bachelor thesis with company

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Thesis in Germany – Tips to write your thesis at a company

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In order to graduate from your bachelor or master studies in Germany, you will probably need to write a thesis in your last semester. Having a thesis semester was not something that I was familiar with. I did my bachelor degree in Hong Kong, where we did not have a thesis semester. When I did my master degree in Germany , I had many questions relating to the thesis semester. In this post, I will explain to you what a thesis semester is and provide some tips about writing your thesis at a company.

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What is thesis semester?

Thesis semester is very typical in German universities. It is normally the last semester before your graduation. By the end of your last semester, you need to submit an academic thesis called Abschlussarbeit in German. You need to find a topic that is approved by your professor, write a thesis and present it in the end. The length of your thesis depends on your department’s requirement. To give you an idea, my master thesis was around 60 pages long. A thesis is a formal document. You need to write with formal wording, and quote your sources for whatever you state in the content.

There are three ways to do your thesis. The first way is to write a thesis by yourself. An advantage is that you are quite flexible with your location. You can write it at home, or even in another country, as long as you can submit your thesis in the end. The second way is to write at the university with a topic from a professor. If you are in a technical field, your professor may have some topics on hand that you are free to choose from. In that case, you need to work with your professor to understand his expectations and requirements for the specific thesis topics.

The third way to do your thesis is to write it with a company. Some companies are looking for thesis students to help them to investigate certain topics that are of their business interest. In this case, you need to write your thesis at the company. It is like you work for this company. You get a contract for a fixed period of time and you write your thesis in the office. In the end, you have to hand in your thesis to both the company and your professor.

Why do companies hire students to write theses?

There are different reasons for that:

To research on a topic

Sometimes, companies want to get more knowledge on a certain topic. A hypothetical example: the government is planning to change the law relating to foreign investment in 2 years. The company wants to know how this law will affect their investment strategy.

Since the regular employees may not have time to do this research, the company may want to hire a student who is fully dedicated to this task. The student needs to collect all information on this new law, and investigates how this law would affect the company and what the company can do about it. It is like a consultation that the company can use for their decision making in the future.

To develop a tool

Companies want to achieve some process improvement. An example: the employees have a tedious task that they need to do daily. They need to pull all the data from system A and put into system B and do some daily analysis with this data. It is a manual process that requires a lot of copy and paste. The company wants to automate this process so that it can save time for the employees.

In this case, the company may want to hire a student to look at how this process can be improved. A tool can be developed by the students which automates this process. This can be a creation of a Macro tool or using one of the existing systems tools in the company. The student needs to develop the tool, explains in the thesis what the tool does and how it helps the company. The company can benefit from the thesis as they get a tool now which helps to improve their process.

To find potential employees

Similar to hiring interns, hiring thesis students is a way to find potential good employees. It is kind of like a probation period. The thesis students work for a few months in the company. This gives a chance for the company to see how the students perform and if they are suitable to work permanently in the company. See also this post about tips to boost your chances of getting hired.

Why should you write your thesis with a company?

For me personally, I prefer to write a thesis with a company. There are some advantages relating to it:

You may get some money for it

As a student, I was living on a very tight budget. If you write your thesis for a company, you may be able to get some compensation (though not all companies will pay). For example, I got about 2000 EUR for writing my thesis. I spent around 6 months to write it. So, it was really not a lot of money. But it helped already and it was better than nothing. Check out this post as well for other ways to earn money in Germany as a student.

Writing for a company is more practical

When you write your thesis with a company, it is like you are working in this company. You work on your thesis in the office, you need to work with different people in the company, and your thesis has a business context. In my opinion, it is more practical as it relates to real life business, rather than just a student work with theory.

Interaction with other people

Writing thesis with a company is like having a full-time job in the company. You have a supervisor in the company who guides you on the topic and you need to work with other employees to collect the necessary information. In my opinion, this is more interesting than if I have to write my thesis at home on my own.

Exposure to the company’s management

After finishing your thesis, it is likely that you need to present the result to the company’s management. This is a good chance for you to practice your presentation skills in a real business setting. And it is your show time on all the hard work you put in for this thesis semester.

Future job opportunities

As mentioned before, some companies hire thesis students in order to find potential good employees. If you write a good thesis, you will have a chance to get hired after your graduation. You have an advantage since you already work in the company for a while and make some connections there. See this post about how I got my job offer after my thesis.

Besides, your thesis experience in a company will also make your CV looks good . You can request the company to give you a reference letter for future job search.

Read also: How To Write Your Cover Letter in Germany (+ English Example!)

How to find thesis opportunities with companies?

Basically, it is the same process as when you are looking for a permanent job. Here are some of the ways:

Apply online

You can find thesis offers in different job portals or directly on the career page of the companies’ websites. If you are curious about the compensation that you may get, check out my post about salary in Germany . Below are some of the portals that I used:

– Gehalt.de 

– Jobs.de

– Monster.de 

– LinkedIn 

– Xing  

It is quite common that some companies participate in job fairs to advertise their companies and find potential employees. These job fairs sometimes take place in universities. Each company has its own booth and it is a great chance for students to ask any questions relating to the companies and job positions. You can also ask around in the job fairs for any thesis opportunities.

Through an internship

I had an internship semester right before my thesis semester. During my internship, I made connection with different people in the company and asked about any thesis opportunities. I had an advantage since I knew the people and had some understanding of the business already through my internship. And this was how I got my thesis contract afterward.

How to generate a thesis topic by yourself in a company?

Let’s say you are doing an internship in a company now and you would like to write a thesis for this company afterward. How easy it is to get a thesis topic in the company depends a lot on your field. For example, if you study in a technical field like engineering, the company may have some thesis topics available already that you can just pick from.

However, if you are in a general business field like me, there may not be as many topics available in the company. What if you really want to write a thesis in the company, but they tell you that they have no thesis topic available?

Instead of waiting for the company to give you a topic, it is better to be proactive and suggest a topic by yourself. Think of a topic and suggest this to the company to see if they are interested. At least this was what I did. Below are some tips on how you can generate a topic for the company:

Research online or ask your classmates

Let’s say you study supply chain management. To get some ideas, you can research online to see what kind of thesis topics are out there. Besides, if your classmates are writing theses for other companies, you can also ask them what topics they are writing about and see if this topic applies to your company as well. The point here is not to pick a topic you find online or from your classmates. But it is more to give you an idea of what a potential thesis topic in your field is. This can help you to generate ideas for yourself which are also potentially interesting for your company.

Networking in your company

During your internship, you should try to network as much as possible. Networking should not be limited to the team you are working for, but also to other teams in the company. Tell the people that you are searching for a thesis opportunity and ask if they need help on any topic. The more connection you have, the better your chance is to get a thesis contract.

Think about what is your company’s interest

Companies like proactive students. You should be there to help the employees to solve problems, rather than to create more work for the employees. So, instead of begging people for a topic, you should be proactive and tell the people why you think writing on a certain topic is beneficial for the company. During your internship, you should already have some understanding of the business. Do you see a gap somewhere? Should any processes be improved?

For example, let’s say you are working in a local real estate company that is growing rapidly. Do you know if the company has a plan to expand internationally as well? If yes, which countries make sense for them to expand? What about expanding in Austria? How is the real estate market in Austria? What factors should the company consider for this expansion?

Another example: your company has recently acquired another company. Can you write a thesis regarding the acquisition? How does it affect the work and the employees? What should the company consider to have a smooth transition? What has the company done and how effective is the process?

These are just some hypothetical examples. You should think from your company’s perspective on what kind of topics can be interesting for them. If you don’t have an idea, start with networking and talk to as many people as possible in your company. Ask them what they do in their daily jobs and what kind of improvement they would like to see in their tasks/company. It may help you to think of a topic which is helpful for the people.

Improve your technical knowledge

Companies like practical and useful tools. The best is that you can create a tool that can improve their daily process. If you study in general business like me, you will probably think that “developing a tool” is too complicated and it is something for the technicians.

This is not completely true. For example, a tool can be as simple as an excel macro. I did not know anything about macro before. During my internship, I bought a book to learn about it because I know this can be beneficial for my thesis or future jobs. It never hurts to learn one more technical skill.

Some companies use enterprise resource planning systems for their operation. During your internship, you should try to learn the system as good as you can. This knowledge will be very helpful in case you want to do data analysis or develop a tool for your thesis.

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4 Replies to “Thesis in Germany – Tips to write your thesis at a company”

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• What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on September 14, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master’s program or a capstone to a bachelor’s degree.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation , it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: choosing a relevant topic , crafting a proposal , designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

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Table of contents

Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

• A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarize the central points of your academic essay .
• A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement for Master’s programs, and is also sometimes required to complete a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts colleges.
• In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.
• In other countries (particularly the UK), a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.

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The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

• Your discipline
• Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section ,  results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

• Example thesis #1:   “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the ‘Noble Savage’ on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807” by Suchait Kahlon.
• Example thesis #2: “’A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man’: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947″ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

• Your full title
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional. Its main point is to allow you to thank everyone who helped you in your thesis journey, such as supervisors, friends, or family. You can also choose to write a preface , but it’s typically one or the other, not both.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
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See an example

An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Read more about abstracts

A table of contents lists all of your sections, plus their corresponding page numbers and subheadings if you have them. This helps your reader seamlessly navigate your document.

Your table of contents should include all the major parts of your thesis. In particular, don’t forget the the appendices. If you used heading styles, it’s easy to generate an automatic table Microsoft Word.

Read more about tables of contents

While not mandatory, if you used a lot of tables and/or figures, it’s nice to include a list of them to help guide your reader. It’s also easy to generate one of these in Word: just use the “Insert Caption” feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

If you have used a lot of industry- or field-specific abbreviations in your thesis, you should include them in an alphabetized list of abbreviations . This way, your readers can easily look up any meanings they aren’t familiar with.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

Relatedly, if you find yourself using a lot of very specialized or field-specific terms that may not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary . Alphabetize the terms you want to include with a brief definition.

