Thesis guidelines

The Professorship in Management and Economics of Digital Transformation is generally available to supervise Bachelor and Master theses, which will usually cover questions related to our current research projects. Due to limited capacities and the very high demand from students, we are unfortunately not able to accept all supervision requests. Please get in touch with us in order to inquire whether we are available to supervise any additional theses at the moment.

Our research focuses on the economics of digitization, with a particular focus on media markets, entertainment industries,  and digital platforms. More information about some of our research can be found here and here.

Our research having a strong empirical orientation, we expect students to have excellent knowledge of statistics and econometrics as well as some experience with common software packages for data analysis (such as Stata), and potentially with Internet data extraction tools and techniques. The student must have succesfully completed at least one econometrics or empirical methods course (at the Bachelor's level for Bachelor students, and at the Master's level for Master students).

Literary thesis themes can potentially also be considered at the Bachelor's level. In this case, we expect students to thoroughly examine and critically evaluate the literature on a specific and well-defined thematic area, to summarize these in their own words, place the individual papers in the proper context with respect to one another, and identify gaps in the literature.

Target Students & Requirements

The topic is proposed by the student, who should have identified a specific and concrete idea for their thesis. Students who do not have a specific enough question of interest in mind will not be considered. We will consider students who would like to dig deeper into one of the above research topics, and we expect an exceptionally high effort from them.

In order to come up with a research question, students are encouraged to identify a topic of interest, read some related literature, and think about possible specific questions that interest them. Note that we can unfortunately only accept students who are ready to write their thesis in English.

Application Procedure

If you are interested in writing a thesis under our supervision, and once you have a specific topic and a concrete research idea in mind, please send us the following documentation and information:

• The completed registration form, available here.
• Research proposal. Please send us a research proposal of 2-3 pages (including references) about the specific question you would like to study, and how you envision doing so. The proposal should clearly state the question you plan on answering, and explain the motivation and the objective of your topic (Why is this a relevant topic to study? Why does it matter?). Your proposal should also provide a brief overview of the existing literature on the topic (which will also help you define and formulate your specific research question) and show how your idea relates to it. Your proposal should additionally describe the potential data sources you plan on using in your empirical analysis and outline the approach you expect to take in order to conduct your study. Make sure to set realistic goals for your project, taking into account time and data constraints, among others.
• A copy of your Curriculum Vitae.
• A transcript showing the courses you attended and the grades you received.
• Let us know when you would like to write the thesis.

Please send your application to luis.aguiar@business.uzh.ch at least one month before the desired starting month. If, for instance, you would like to start your thesis in the beginning of April, you have to submit your application before the end of February.