Thesis
No specific thesis topics are currently available, but we guide thesis on the domain of topic areas closely related to Chair's research. Students with a strong interest in the topics of the Chair, who have already successfully completed courses in International Management or Strategy, are welcome to send an application by email to alexey.rusakov@business.uzh.ch (Theses Coordinator at the Chair)
Allocations at the Chair of International Management take place (apply before!):
- End of April
- Mid-November (09.11.2025)
The starting dates at the Chair of International Management are as follows (earlier starts are possible, but no later than the dates below. If you must start later, the corresponding degree conferral date cannot be guaranteed):
- 27 May
- 2 January
Issues to consider before applying
When applying for a thesis at the Chair in International Management, students must consider the following requirements:
- Bachelor Thesis: the student must be in the final year of own studies and expect to graduate within 6-9 months since the application time. In addition, it is required that the student has passed at least one course at the Chair in International Management;
- Master Thesis: the student must be in the final year of own studies and expect to graduate within 6-9 months since the application time. In addition, it is required that the student has passed at least one course at the Chair in International Management.
- By default the language of the thesis is English.
- All Master Thesis topics and most Bachelor Thesis topics will require some empirical work (qualitative or quantitative research) or simulations/mathematical modelling. Student should have prior experience on related method. For instance, knowledge of statistical software such as Stata, Python or R maybe required for some topics.
Application
All applicants for a Bachelor or Master Thesis must send an email application to alexey.rusakov@business.uzh.ch. The application must include:
- a declaration of interest in topics that a student is interested in
- the full transcript of bachelor studies for Bachelor Thesis applicants and both Bachelor and Master transcripts for master thesis applicants.
- CV
Process after the application has been sent
The Chair will decide if to accept the application based on the following criteria:
- the applicant must have passed at least one course at the Chair in International management.
- the student's interest must be in a focus area of the Chair in International Management or be willing to accept a topic relevant for the Chair
An applicant who gets preliminarily accepted will need to reconfirm his/her interest before the topic will be registered with the Dean’s office through OLAT. The thesis process is completely digitalized, such that topic pick-up and hand-in are processed through OLAT.
Process after acceptance
If an applicant is accepted and a topic confirmed, each student will be responsible to handle the official process. The Chair will upload the topic definition to OLAT from where the student can collect it.
Submitting the thesis
Follow the requirements set by the Dean's Office. The chair does not expect any physical copies of the thesis. The submission through OLAT as pdf is sufficient. Additional documentation such as datasets, code for the analysis, or appendix are part of the expected submission package.
Grading of the thesis
The submitted version of each thesis is read by Professor Keil and the instructor and only the final content shall be graded. The instructor and Professor Keil will read the thesis independently, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your work and give the final, non-negotiable grade. No student will be offered a possibility to submit an additional version.
Each thesis is assessed according to the Chair's international standards (which are kept quite high) on what should be expected from Bachelor or Master thesis.
Please take into account that the grading of each thesis can take up to eight weeks. If a student has a real need to receive the grade sooner (e.g., to be able to apply to an exchange program and need to have the thesis in the record before the deadline, or if the graduation becomes at risk) the student must inform us well in advance, with the clear reasons for the urgency and we will do our best to accommodate the schedule.