Read more about glossaries

An introduction sets up the topic, purpose, and relevance of your thesis, as well as expectations for your reader. This should:

• Ground your research topic , sharing any background information your reader may need
• Define the scope of your work
• Introduce any existing research on your topic, situating your work within a broader problem or debate
• State your research question(s)
• Outline (briefly) how the remainder of your work will proceed

In other words, your introduction should clearly and concisely show your reader the “what, why, and how” of your research.

Read more about introductions

A literature review helps you gain a robust understanding of any extant academic work on your topic, encompassing:

• Selecting relevant sources
• Determining the credibility of your sources
• Critically evaluating each of your sources
• Drawing connections between sources, including any themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing work. Rather, your literature review should ultimately lead to a clear justification for your own research, perhaps via:

• Addressing a gap in the literature
• Building on existing knowledge to draw new conclusions
• Exploring a new theoretical or methodological approach
• Introducing a new solution to an unresolved problem
• Definitively advocating for one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyzes the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter shows your reader how you conducted your research. It should be written clearly and methodically, easily allowing your reader to critically assess the credibility of your argument. Furthermore, your methods section should convince your reader that your method was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• Your overall approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative )
• Your research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment
• Any tools or materials you used (e.g., computer software)
• The data analysis methods you chose (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• A strong, but not defensive justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. These two sections work in tandem, but shouldn’t repeat each other. While your results section can include hypotheses or themes, don’t include any speculation or new arguments here.

Your results section should:

• State each (relevant) result with any (relevant) descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Explain how each result relates to the research question
• Determine whether the hypothesis was supported

Additional data (like raw numbers or interview transcripts ) can be included as an appendix . You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results.

Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is where you can interpret your results in detail. Did they meet your expectations? How well do they fit within the framework that you built? You can refer back to any relevant source material to situate your results within your field, but leave most of that analysis in your literature review.

For any unexpected results, offer explanations or alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your thesis conclusion should concisely answer your main research question. It should leave your reader with an ultra-clear understanding of your central argument, and emphasize what your research specifically has contributed to your field.

Why does your research matter? What recommendations for future research do you have? Lastly, wrap up your work with any concluding remarks.

Read more about conclusions

In order to avoid plagiarism , don’t forget to include a full reference list at the end of your thesis, citing the sources that you used. Choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your thesis, taking note of the formatting requirements of each style.

Which style you choose is often set by your department or your field, but common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

In order to stay clear and concise, your thesis should include the most essential information needed to answer your research question. However, chances are you have many contributing documents, like interview transcripts or survey questions . These can be added as appendices , to save space in the main body.

Read more about appendices

Once you’re done writing, the next part of your editing process begins. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and editing prior to submission. Nothing looks worse than grammar mistakes or sloppy spelling errors!

Consider using a professional thesis editing service or grammar checker to make sure your final project is perfect.

Once you’ve submitted your final product, it’s common practice to have a thesis defense, an oral component of your finished work. This is scheduled by your advisor or committee, and usually entails a presentation and Q&A session.

After your defense , your committee will meet to determine if you deserve any departmental honors or accolades. However, keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality. If there are any serious issues with your work, these should be resolved with your advisor way before a defense.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Survivorship bias
• Self-serving bias
• Availability heuristic
• Halo effect
• Hindsight bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
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The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5–7% of your overall word count.

If you only used a few abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation , you don’t necessarily need to include a list of abbreviations .

If your abbreviations are numerous, or if you think they won’t be known to your audience, it’s never a bad idea to add one. They can also improve readability, minimizing confusion about abbreviations unfamiliar to your reader.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation , such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review , research methods , avenues for future research, etc.)

A thesis is typically written by students finishing up a bachelor’s or Master’s degree. Some educational institutions, particularly in the liberal arts, have mandatory theses, but they are often not mandatory to graduate from bachelor’s degrees. It is more common for a thesis to be a graduation requirement from a Master’s degree.

Even if not mandatory, you may want to consider writing a thesis if you:

• Plan to attend graduate school soon
• Have a particular topic you’d like to study more in-depth
• Are considering a career in research
• Would like a capstone experience to tie up your academic experience

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How to Write a Bachelor’s Thesis: A Step-by-Step Guide

The bachelor’s degree is an important milestone in your academic life, and creating a successful bachelor’s thesis is an essential part of this process.

Although it can be a challenge, with a structured approach and a clear timetable, a well-researched, informed, and organized bachelor’s thesis can be created.

In this article, we explain how to write a bachelor’s thesis.

11 Facts About Bachelor’s Theses

• The average length of a bachelor’s thesis is about 30-60 pages.
• Most bachelor’s theses are written in the field of economics.
• The average processing time for a bachelor’s thesis is 3-6 months.
• Typically, bachelor’s theses are supervised by a professor or lecturer.
• Most bachelor’s theses are still written and submitted on paper.
• A bachelor’s thesis is always written within the framework of a study program and is an important part of the degree completion.
• The topic selection for a bachelor’s thesis is usually free, as long as it falls within the field of study.
• Adherence to citation rules and source references is an important part of a bachelor’s thesis.
• Submission of a bachelor’s thesis is usually combined with an oral examination.
• The bachelor’s thesis is the first longer scientific work that a student writes during their studies and therefore represents an important hurdle.
• In 2021, approximately 260,000 students achieved their bachelor’s degree.

Scientific Formulations in Minutes Seconds

11 Tips for Academic Writing (Bachelor’s Theses)

• Start your bachelor’s thesis early to have enough time for research, writing, and revision.
• Choose an interesting and relevant topic that fits well with your field of study.
• Create a detailed work plan to keep track of your steps and deadlines.
• Use trustworthy and current sources to underpin your work.
• Write clearly and precisely, avoid using unnecessarily complicated sentences.
• Use a consistent citation style and pay attention to the correct source citation.
• Logically structure your bachelor’s thesis and ensure that the common thread is recognizable.
• Revise and polish your work multiple times to ensure that it is free from spelling and grammar errors.
• Have your work read by others and seek feedback to recognize areas for improvement.
• Consider publishing your bachelor’s thesis to make it accessible to others and to present your work.
• Have your text scientifically rephrased by Mimir. Sample input : Potatoes are healthy… ➔ Result : Potatoes are rich in vitamins and minerals and can contribute to a balanced diet.

The Process of Writing a Bachelor’s Thesis: Step by Step Guide

The writing process of a bachelor’s thesis is a challenge for many students. In this section, we give an overview of the most important steps and tips to successfully master the process.

• Determine the topic of the bachelor’s thesis and discuss it with the supervisor.
• Conduct comprehensive research and collect relevant sources.
• Create an outline and divide the topic into individual sections.
• Write the main part of the paper by processing and summarizing the insights gained from the research.
• Compose the concluding part, summarizing the main findings of the work and outlining possible further steps or implications.
• Proofread the work and check for formal requirements.
• Submit and defend the bachelor’s thesis.

Choosing a Topic: How to Find the Perfect Topic for Your Bachelor’s Thesis

The first step in creating a bachelor’s thesis is selecting the topic. It’s important that your topic is specific and answers a clear research question. If your topic is too general, it will be harder to achieve meaningful results.

Why is the topic important?

An interesting and relevant topic not only captivates your readers but also gives you the motivation to successfully complete the work.

The topic of your bachelor’s thesis is crucial for the success of your work.

A difficult or boring topic, on the other hand, can lead to you finding the writing process frustrating and ultimately not successfully completing the work. Therefore, it’s important to think carefully about which topic you choose for your bachelor’s thesis.

If you have difficulty finding a topic, you can turn to your supervisors and present your ideas to them.

Research & Study: The Right Way to the Perfect Bachelor’s Thesis

Once the topic is set, it’s time to collect the necessary information. This can be done by searching through libraries and databases, reading specialist literature, and interviewing experts. It’s important to carefully organize and document the collected information so that it’s easily accessible when writing the work.

It’s also important that your sources are current, as research and opinions in your subject area are constantly changing.

Possible Sources

• Academic Publications
• Professional Journals
• Reputable Websites (you should consult your supervisor beforehand)

Structure: Setup and Organization of the Bachelor Thesis

It is important to have a clear structure for your bachelor thesis. This should include an introduction, a main part, and a conclusion. Within the main part, you can divide your arguments into different sections. This helps you to structure your thought process and ensure a smooth and logical flow.

Introduction

• Summary of the research thesis
• Definition of the main terms
• Explanation of the research question and area of interest
• Conduct literature research
• Develop arguments and hypotheses
• Draw conclusions and results
• Cite sources
• Summary of the results
• Comparison of hypotheses and results
• Explanation of the implications of the results
• Recommendations for further research

Writing: Tips and Tricks for the Writing Process

After you have completed your research and established your structure, it is time to write.

It is important that you write your work in simple, academic German/English.

Avoid using too many technical terms and ensure that each sentence conveys a clear thought.

Compose a clear introduction that explains your topic and presents your argumentation. In the main part of your work, you should provide your arguments and examples to prove your thesis. Make sure that your arguments are logical and understandable.

• Write a simple and clear introduction
• Compose the main part of your work
• Ensure that each sentence conveys a clear thought
• Provide your arguments and examples to prove your thesis
• Ensure logical and understandable argumentation
• Avoid too many technical terms
• Avoid vague formulations
• Avoid subjective opinions

Tip: Let Mimir formulate your bullet point ( Example input : Running is great ➔ Result (1/3) : Running is a healthy and effective form of physical activity that can contribute to improving cardiovascular fitness, mobility, and mental health.)

Formatting: How to Properly Format Your Bachelor Thesis

It is important that you adhere to your university’s guidelines when formatting your bachelor thesis. Check the requirements for margins, line spacing, font size, and font type prescribed by your university.

It is also important to format your work consistently to achieve a professional look.

