in particular, are a key part of most qualitative studies and are widely discussed in textbooks. As researchers conduct interviews, they often notice that some are far more valuable for their studies than others, leading to the idea of "good" vs. "bad" quality interviews. But what exactly determines whether an interview is of good or bad quality in a particular context? That’s the question which is significantly underexplored in prior literature, but certainly very much worth exploring.

   In your thesis, you’ll investigate exactly what defines "quality" in qualitative research. Through in-depth interviews with WU researchers experienced in qualitative methods, you’ll discover how they perceive and assess quality in interviews as a method. You will also explore the implications of this for qualitative research in marketing. 

   If you are interested in exploring this topic for your bachelor thesis, please write me an email at milos.ivanis@wu.ac.at.

3. Topic: Digital and Material Innovation from the Consumer Perspective

   Imagine traveling across Germany on an old ICE train from the 1990s, sweating as the air conditioning malfunctions, while simultaneously using your brand-new iPhone 15 to chat with ChatGPT via a lightning-fast 5G connection. It’s an odd experience—stuck in a train that hasn’t changed much in decades, while holding a device that represents the pinnacle of digital innovation. These two worlds often coexist uneasily, with fast-paced digital advancements clashing against slow-moving material progress.

   For your bachelor thesis, you’ll have the opportunity to explore this fascinating tension between digital innovation (like AI and smartphones) and material innovation (such as infrastructure and transportation). You’ll explore how consumers experience these different types of innovation: Do they find digital advancements bewildering or empowering? Do slower changes in the physical world leave them feeling frustrated or nostalgic? Through qualitative interviews, you’ll be able to explore consumers’ perceptions on the speed of innovation, the nature of digital vs. material advancements, and how comprehensible or puzzling these innovations feel to diverse consumers. 

   If you are interested in exploring this topic for your bachelor thesis, please write me an email at milos.ivanis@wu.ac.at.

 

Teaching: