Before starting your application, make sure to read the Marketing Department Bachelor’s thesis guidelines:

• Marketing Department thesis guidelines (EN)

• Marketing Department thesis guidelines (DE)

as well as the general guidelines:

• German speaking Bachelor programs

• Bachelor program in Business and Economics (BBE) 

These provide an initial overview of what to prepare and what to expect from the thesis writing process.

Please note that the BBE students need to follow a special procedure, as indicated in their Thesis Guidelines.

If you are interested in writing a bachelor’s thesis with our institute and fulfill the formal criteria indicated in the guidelines, your first steps are finding a topic and contacting a supervisor. Generally, in choosing your topic, there are two options:

• Choosing a topic offered by our team. While our team members are generally happy to be approached with your novel ideas and topics, to assure that they can provide adequate guidance, there are several preferred topics offered by each team member listed on this webpage. Usually, these are the topics our team members are currently investigating in their own research projects and thus assure high involvement by the supervisor and optimal supervision conditions.

• Choosing your own topic of interest. As we take the supervisions seriously, you will be asked to explicitly state how does this topic relates to our current research and teaching content. A potential supervisor will then decide based on her/his current capacities and fit to the area of expertise.

Along with the choice of your topic, you will be asked to send the following documents:

• Your up-to-date CV

• Your most recent grade transcript

• A short (2-3 pages) exposé about your motivations/interest in the chosen topic

Please direct your application along with your preferred supervisor at customer.analytics@wu.ac.at. We will then inform the supervisor who will give you feedback shortly and if the response is positive, you will be invited to a personal interview where the topic will be discussed more in depth. After that, you will have one week to make the final decision.

Once you have established the contact with your supervisor and agreed on cooperation, you will be asked to write a thesis proposal. The purpose of the thesis proposal is to assess your ability to conduct research independently.

Your proposal should be 3-4 pages long (i.e. excluding the literature review, figures, tables, images, etc.) and should highlight the main points of your thesis and serve as a guideline to both you and your supervisor. It also helps with the assessment of time management of your topic.

Among other things, the thesis proposal should encompass the following points:

• The (working) title of your thesis

• Motivation, theoretical background and practical relevance of the thesis

• Introduction to the problem and the research gap

• A rough overview of the relevant literature, hypotheses (if applicable), and already available research results which can serve as a foundation to your thesis

• Suggested research methods to answer the research questions

• If applicable, a short introduction of your thesis partner (e.g. the company that provides the data or helps with the experiment)

• An expected time roadmap of your thesis

Depending on your supervisor’s requirements, you might be asked to sign a Supervision Agreement,which is valid for the duration of the writing of your thesis (max. 6 months) from the first contact with your supervisor.

While writing your thesis, you will be expected to stay in touch with your supervisor. Be proactive and report to your supervisor at least every 2 or 3 weeks, however, do not expect the supervisor to be readily available anytime you need her/him. A rule of thumb is the minimum of four meetings, particularly in the critical phases such as establishing of the components of the research design (e.g., designing the survey questionnaire).

The completion of a bachelor’s thesis is expected to take approximately 200 workhours, which translates to ca. 25 full-time workdays. Do not postpone writing your thesis. Plan ahead, make frequent backups and be responsible – a crashed computer is not a valid excuse for extension of your deadline.

Adhering to the formatting and writing guidelines, as well as to your supervisor’s instructions, will greatly help to optimize your writing efficiency.

The submission of your thesis is done via an upload of your thesis to the Learn@WU as well as via e-mail to your supervisor. In addition, you will be asked to provide a presentation of your results, as well as the raw data to your supervisor per e-mail to understand your steps taken. Transparency of your analyses must be assured (e.g., by providing the code used).

In general, we will review your thesis as quickly as possible and will inform you about the results immediately. However, in case you need a grade by a specific date, you should still count with 4 weeks after submitting your thesis (i.e. uploading to Learn@WU) for us to review the thesis. In addition, please take into consideration that the Examinations Office (Prüfungsabteilung) will need some additional time to issue your certificate. You will be informed about your grade and in case it has not happened already, you will make an appointment with your supervisor to assess your thesis and receive the feedback.

• Marketing Department thesis guidelines (EN)

• Marketing Department thesis guidelines (DE)

• WU final thesis guidelines

  • WISO

  • BBE

• Supervisors and topics

• MCA Research areas

• Template

• List of aids for seminar/paper thesis

• Cover page (English)

• Cover page (German)