• Adhere to your university’s guidelines
• Check margins, line spacing, font size, and font type
• Consistently format your work
• Create a professional layout

Citing and Referencing: Rules for Citing and Referencing in the Bachelor Thesis

When referring to the ideas of other authors in your work, it is important to cite and reference them correctly. There are various citation styles you can use, but most universities use the Harvard or APA style.

Make sure to properly cite and reference all sources you refer to, to avoid plagiarism.

• Use the Harvard or APA style
• Cite and reference all sources you refer to
• Avoid plagiarism

Proofreading: Error Sources and Tips for a Flawless Bachelor Thesis

After you have written your bachelor thesis, it is important to thoroughly review it. Check the content for correct grammar, spelling, and structure. Also ensure that your arguments are clear and logical and that your statements are supported by your research.

It is important to proofread and edit your work several times. Make sure to correct all spelling and grammar errors so that your work looks professional.

• Read your work aloud to detect errors in grammar, sentence structure, and pronunciation.
• Use a dictionary or an online proofreading program to find errors in spelling and punctuation.
• Have someone else read your work and ask for feedback to gain additional perspectives and suggestions for improvement.
• Carefully review and revise your work to improve its quality and content. This can be done by adding examples, removing unnecessary information, or refining arguments.

Tip: Have your text checked by Mimir (Unscientific words, gender conformity, and more…)

Submission: How to Safely Submit and Defend Your Bachelor Thesis

Writing a bachelor thesis can be a challenging task, but if you follow the steps mentioned above, you will complete your work in a professional manner.

Don’t forget to adhere to the guidelines of your university.

Once you have reviewed and revised your bachelor’s thesis, it’s time to submit it. Make sure your work meets the requirements of your examiner and contains the correct information. If possible, have a friend or family member review it before you submit it.

Earning a bachelor’s degree is a great achievement, and creating a successful bachelor’s thesis is an essential part of this process. Remember, choosing a topic, conducting research, and writing a bachelor’s thesis can be a laborious process. However, if you have a clear schedule and follow the steps mentioned above, you can create a well-researched, informed, and organized bachelor’s thesis.

And last but not least: Congratulations!

Two Practical Examples of the Process

To better understand the steps and tips mentioned above, here are two examples from different academic areas:

• A psychology student writes a bachelor’s thesis on the effects of social media on the mental health of adolescents. She chooses this topic because it combines her personal interest and her expertise in psychology. She gathers information by reading textbooks and conducting interviews with adolescents and experts. She creates an outline consisting of an introduction, three main chapters, and a conclusion, and writes her paper accordingly. She makes sure to use quotes and references and to adhere to the APA formatting requirements. Finally, she carefully corrects her work and has it read by her teacher and a fellow student for improvement suggestions.
• A computer science student writes a bachelor’s thesis on the development of a new algorithm for machine learning. He chooses this topic because it reflects his expertise in computer science and his curiosity about new technologies. He gathers information by reading academic articles and communicating with other experts in his field. He creates an outline consisting of an introduction, three main chapters, a section on results, and a conclusion, and writes his paper accordingly. He makes sure to use citations and references and to adhere to the IEEE formatting requirements. Finally, he carefully corrects his work and has it read by his supervisor and a reviewer from a professional journal for improvement suggestions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you start writing a bachelor’s thesis.

Before you start writing your bachelor’s thesis, you should first plan the topic and structure of the paper. This also includes researching relevant sources and creating an outline. Once you have an overview of the structure of the paper, you can start writing.

How quickly can you write a bachelor’s thesis?

The duration of writing a bachelor’s thesis can vary greatly and depends on various factors, such as the complexity of the topic, the size of the paper, and the time spent on research. However, you should generally plan several weeks or even months for the actual writing of a bachelor’s thesis.

How do you properly write a bachelor’s thesis?

1. Start by selecting an interesting and relevant topic for your bachelor’s thesis. 2. Create a clear and detailed research plan that outlines the goals, methods, and timeline for your work. 3. Gather comprehensive and reliable sources to support your arguments and substantiate your theses. 4. Compose a clear and structured introduction that highlights the topic and significance of your work. 5. Develop your arguments in the main chapters of your bachelor’s thesis and use examples and evidence to support your statements. 6. Conclude your findings and conclusion in a conclusive and detailed section that summarizes the significance and implications of your work. 7. Thoroughly correct and revise your bachelor’s thesis to ensure it is logical, coherent, and error-free.

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Bachelor thesis in Germany Bachelor thesis

Looking for a topic for your bachelor thesis combined with an opportunity for career entry in Germany? Read here how to find the right topic and what career opportunities are available during your bachelor thesis.

Finding a topic for your bachelor thesis: focus on a high degree of interest and good supervision

Writing your bachelor thesis at a company: opportunities for career entry, info-box: checklist: step by step to the perfect company.

Spoiled for choice or clueless? When it comes to finding a topic for their bachelor thesis, many students despair. However, those who bear a few key aspects in mind and make a start early on will be able to master this challenge.

At most German universities, students are free to choose their own dissertation topic when they have completed their bachelor's studies. While students mainly consider preset topics during their studies, suddenly the possibilities are endless. The heads of many students fill with question marks, and they break out in a cold sweat. 

Take a step-by-step approach

The aim of the bachelor thesis is for students to prove that they are able to reflect on an academic issue independently. No more and no less. As such, it is not a case of ploughing through as broad a topic as possible, or of inventing something entirely new. Quite the contrary in fact: in the bachelor thesis, the topic should be clearly defined. 

Within this, the most important question is 'What actually interests me?' Prior knowledge acquired during university lectures and professional experience gained during your studies can serve as inspiration for this. If you discern a particularly fascinating aspect within a topic, you should first review the state of research. Only in this way can you determine what has already been covered within this topic and where compelling questions still lurk. The topic ultimately chosen should differ from those already covered. 

Ask the right questions

"Initially, I was a little concerned, as I could not find many sources for my topic," says Thomas Düllmann, looking back on when he first began his bachelor thesis. Düllmann studied software engineering at Heilbronn University. He discussed what academic work actually meant at great length with his professor. "Not only the source research is important, but also the logical conclusion," explains the 26-year-old. "This point should be clarified early on to ensure you do not lose yourself in the sources and waste time unnecessarily." A discussion with a professor of the department early on will help order preliminary ideas and determine whether the topic can even feasibly be approached in the way intended. "Students need to ask the right questions during the consultation," warns Kai Stapelfeldt, Managing Director of Studi-Lektor.de. 

The business administration graduate coaches students during the final thesis phase, and advises them to consider exactly which information they require to work effectively before the consultation session. "The most important question is that of the complexity," says Stapelfeldt. "The professor must weigh up whether the proposed topic is viable for a bachelor thesis." If the chosen topic is too easy, too difficult or not yet sufficiently developed, students should be informed of this in good time to allow them to alter their topic accordingly. 

Review the topic suggestions from companies

Nowadays, many companies advertise their own bachelor and Master thesis topics - they have long since recognized the potential of this cooperation with students. However, this also means that the companies set the topics for bachelor's students. This is an important difference to writing your bachelor thesis at university. In principle, speculative applications outlining your own topic are possible, though students should allow more time to prepare for this. "The decision on where to write your bachelor thesis should be based on the topic," believes Düllmann. 

He advises students to write their bachelor thesis at university if they cannot find a company that will allow them to address an interesting topic. "That being said, those who receive an offer of an interesting topic from a company that is ideally located close by and willing to remunerate the bachelor thesis phase should definitely seize this opportunity." After several queries to regional companies, Heilbronn-based IT company Cirosec suggested a topic to Düllmann that piqued the student's interest. The topic was defined in brief discussions, with flat hierarchies and a good support system ultimately winning him over. The conditions were set out in writing and a contract drawn up, which also covered the legal use and applications of the bachelor thesis. 

Insist on a close cooperation

Düllmann's professor conferred with the supervisor at the company and clarified open questions. He also ensured that the thesis met the academic requirements. "The scope of duties at the company and the content of the bachelor thesis should be defined clearly as early as possible," Düllmann advises. Written agreements and close cooperation between the university and company are a great help, but not always the norm. Students should definitely insist on this, for only in this way could they avoid slipping into the role of a trainee and neglecting the academic component of the thesis during their time at the company. It is also well worth taking a look at the special information sheets on completing the final thesis externally that have been published by several universities. 

Bachelor's degrees are long since widely accepted by companies. The opportunity to write your bachelor thesis at a company promises smooth transition into a professional career.

Most companies are satisfied with the level of competence of graduates with a bachelor's degree; indeed, the prospects for career entry are particularly positive among computer scientists, engineers and natural scientists. This is confirmed by the study entitled "Mit dem Bachelor in den Beruf " ("Starting a career with a bachelor's degree") conducted by the Stifterverband, the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, and the Higher Education Information System (HIS). "Experience has shown that most companies consider a bachelor's degree to be a very good qualification," confirms Professor Jochen Hasenpath from Kiel University of Applied Sciences. The holder of a doctorate in engineering is responsible for the student advisory service for bachelor's students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, of whom around 95 per cent of every year group write their bachelor thesis at a company. 

Gain practical experience while writing your bachelor thesis

Romina di Fiore, a Business Administration student at Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences, also chose to pursue this route. Although exempt from the practical semester due to a completed vocational training, she still opted to complete a practical in the field of university marketing at electronics company Rohde & Schwarz during her degree course. "The job description was so interesting, I simply had to apply," she says. With a study focus on human resources, industrial goods marketing and digital marketing, she fits in perfectly at the company - and this not only as a trainee. "I wanted to consider the conception of company career Facebook pages in my thesis," explains the 27-year-old, who wrote her bachelor thesis in 2011. "The issue had just surfaced back then, and was also discussed at great length internally at Rohde & Schwarz." Thus, she had found the practical basis for her thesis. The company subsequently set up its own career Facebook page based on the findings from her bachelor thesis, and Romina di Fiore joined the company directly as a social media expert. She describes her enthusiasm for the subject as the most important factor for success. "You should consider very carefully which topics you are really interested in, which area you wish to begin working in, and which companies fit with this," she advises. This increases the chances of being taken on by the company afterwards. Among her fellow students of whom around half wrote their bachelor thesis at a company, di Fiore observed that career entry ultimately tended to be easier for those with extensive practical experience. 

Set the course early on

Finding a suitable company can be time-consuming. Daphne Menges estimates the time from preliminary contact to signing of a contract to be five months. "Those who only begin their search after completing their exams risk having a long time of waiting," warns the process engineering student. At the start of 2012, she contacted precious metals and technology company Heraeus about the possibility of writing her bachelor thesis there. She had previously come across a technology report from the company online that exactly matched her study focus. Six months later, she began a practical at the company, subsequently staying on to write her bachelor thesis. For Simon Schweidler, the study regulations require a bachelor thesis written at a company. The chemical technology student at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences decided on materials technology company, Umicore. A fellow student recommended the company to him, and this piqued Schweidler's interest. "At university, we only touched briefly on the subject of metals in inorganic chemistry," says the 25-year-old. "Going into this in greater depth during the cooperation with a company appealed to me." He successfully applied to write his bachelor thesis at the company as well as to complete the preliminary practical required by his study regulations there. A number of universities choose this route to extend the short processing time of an average of just 8 to 12 weeks. At Kiel University of Applied Sciences, the bachelor thesis can also be combined with a practical. "Otherwise there would not be sufficient time to delve into compelling issues with the company," explains Professor Hasenpath. "What's more, it often takes a few days to get organised, particularly at large companies. This is valuable time that students lose without this practical phase beforehand." 

Record everything in writing

The cooperation with companies is particularly smooth at universities of applied science with a practical emphasis. It is often beneficial for students to have one contact for the practical component and another for the theoretical one. However, conflicts of interest can arise if the university emphasises the need for an extensive theoretical component and the company primarily wishes to evaluate data. The nexus project of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) recommends recording the expectations of all involved parties in writing beforehand. It must be clear to the company that they are supporting students in a piece of academic work within a clearly defined field. Many companies require students to sign a non-disclosure agreement confirming that the thesis will not be published (or only after the publication embargo has lapsed). "From a company perspective, entirely understandable," Hasenpath explains, though he regrets that these theses cannot be presented to other students as examples of good work. "I do not consider the publication embargo as a problem," says process engineer Menges. "After all, the outcomes of my bachelor thesis were noted in my work reference, meaning future employers are able to gain a good impression of my capabilities." The young woman finds it important for students to network during their bachelor thesis, to familiarise themselves with the company structures, and to take a practical approach to work. "Findings from my studies have already been implemented," the 27-year-old tells proudly. Despite the good prospects of direct career entry, she still opted to pursue a Master's degree. Like most other students, Menges, di Fiore and Schweidler receive financial support from the company while writing their bachelor thesis. With monthly pay totalling 700 to 900 Euros, the three are among the best paid. Each company has its own model for the remuneration of students writing their bachelor thesis at the company. It is an appealing aspect that means students do not need to worry about earning a living alongside their work. 

Writing the bachelor thesis at a company can yield manifold benefits for all involved. Students are able to gain some preliminary practical experience whilst receiving support and networking, and companies can pass on tasks they do not have time for in day-to-day business. 

With our Job-Mail, you will receive suitable job ads as well as interesting content matching your search profile on a weekly basis.

• Identify companies working on relevant aspects who are experts in their field.
• Search for job advertisements on university notice boards and online.
• Ask graduates and professors for suggestions.
• Find out about companies at job fairs and open days.
• Watch out for "Hidden Champion", "Fair Companies" and "Top Jobs" (lists available online).
• Check whether the company also has experience in supervising bachelor and final theses.
• Enquire about the possibility of writing your bachelor thesis at the company on a topic of your area of specialisation.
• Enquire about the possibility of further employment and future prospects.

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“MBS Outstanding Thesis” – The Best Final Papers of 2021

February 25, 2022

Last year, four further theses produced by our MBS graduates were selected for inclusion in ‘ MBS Outstanding Thesis’, a series of working papers. This blog article introduces the outstanding final papers in 2021.

Whether at bachelor’s or master’s level, a thesis is more than just the final step towards completing a degree: it can also make a significant intellectual contribution to academic and societal discourse. Students at Munich Business School are no exception, conducting high-level research as part of their theses. However, given that it is not usually possible to have these papers published in academic journals, Munich Business School’s Prof. Dr. Bartholomae launched a series of working papers entitled ‘MBS Outstanding Thesis’. In the fall of 2020, the first installment in the series recognized and published the master’s thesis of MBA graduate Jiaojiao Zhao .

At the start of the 2021/22 academic year, MBS asked its professors to put forward exceptional theses for inclusion in the series. Submissions not only required excellent grades but also had to exhibit innovative approaches and methods and provide novel insights. One bachelor’s and three master’s theses stood out in particular and have been awarded the designation “MBS Outstanding Thesis”. The authors hail from Europe, Asia and South America – the topics they covered are similarly diverse and as broad-based as the university’s curriculum.

Here’s an introduction to the four outstanding theses:

The Implementation of Socially Sustainable Supply Chains in the German Natural Stone Industry Using the Example of Trade with India

In her bachelor’s thesis, Eva Maria Fröhlich investigated the social sustainability of supply chains in one of the few industries for which the recently passed Supply Chain Act does not apply. Focusing on the trade with India and using qualitative research methods, the author examined which concrete criteria and implementation strategies of social sustainability are relevant and currently beeing applied in the natural stone industry. She established the importance of strengthening the implementation of cooperative strategies and which criteria should be taken into account beyond the avoidance of child labor. Furthermore, she identified which communication strategies can be used to raise awareness among end customers and which legislative measures could provide essential support for socially sustainable supply chains. Click here to read the full paper.

Case Study Concept for Microsoft to Support the Digital Transformation in German SMEs

Mauritius Freuding, who graduated from the master’s program in International Business , researched the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises in the field of cloud computing. During his analysis of cloud computing, he also found ways to make this complex topic comprehensible to people who are not domain experts. In addition, Freuding developed a method of outlining the benefits of cloud computing for small and medium-sized enterprises. Microsoft has since adopted Freuding’s method as its standard procedure for adapting cloud computing solutions to the needs of SMEs – a ringing endorsement of his innovative approach. Click here to read the full paper.

Esports Sponsorship Effectiveness on Brand Association and Purchase Intent

Yi-Chun Chen focused on this barely researched but highly topical field for her thesis as part of the MBA International Management program (the former name of the MBA program at MBS, renamed MBA General Management in 2019). She surveyed almost 400 Taiwanese gamers and analyzed the data she collected using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings? Attitudes towards the sponsor, the suitability of the event-sponsor fit, and the sponsor’s involvement in activities had a significant influence on gamers’ association with the brand and their intention to purchase a product from the sponsor. Brand association also plays an important role in forecasting purchase intention. Based on these insights, Chen also developed a number of highly instructive recommendations for both marketing professionals and further research. Click here to read the full paper.

The Emergence of Green Bonds as Innovative Financial Instruments

For his final paper in the MBA General Management program , Nicolas Penuela carried out a bibliometric analysis of the rise of green bonds as innovative financial instruments. He examined a dataset of 98 academic articles on green bonds published between 2008 and 2020. Using a qualitative filtration process, the MBA graduate initially analyzed controversial topics cited most frequently in the articles. Then, using a piece of software called Biblioshiny , he identified trends and gaps in green bonds research and divided his findings into three chronological phases, which allowed him to demonstrate how published articles developed over time. Finally, Penuela put forward a dynamic template for analyzing journal articles to help (future) academics to familiarize themselves with this new yet rarely used research discipline. This highly innovative topic is currently gaining considerable momentum in the field of sustainability. Click here to read the full paper.

Munich Business School would like to congratulate its graduates on these outstanding pieces of work! An overview of all final papers in the ‘MBS Outstanding Thesis’ working paper series can be found here .

• Bachelor International Business
• Bachelor's Thesis
• Bibliometrics
• Cloud Computing
• Digital Transformation
• Final Thesis
• Green Bonds
• Master International Business
• Master's Thesis
• MBA General Management
• MBS Outstanding Thesis
• Natural Stone Industry
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Social Responsibility
• Social Sustainability
• Sports Business
• Sports Sponsoring
• Sustainability

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Second MBS Doctoral Conference: Junior Researchers Explore New Academic Terrain, Gaining Inspiration, Networking, and Exchanging Ideas

Copyright © Munich Business School

Business Dissertation Topics

2020 was a year of drastic change, with many businesses shut down by the pandemic. However 2021-22 onwards promises rapid economic growth, as business activity sharply expands. So, to help you out we’ve provided a selection of free and original business dissertation topics, suitable for both Master’s and Bachelor’s degree dissertations. These topics cover a large range of subjects within the business discipline, so you are sure to find one suited to your own interests. Each of these topics will allow you to produce an original and ambitious dissertation that will contribute to the existing knowledge of your subject area. So, if you’ve been searching far and wide for a great business dissertation topic, look no further!

Global Politics and Global Business Dissertation Topics

Global strategy for business dissertation topics, technology and innovation management business dissertation topics, corporate social responsibility business dissertation topics, international human resource management dissertation topics, management of international change dissertation topics, leadership and innovation business dissertation topics, globalisation and strategy business dissertation topics.

This is one of the most important aspects of international business as it examines the connection between global politics and global business. It looks at some of the most important factors, institutions, and processes that affect international business and studies the political environment of business, which has been particularly volatile over the last five years.

• Evaluating the performance of global business teams within multinational corporations: the test of an intervening process model.
• How does Corporate Governance affect internationalisation, globalisation and the performance of firms?
• What sorts of themes and images might create trans-cultural resonance and dissonance within an international classroom comprised of diverse nationalities and cultural backgrounds?
• Can production for global markets help business groups to mobilise collectively? Under what conditions does globalisation enable the private sector to develop independent organisational bases and create effective relationships with the state?
• How different patterns of business-government relations affect processes of industrial upgrading: A case study of emerging economies.
• How do multinational organisations tackle the growing complexity of managing themselves in light of the rise to significant power of non-governmental organisations?
• A look at the effect that Brexit is likely to have on British businesses, especially the average small and medium enterprise (SME).
• How will Brexit impact on the regulatory burden of large business and corporations in the United Kingdom and Europe?
• Business-Government relations within a contingency theory framework: strategy, structure, fit, and performance.
• What is the meaning and process of globalisation and how does it impact the way in which business teams work together?
• In the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, is globalisation still going to be a key market driver?
• Global strategy and local implementation: Examining how multinational corporations apply Corporate Governance in China.
• How will firms investing in China manage the political undercurrents, as talk increases of a new Cold War between the West and China?
• What factors affect multinational corporations’ choice of corporate political strategy? Examining the influence of perceived regulatory pressure on company’s political strategies.
• Using a legitimacy perspective to examine how firms entering the Chinese market manage political risk.
• A critical examination of the potential implications of Brexit for UK firms’ EU-based supply chain.
• Brexit and foreign direct investment into the UK: An examination of the potential impact on new venture start-ups in the UK.

Global business strategy focuses on understanding the main strategic issues that organisations face when they operate as a global business. Specifically, the issues relate to three areas: understanding global strategic analysis, formulating a global strategy, and developing sources of competitive advantage in a given company.

• What are the risks and benefits of an International Joint Venture?
• How should a business strategy be developed to expand a business in an international market?
• A comparative study of Mergers and Acquisitions within the Aviation sector: Case study of Qatar Airways’ joint venture with the International Airlines Group.
• A research on the exit strategy of foreign venture capital investment in international private business sector.
• What are the business strategies and key success factors of Financial Holding Companies in the international environment?
• How does an organisation benefit from an effective vendor management strategy?
• Why are some vendor relationships more successful than others?
• Developing an effective framework for knowledge sharing and utilisation in global project teams.
• Can entrepreneurship be utilised as an effective management strategy within a business unit?
• What effects will the consumers’ increasing use of the online channel to fashion shopping have on the strategies used by UK clothing retailers?
• An assessment of sustainable competitive advantage within the UK DIY multiple market sector.
• Develop your own definition of logistics, that you think reflects how logistics is evolving and explain why you think it is appropriate for today and the next decade.
• A study of the problems of managing international collaboration in the military aero-engine business.
• New possibilities in logistics and supply chain management provided by Big Data: examining the birth and growth of supply chain analytics.
• Designing a closed-loop supply chain for improving sustainability of global business practices.
• Developing a strategy for winning in the Indian market: A case study of Suzuki Motor Corporation.

These topics consider the ways in which business firms develop and implement technology as a strategy and integrate technological and innovative capabilities in support of their business operations. These topics mainly investigate how technology has revolutionised the business environment causing disruption, new opportunities and challenges for firms to deal with.

• A study of how business operations have improved as a result of innovation: Are they converging towards one universal approach?
• What are the market challenges experienced by new UK mobile telecommunication companies?
• How will 5G technology impact on the growth of digital consumer markets in the UK?
• How does online branding provide competitive advantage in the digital era: a study of the consumer electronics industry?
• A study into how ICT integration has transformed procurement of goods and services.
• Building virtual dominions – A comparative study of mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances in e-commerce: case studies of Amazon.com and eBay.
• What are the technological factors surrounding the relationship between organisational growth and performance?
• A study into the role of online marketing in creating global supply chain networks.
• A study into how organisations suffer the negative effects of modern day technology.
• What are the main factors impacting on the success of online branding for corporations?
• Assessing the role of social media in global branding: cases of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
• Exploring the impact of technology on CRM operations within call centres in the UK and analyse the factors that affect the well-being of the employee?
• A study into the opportunities of implementing an e-HR system: Case of British Energy.
• A study into how companies influence technology and innovation within suppliers: Case of Apple.
• Assessing technology diffusion models among online shoppers in the UK.
• Business process reengineering and the challenges facing airlines, a critical study of the factors influencing Saudi Airlines’ BPR initiatives.
• What are the barriers to successful/profitable e-commerce deployment in government organisations?
• Comparing and contrasting government e-commerce portals with private ones such as eBay and Amazon: which offers the better user experience and business outcomes?
• How has integration of technology into HR improved organisational efficiency?
• What is the impact of technology on FMCG industry towards meeting consumer demands in the UK market?
• Assessing the role of innovation towards creation of new opportunities for SMEs in the UK.
• What determinant factors influence integration of technology in the Supply Chain Management (SCM) sector.

Governments, activists and the media have become adept at holding companies to account for the social consequences of their actions. In response, corporate social responsibility has emerged as an inescapable priority for business leaders in every country. The fact is many prevailing approaches to CSR are quite disconnected from strategy. Business should treat CSR as something central to their strategy and hence contribute as a core competence for many organisations. These topics evaluate how business can utilise CSR practices to enhance opportunities for organisational success.

• How does Corporate Social Responsibility impact on customer loyalty?
• What is the role of staff training in developing and executing CSR skills?
• What are the key strategic decisions facing companies in order to improve their performance in Corporate Social Responsibility?
• Does Corporate Social Responsibility enhance corporate reputation? A case study of Tesco.
• What are the challenges facing ethical businesses in the UK for moving to the mainstream?
• How can businesses gain advantage from adopting CSR practices with respect to climate change?
• A study into the impact of green and lean practices on organisational performance.
• How have environmental policies transformed CSR practices within organisations: Case of BAT.
• What are the effects of CSR on sustainability: Case of Coca Cola.
• How will multinational organisations deal with the growing emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in large markets like Germany and India?
• To what extent will CSR be sacrificed for greater economic growth in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic?
• How can firms successfully make Corporate Social Responsibility operable in the modern corporate environment?
• Is there a relationship between diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility, what is its contribution to organisational performance?
• What is the impact of CSR on brand equity: Case study of Toyota UK?
• How does CSR impact on organisational performance?
• CSR and societal expectations: A case study of Unilever.

International Human Resource Management refers to activities that are designed to support organisations in managing human resources at an international level so that competitive advantage can be maintained at both the national and international level. The subject area includes understanding of culture factors, both in terms of beliefs and attitudes of international employees and in relation to international employment legislation. Studying the area provides insights into the way that corporate HR functions can contribute to international business strategy and build functional knowledge of the main developments in the management of expatriates and other forms of international management. Changing perspectives are crucial as more and more organisations operate on a global basis and have head offices in a home country and operational sites in host nations. Functionally this can involve expatriates but increasingly includes high usage of virtual technology to create links between home and host country operational sites. The following topics are an indication of key areas of current interest in the field.

• What are the benefits and challenges of inter-cultural team working in virtual environments and how these teams influence competitive advantage.
• Virtual working environments became something of a norm during the pandemic. Will this apply to home countries of international corporations as well?
• What are the bases of employee commitment in terms of affective, normative and calculative commitment in a global multi-national?
• What are the effects of organisational transition on employee commitment in large multinational companies?
• How do mergers impact on employee motivation and commitment, and how can any fallout be managed?
• How can cultural differences in international collaborative projects be managed?
• Can job-swaps between international workers improve inter-cultural working in multi-national organisations?
• What is the relationship between the three components of commitment to organisational change and the perceived success of an organisational change?
• What effect will the UK’s decision to leave the EU have on economic migrants, and how can this be managed by IHRM practices and polices?
• How will Brexit impact on British workers in the EU, and to what extent can this be managed by IHRM practices and policies?
• How does one manage employee commitment in the not-for-profit sector across different national cultures?
• Using models of Strategic Human Resource Management assess and appraise how BAE Systems is achieving strategy through effective people management practices.
• What are the main factors that affect employee retention at international call centres?
• What are the most effective practices for working a unique Human Resource policy across multiple divisions of large diversified companies?
• A study of the constantly changing global business environment and how effective human resource planning enables organisations to achieve their strategic objectives.
• What effect does the Brexit decision and subsequent negotiations have on the management of EU operational sites by UK based companies?
• What is the role and value of effective IHRM strategic thinking to effective negotiation of joint ventures between the UK and BRIC countries?
• Can IHRM be effective in delivering culturally appropriate work-life balance and flexible working patterns for multi-national firms?

Change, at the organisational level is vital for continued innovation and retention of competitive advantage. Therefore, understanding the different aspects of this topic is vital in creating awareness of existing views and practices for implementing and managing successful change, particularly at the international level. This topic area is therefore focused on the what, why and how involving managing change in contemporary organisations and social systems in general, and how they may impact on the effectiveness of change. In particular, it examines the issues and dilemmas facing those managing change, as well as the skills required for successful adaptation and evolution, especially in an international context.

• What internal and external factors have the greatest impact on employees in cross-national mergers and acquisitions?
• Managing change across multi-cultural teams through technology and virtual project management: The impact of social understanding and use of digital media.
• What are the biggest changes in home working practises going to be following Coronavirus, and what impact will they have on employee retention?
• Managing change: Developing a framework that links intended strategies and unanticipated outcomes.
• Employee adjustment during organisational change: The role of organisational level and occupation.
• How can employee motivation levels be sustained during organizational restructuring?
• Success of a Product Lifecycle Management Implementation – an investigation into the electronics manufacturing industry.
• How power works through managing emotion in organisational change: emotion management as power.
• How can the measurement of levels of work stress in individuals employed in an organisation undergoing change benefit it?
• Encouraging gender equality across international firms – what role can change management approaches take in supporting increased female representation in traditionally masculine firms?
• Managing change in Asian business – A comparison between Chinese-educated and English-educated Chinese entrepreneurs in Singapore.
• What is the impact of feedback during organisational culture change: a case study of a financial firm?
• Stakeholder Communication and Transformational Change: A case study in the use of a proprietary change management system.
• What effect is there on levels of resistance and conflict when organisational change is lead by a servant or spiritual leader?
• How social media can facilitate acceptance of change in international organisations.
• Soft skills are not enough: Why change management approaches also need strong project management planning to be successful.
• What are the key project management skills needed to execute a major change in the working culture of an organization?

Innovation has become a primary force driving the growth, performance, and valuation of companies. However, sometimes there is a wide gap between the aspirations of executives to innovate and their ability to execute. Many companies make the mistake of trying to spur innovation by turning to unreliable best practices, and to organisational structures and processes. Moreover, executives who focus on stimulating and supporting innovation by their employees can promote and sustain it with the current talent and resources more effectively than they could by using other incentives. This area focuses on innovation at the individual level and at the group level within organisations.

• What are the effects of team innovation and leadership clarity in organisations? A health care case study.
• Does socio-cultural context moderate the relationship of leadership with top-management influence on innovation?
• What are the effects of leadership style and team process on performance and innovation in functionally heterogeneous teams?
• An exploratory study of leadership, organisational culture and organisational innovativeness in a sample of non-profit organisations.
• Is there a difference in leadership style between profit and non-organisations, and what are the reasons for this?
• How do business leaders see their role in enabling innovation in large organisations?
• Transformation or transactional? The role of leadership in supporting individual-level creativity within organisations.
• How exactly do we put leadership and innovation together? How does a company lead in a way that generates innovation?
• What are the key factors required for a creative organisation? How are barriers to implementing these factors overcome?
• Organising for team creativity: Creating an organisational system for harvesting ideas for leadership and innovation.
• What is the nature and role of leadership in three ideal types of public management innovation: politically-led, organisational turnarounds and bottom-up innovations?
• How is leadership different in the engineering function? An assessment of Airbus UK?
• What are the behavioural and personality correlations of transactional and transformational leadership?
• What is the relationship between leadership style and creativity? Systematically reviewing the literature.
• From managing to enabling innovation: Leaders’ facilitating innovation through cultural change.
• The role of leaders in balancing creativity and standardisation in the firm.

Globalisation is a complex trend, encompassing many forces and many effects. Globalisation has revolutionised the global market as Multinational Enterprises renew their strategies to attain competitive edge. These topics evaluate different strategies adopted by business firms to uniquely position themselves in the global market.

• The analysis of suitability and applicability of Porter’s Generic Strategies in the light of emerging business trends and an unpredictable operating environment post-pandemic.
• Does globalisation have a future in the aftermath of the Coronavirus pandemic?
• What is the significance of ICT integration as a business strategy?
• How globalisation has broken trade barriers and its impact on trade tariffs: the case of BRIC countries.
• What current strategies are in place for businesses to meet dynamic consumer demands?
• To what extent is consumer demand shaped by corporate innovation? A comparative study of Apple and Samsung.
• Assessing the impact of globalisation on UK businesses operating on both international and local levels.
• Does Brexit signal a rollback in globalisation in the UK and Europe?
• An examination of empowerment, conflict and corporate vision as factors in developing global business strategies for multinational firms.
• What are the transformational strategies adopted by companies in the globalisation era?
• How have countries changed their trade policies in the face of new global market challenges?
• A study into the FDI strategies used by UK multinational companies: case study of Vodafone.
• Investigating the role of strategic alliances in creating global supply chain networks.
• Assessing the impact of internationalisation strategies on multinational corporations: case study Tullow Oil.

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Finished Theses

Dept. VII: Information Systems I

This is a list of finished theses written at the Chair of Information Systems I

Analysis-oriented data management for software test management in cross-company automotive development projects - a case study at the Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche AG Master Thesis 2022

Operational Design Domain for Autonomous Vehicles – an information needs analysis based on an analytics-based evaluation of weather data Master Thesis 2022

Data provision for artificial intelligence in small and medium-sized enterprises – results of a quali-tative study Bachelor Thesis 2022

Applications of an automatic detection of overlapping and covered objects – conceptual design and prototypical implementation based on a case study in the care sector Master Thesis 2022

Possible applications and capabilities of semantic data models in the early stages of the product development process using the example of the Robert Bosch GmbH Bachelor Thesis 2022

Development of a role model for designing IoT-ecosystems in a small and medium-sized enterprise environment Master Thesis 2022

Development of a role concept for the application of Robotic Process Automation in the insurance industry Master Thesis 2021

Maturity Levels for Machine Learning Competencies – An Exploration in small and medium Enterprises Master Thesis 2021

Information Requirements of Hydrogen Value Networks – Exploring Industrial Use Cases for Model Design Master Thesis 2021

Capability Mapping in the context of Enterprise Architecture Management – an exploration of the status quo in practice Bachelor Thesis 2021

Deep Learning-based classification of test images in manufacturing environments – development and evaluation of a solution concept Bachelor Thesis 2021

Digitalization of payment processes in trade fair industry - Effects of digitalization of payment methods on trade fair specific business processes and IT systems Master Thesis 2021

Quality Management in Additive Manufacturing - Requirements Elicitation for Information Systems to Ensure the Quality of Additively Manufactured Parts Bachelor Thesis 2021

Classifiers in direct marketing of banks - A case study at the Volksbank in der Ortenau eG Bachelor Thesis 2021

Information requirements analysis for self-service business intelligence & analytics systems – results of a single case study at global support STIHL Master Thesis 2021

Applying no-code artificial intelligence for the implementation of process improvements for medium-sized online retail enterprises Master Thesis 2021

Geometrical Deep Learning Applications in Sheet Metal Component Analysis - Development of a Criteria Catalogue on the case of the Optimate GmbH Master Thesis 2021

Business Potential of Machine Learning in the Assessment of Warranty and Goodwill Costs - Conceptual design and further development of departmental planning and forecasting processes based at the example of an automotive manufacturer Master Thesis 2021

Using artificial intelligence to analyse the photovoltaic potential of cities – a prototype-based exploration Master Thesis 2021

Analytical szenarios in a smart charging context – a qualtiative study with a prototypical implementation Master Thesis 2021

Information requirements analysis for analyzes in the context of the development of mechatronic systems – an indiviual case study at TRUMPF GmbH + Co.KG Master Thesis 2021

Conception of a model governance framework for advanced and predictive analytics – results of a qualitative study Master Thesis 2021

Robotic Process Automation for the automation of data quality management – a case study at the Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG Bachelor Thesis 2021

Development of a concept to identify maverick buying using a machine learning based approach – Results of a case study at the Robert Bosch GmbH Master Thesis 2020

Analytical applications in the context of interorganisational data-sharing in the domain of industrial manufacturing Master Thesis 2020

Classifiers in direct marketing of banks – a case study at the Volksbank in the Ortenau eG Bachelor Thesis 2020

Application of Machine Learning to detect Data Quality issues in the domain of Management Accounting Master Thesis 2020

Development of a governance concept for handling and analyzing poly-structured data in the banking industry Master Thesis 2020

Conception of a meta data management for integrated data lake/data warehouse systems Master Thesis 2020

Support of analysis-oriented business units by augmented analytics – a qualitative study Master Thesis 2020

Exploration of Requirements for a Reorganization of the Global Master Data Managementin Manufacturing and Sales at the Festo AG & Co. KG Master Thesis 2019

Data Virtualization in Business Intelligence Architectures Bachelor Thesis 2019

Business Potential and limitations of the application of natural language processing for the analysis of customer feedback – results from a case study at the Daimler AG Bachelor Thesis 2019

Deep Learning-oriented data architecture for visual inspection – a holistic solution for manufacturing environments Master Thesis 2019

 The business potential of supply chain spanning real-time track & trace solutions -  a case study at the TRUMPF GmbH & Co. KG Master Thesis 2019

Application of Natural Language processing and Text Mining methods for the analysis of customer feedback data - a case study at Daimler AG Bachelor Project 2019

Prototypical implementation of a Deep Learning System to classify test images in a manufacturing environment Bachelor Project 2019

Development of Enterprise Architectures using Archimate and the Open Group Architecture Framework Bachelor Thesis, 2019

Business potential of classification methods for an early warning system along the product development process Master Thesis, 2018

Application of methods from the area of analytics in mid-sized manufacturing companies -prerequisites, requirements, business potential Bachelor Thesis, 2018

Business lntelligence in the Supply Chain – Requirement analysis in automotove industry i n the context of supply chain management Bachelor Thesis, 2018

Quality Management in Additive Manufacturing – Identification of Requirements for the Additive Manufacturing Process to Ensure Component Quality Bachelor Thesis, 2018

Development of a concept for Data Mining in the field of Tracking and Tracing - Insights from an exploration of the Daimler AG supply chain Master Thesis , 2018

Data Governance in the Context of Big Data – Approaches, Chances and Models Bachelor Thesis, 2018

Use Cases for Data Virtualization in Business Intelligence and Analytics Bachelor Thesis, 2018

Data Virtualization for Business Intelligence And Analytics  – Decision Criteria for the Use of Data Virtualization Bachelor Thesis, 2018

Agile Cloud Business and Analytics platform in the supplier management of the automotive industry Master Thesis , 2018

Business potential and realization options for the enrichment of customer data with external, polystructured data for marketing analyses  – results of a case study at the Daimler TSS GmbH Master Thesis , 2018

Consequences of applying Serverless Cloud Computing on Microservice Architectures and Software Quality - a prototpyical implementation and evaluation Master Thesis , 2018

Specification of end-user-focused Advanced Analytics solutions  – Development of a process model based on a case study at Data & Analytics Mercedes-Benz Cars Master Thesis , 2018

Advanced Analytics for defect prediction in advanced manufacturing processes Master Thesis , 2018

Expert systems – status, trends, challenges Master Thesis , 2018

Control of cyber-physical Production Systems  – Semantic Modelling of a concept to support coordiantion of Multi Agent Systems based on Distributed Ledger Technology Master Thesis , 2018

IT based feedback of field data to product development – a qualitative study Master Thesis , 2017

Conception of a Cognitive Dialogue System  – An Online Customer Support Service in the Automotive Industry based on IBM Watson Technology Master Thesis , 2017

Business potential of classification methods for an early warning system along the product development process Master Thesis , 2017

Introducing Enterprise Architecture Management in small and medium sized businesses – Design and Evaltution of guidelines Bachelor Thesis, 2017

Simulation in the context of Industrie 4.0  – Realisation of non-deterministric characteristics of cyberphysical systems in simulation models and tools Bachelor Thesis, 2017

Data quality in the fault elimination process  – An analysis at Mercedes-Benz Cars Master Thesis , 2017

Data Exchange along the product development process  – Potentials of AutomationML to control cyber-physical systems Master Thesis , 2017

Smart Products and Business Models – An Exploratory Maturity Level Analysis of Smart Products as a Foundation for Business Models within the Internet of Things Master Thesis , 2017

Optical Algorithms for Additive Manufacturing – Development of a Software Architecture to Support Quality Assurance of Additive Manufactured Components Bachelor Thesis, 2017

Data Mining in the context of Predictive Maintenance – Developing a concept based on an industrial use case Master Thesis, 2017

ldentification of Digital Value Drivers for Designing New Business Models – An Exploration of lnternet-of-Things-based Application Scenarios Master Thesis, 2017

Augmented Reality in the context of Smart Factory – Identification of Augmented Reality-based approaches for manufacturing enterprises Bachelor Thesis, 2017

Business Capabilities for digitalization and integration – An empiric inquiry concerning small and medium-sized companies of the industrial sector Master Thesis, 2017

Industrie 4.0 – Developing a competence-based approach to overcome challenges Master Thesis, 2017

Augmented Reality within Smart Factory Approaches Bachelor final project, 2017

Optical Algorithms for Quality Assurance in Additive Manufacturing Bachelor final project, 2017

Application of Advanced Analytics Methods for the All-time Prediction of Slow-moving Spare Parts - Development and Evaluation of a Model for the Automotive Industry Master Thesis, 2017

Agile analysis-oriented data management in big-data environments – A qualitative study on applications, business potential, and solution concepts Master Thesis, 2017

Department-spanning analyses in industry 4.0 scenarios for business model innovations in automotive manufacturing  – A case study at Volkswagen Master Thesis, 2017

The role of model-based analysis systems for for analysis-systems for applicant management. Development and test of an evaluation concept Bachelor Thesis, 2017

The role of expert systems in the context of Business Intelligence and Analytics Bachelor final project, 2017

Potential applications of blockchain technology for business data management Bachelor final project, 2017

Root cause analyses in additive manufacturing processes  – development of a prototype Bachelor final project, 2017

Application of methods from the area of analytics in mid-sized manufacturing companies  – prerequisites, requirements, business potential Bachelor final project, 2017

Data Virtualization in the context of the Internet of Things – A comparison of software tools Bachelor final project, 2017

Cloud-based Business Intelligence and Analytics solutions in the context of Industry 4.0: An exploration of potential applications in the manufacturing industry Master Thesis, 2017

Alternatives for Data Mining in der Cloud  – Development and test of a concept for the selection and evaluation Bachelor Thesis,2017

Design of a Small Factory Unit for a customized production in the context of Industrie 4.0 – an exploration Master Thesis, 2017

The Internet of things in various application domains  –   A comparing literature survey Diploma Thesis, 2016

Impact of sensors on data and information quality – An exploration Bachelor Thesis,2016

Conception of a planning and control system for the calculation of Kanban loops at the Robert Bosch GmbH Master Thesis, 2016

Implications of IoT Products on industrial enterprises – An empirical study Master Thesis, 2016

Design of an IT-based concept to support the flow of goods in the receiving department of medium-sized companies using Gaugler & Lutz OHG as an example Master Thesis, 2016

Portfolio-based selection of Industrie 4.0 projects in single piece production – A case study with Käfer Werkzeugbau GmbH Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Design of a concept for ETL-processes to analyze machine data – A case study with Gaugler & Lutz OHG Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Development of an IT-based concept for supporting the technical customer service of a machine tool manufacturer – Examplary shown at TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG Master Thesis, 2016

Connected products: Exploration of potentials and challenges towards digital twins Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Investigation on requirements and effects of Customer Co-Creation to customize industrial products in the context of Industry 4.0 Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Data analysis systems for quality management in the automotive sector – Development of a concept using the example of Daimler AG Bachelor Thesis, 2016

An Exploration of the IT-Architecture in Additive Manufacturing Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Applications of neural networks for business analytics  – Results of a protypical validation Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Integration of smart sensors into a Cloud-based analysis environments  – Conclusions from a prototypical exploration Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Requirements for the application of a lambda architecture for the analysis of streaming data Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Hybrid Cloud-based analytics and reporting platforms for a benchmarking solution: A case study at the Horváth & Partners GmbH Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Cloud based analysis of smart sensor data for Internet of Things applications  – A prototypical evaluation Bachelor final project, 2016

Business Intelligence strategies in the context of Industry 4.0. Conclusions from a case study at the Robert Bosch GmbH Bachelor Thesis, 2016

Neural Networks for the identification of opportunities and challenges in business indicator data Bachelor final project, 2016

New business models for industry 4.0-approaches across enterprise borders – devel-opment of a concept for differentiation, analysis, and evaluation Diploma Thesis, 2016

The Internet of Things in several application areask – A comparing literature survey Diploma Thesis, 2016

The Internet of Things in different application domains – A comparative literature review Bachelor final project, 2016

Data Warehouse and Big Data platforms for an analysis-oriented data management – Development of a scenario- and criteria-based evaluation concept Master Thesis, 2016

Tools for Data Scientists / Data Analysts Diploma Thesis, 2016

Conception of an Enterprise Architecture Management Framework for IT  – And Management Consulting within the automotive sector Master Thesis, 2015

IT-supported value creation in the context of Industry 4.0 – Conclusions of a scenario analysis based on expert interviews Master Thesis, 2015

Sectoral and Structural Analysis of Additive Manufacturing Service Providers Bachelor Thesis, 2015

Exploration of possibilities to optimize business processes using web analytics on product-related websites in the B2C market Bachelor Thesis, 2015

Tool support for the analysis of project portfolios – concept development and prototypical implementation Bachelor Thesis, 2015

Visual Analytics – Approaches, Tools, business-oriented application scenarios Bachelor Thesis, 2015

Development of a business intelligence based concept for the supply of information to improve the decision support in the fault elimination process  – with respect to quality relevant needs for action Master Thesis, 2015

Concept development for documenting IT-Requirements and – Specifications in cooperation of automobile manufacturers - exemplary shown on a cooperation of Daimler AG Master Thesis, 2015

Development and Prototyping of an EV-Fleet Management Support Concept, illustrated at the example of the Frauenhofer IAO Master Thesis, 2015

Sales forecast with structured and unstructured data Bachelor final project, 2015

Development and evaluation of an IT-based concept for supporting order processing – An experimental analysis based on a simulation game Bachelor Thesis, 2015

Development of a concept to support EAM benchmarking Master Thesis, 2015

Development of a conception for the automated distribution of production orders in discrete parts manufacturing Master Thesis, 2015

Enterprise Architecture Management in SME – Relevant components and their realisation - an empirical study Bachelor Thesis, 2015

Status of ICT in the context of Industry 4.0 – An empirical study Bachelor Thesis (finished) Mayer, M. 2014 Establishing a requirements specification for an IT based system to support the auditor qualification and approval process - illustrated at the case of DEKRA Certification Group Bachelor final project, 2014

Collection, analysis, and distribution of smart meter data in Germany – A qualitative study Diploma Thesis, 2014

Conception and evaluation of an architecture for identity and rights government in fragmented supply chains  – represented using the exaple of motor industry Master Thesis, 2013

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Bachelor Theses

The central concept behind the thesis is choosing a specific and practical problem and solving it with the knowledge the student has acquired during their studies.

Theses that have reached grades 90% or higher will be published here in regular intervals. By special requests of some students, their theses will be withheld for a certain time period (5 years max.) and will be published after that. 

Understanding Consumer Behavior of Purchase Intention on OTT Streaming Services Against Digital Piracy - Claudia Mak ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Veganism on Destination Choice - Anna Schuhmann ( abstract ) ( full text )

Climate Change Impact on the US Real Estate Market; with Particular Examination of the Sea Level Rise - Christian Kadletz ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of Music Festivals on Young Adult’s Mental Well-Being - Alexia Wilmink ( abstract ) ( full text )

Influence of Meat Alternatives Usages on Customer Hotel Choice - Haram Kim ( abstract ) ( full text )

Food Waste in the Hospitality Industry: How food waste mitigation affects customer’s intention to visit - Cheuk Hay Harry Chan ( abstract ) ( full text )

How Should a Metaverse be Designed to Attract Consumers Going for a Virtual Vacation? - Tianhao Xu ( abstract ) ( full text )

Website Service Quality Investigation of a Medium Sized Tour Operator in the case of Senior Travelers - Julia Moser ( abstract ) ( full text )

Emotionally-Induced Digital Music Streaming Behaviors: A Look into the Emotional Drivers of Consumer Decision-Making in Song Selection - Ian Brandenburg ( abstract ) ( full text )

TikTok and Virality: Exploring emotional triggers through trending content as a branding marketing tool - Nina Gogl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Dark Tourism: Understanding the Attraction to Death A Case Study on the Paris Catacombs - Leo Weis ( abstract ) ( full text )

Comparison Between the Marketing Strategies of Luxury Fashion and Luxury Hospitality Industry in Hong Kong - Leung Ka Seem, Vanessa ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of COVID-19 on Travelers’ Destination Choice in Austria - Sabrina Kind ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Theory of Organizational Socialization and its Effect on Voluntary Employee Turnover: A critical incidents approach - Franziska Reichl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Influences of Night Shifts on Employee’s Mental Health in Hospitality - Abeer Juma ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Identification of Key ‘Green Industry’ Standards to Formulate a Catalogue for the International Hotel Industry - Fabian Flohr ( abstract ) ( full text )

Shaping the Guest Experience: How Personalized Services Improve Customer Satisfaction in Luxury Hotels and Create a Competitive Advantage - Carlotta Böhme ( abstract ) ( full text )

Employer Branding as a Tool to Facilitate Employee Retention - Richard Kummrov ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Country-of-Origin Effect in Airline Branding and its Impact on Booking Intentions - Julien David Behringer ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Role of Immerse Technology in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry - Donika Viqa ( abstract ) ( full text )

Sustainable Practices of Viennese City-centre and Outskirts Hotels - Beatrice Martinolli D’Arcy ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Influencer Marketing on Destination Choice - Florence Scholtes ( abstract ) ( full text )

How Can Business Process Automation Prepare Hotels to Increase Productivity in A Growing Digital World? - Felix Ferdinand Fuhrken ( abstract ) ( full text )

Observing the Significance of Digital Transformations in Post-Pandemic Hospitality - Samuel Theodore Humphrey Daniels ( abstract ) ( full text )

Tripadvisor's Influence on Customers' Booking Intentions in 5 Star Hotels - Alina Katharina Wehner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Perceived Sustainability on Blockchain Adoption in the Hospitality Industry - Margarita Drozdova ( abstract ) ( full text )

Investigating the Drivers of Hotel Preferences Toward Minimalist Hotels - Sau Ching Chung ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of Organizational Structures on Talent Development And Retention - Kay Gustav Dieckmann ( abstract ) ( full text )

How Different Aspects of Social Media Review Influence Staycation in Hong Kong - Luk Hei Yu, Rachel ( abstract ) ( full text )

Redifining the Idea of Luxory in the Hospitality Industry - Nora Grattoni ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Change of Customer Behavior and its Impact on Hotel Sustainability Management - Boya Zhang ( abstract ) ( full text )

Social Media Marketing and Gastronomic Tourism: the case of luxury restaurants in Italy - Giovanni Chizzolini ( abstract ) ( full text )

Assessing the Optimal Implementation of Artificial Intelligence Within the Hotel Industry for Generation Y - Jennifer Flöck ( abstract ) ( full text )

An Ecological-Economic Analysis of Allotment Gardens in Vienna from a Degrowth Perspective - Marie Greiner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Challenges and Benefits of Implementing Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in the Hotel Industry - Anna Elisabeth Thelen ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Different Leadership Styles on Employees’ Motivation and Workplace Satisfaction in the Financial Sector - Melanie Lechner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The influence of sustainable event management practices on consumers’ word-of-mouth and visit intention in the music event industry - Rada Assenova Kopreva ( abstract ) ( full text )

Are Attractions the Main Influencing Factor for Motivating Tourists to Travel to Dubai? - Donny de Wijs ( abstract ) ( full text )

Motivations and Intentions for Engaging in Dark Tourism - Isabel Jarl ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Role of Different Brand Collaborations on Influencers’ Trustworthiness in the Tourism Industry - Nina Rössler ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Gender Diversity in Leadership Positions in Asian Countries - Yan Wing Ng ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Long-Term Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Aviation Industry - Melánia Hudáková ( abstract ) ( full text )

Travel for Physical and Mental Health Improvement: Discovering the new concept of prescriptive health tourism - Nina Müller ( abstract ) ( full text )

Generational Differences in Using Social Media for Destination Choice - Lara Schischlik ( abstract ) ( full text )

Business Process Redesign in the Context of Quality Improvement Practices: Process modeling for the future state of a business process in the F&B department of a five-star hotel in Vienna - Soroush Golchini ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Shift in Significance of Hotel Choice and Satisfaction Attributes during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Respect of Changes made in the Hotel Industry  - Andre Schimanov ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Contribution of Influencers to Hotel Consumers' Decision-Making - Ka Wai Cartier Mok ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Role of Artificial Influencers in Tourism Marketing - Lara Schaffler ( abstract ) ( full text )

Social Media as a Promotional Strategy for Boutique Hotels - Felix Sung Chiu Ngui ( abstract ) ( full text )

How Movies influence the Destination Choice of Travellers - Sandra Smoliner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Role of Travelling for Well-Being in Life Satisfaction - Darina Pashkovska ( abstract ) ( full text )

Identification of Motivation Strategies in Order to reduce Turnover in the Hospitality Industry - Markus Andre ( abstract ) ( full text )

Visiting Death and Life: tourists' motivation for engaging in dark tourism - Kathrin Gauß ( abstract ) ( full text )

Understanding the Impact of the #MeToo Movement on Leadership and Corporate Culture, with Regards to Female Inclusion and Value of Voices - Sara Praeceptor ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Perceived Talent Management Practice on Turnover Intention of Hotel Employee s - Tsz Ki Yau ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Main Drivers of Employee Retention: the case of Viennese luxury hotels - Jennifer Yanyu Hu ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Abolition of the Roaming Charges and its Effects on Tourist's Experience - Nadine Feigl ( abstract ) ( full text )

How popular culture influences Asia tourism trends within 10 years (especially in China and Korea)? - Wing Lam Venus Chow ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Role of Venture Capital in the Travel and Tourism Industry - Jan Alexander Jedlinski ( full text )

Motivational Differences among Millennial Participants and Non-Participants of Guided Coach Tours - Raphaela Böck ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of the “Salzburg Festival” on Salzburg’s Tourism Based on the Three Pillars of Sustainability - Francesca Baratta-Dragono ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Phenomenon of Dental Tourism: The Case Study of Hungary - Anna Margit Gergely ( abstract ) ( full text )

Environmental and socio-cultural impacts of small-scale open-air festivals - Anthi Koumoutsea ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of the Film Industry on Tourism - Andrea Zurdo Vara ( abstract ) ( full text )

Host Perceptions of Sociocultural Impacts of Tourism. The case of London, UK - Nina Jankovic ( full text )

Residents' Perspective on Overtourism in Vienna - Lara Maria Schmuck ( full text )

The Influence of Irregular Shifts on Stress Levels and the Human Psyche - Theresa Messerer ( full text )

Strategies to Cope with Climate Change in the Alpine Tourism Industry: The case of Zell am See-Kaprun - Lisa Unterganschnigg ( abstract ) ( full text )

Drivers of World War II Tourism: What motivations and factors attract tourists to WW2 sites - Karl Friedrich Thaler ( full text )

A Comparison Between Different Destination Image Measurement Constructs - Aboud Shahad ( abstract ) ( full text )

Eco-tourism for Youths in Austria - Katharina Strand ( full text )

Finding Women's Happiness in Hospitality: case study on how women feel at the beginning of their careers - Ruxandra Mihaela Baba ( full text )

Fighting Turnover: What do Viennese 5* hotels have to say about this? - Mengyuan Geng ( abstract ) ( full text )

To what extent do cultural differences diversify Tourism & Travel behavior and motivations? - Yannicka Thomas ( abstract ) ( full text )

Psychological Influences of Organizational Culture on Young Employees at Upscale Hotels - Kathatina Rakic ( abstract ) ( full text )

Impacts of Mass Tourism and Communication on the Image of a Destination: The Case of Barcelona - Paulin Heinrich ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impacts of Terrorism on Tourism in the EU - Alexander Meindl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Chatbots as an Approach for a Faster Enquiry Handling Process in the Service Industry - Alina Weissensteiner ( abstract ) ( full text )

Understanding the Influence of Movie Production on DMO Strategies: the Case of "Game of Thrones" series in European Destinations - Johanna Schlenk ( abstract ) ( full text )

Development of Eco-Tourism in Third World Countries - Anastasiia Zraichikova ( full text )

Hotel Review Platform Comparison: A case study of the 25hours Hotel at MuseumsQuartier in Vienna - Sophie Paiker ( abstract ) ( full text )

Key Value Drivers for Sustainable Restaurant Business Models  – Robert Suga ( abstract ) ( full text )

Evaluation of Personnel’s Brand Involvement in a Private University Setting: The case of MODUL University Vienna – Katharina Reichmann ( abstract ) ( full text )

`Greenwashing`: deceptive Business Claims of Ecological-Friendly Marketing Strategies of Different Airlines in the Star Alliance Group – Hannah Kermer ( abstract ) ( full text )

Generation Y travelers' Hotel Consideration: The impact of travel mode and reference room price – Louisa von Oertzen ( abstract ) ( full text )

Employed Technological Trends for Enhancing the Tourist Experience in Vienna: A benchmark approach - Isabella Postl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Vienna Calling, Vienna Controlling: Crowd Management Dealing with Visitor Growth – Yasmin Taga ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Motivations of Airbnb Hosts and the Effects on their Lives - Ludmila Tibulschi ( abstract ) ( full text )

Comparison of Forecasting Methods for Stock Prices of Consumer Electronics Market - Selin Üzelgecici ( abstract ) ( full text )

Analyzing the Potential for Developing Luxury Tourism in Bulgaria - Katrin Malcheva ( abstract ) ( full text )

An Exploratory Analysis of the Barriers to Implementation of the Revenue Management in Upscale Hotel Restaurants in Vienna - Iryna Andrukh ( full text )

Training and Security in the Aviation Industry - Ines Prinz ( full text )

The Contribution of Instagram to the Popularity and Promotion of Music Artists - Anna Lashmanova ( abstract ) ( full text )

Consumers’ Perception of Greenwashing in the Food Industry - Anna Maria Erhardt ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Development of Sustainable Construction in the European Union: Exploring Benefits and Challenges - Gregor Aichbichler ( abstract ) ( full text )

Workplace Motivators in Millennials and Generation Z: An Austrian and South African Perspective - Linda Vallant ( abstract ) ( full text )

An Investigation into Email Marketing Success: What Drives Recipient Engagement? - Raghda Albattal ( abstract ) ( full text )

Factors that Impact European Tourists’ Choices on Mode of Transportation - Kristi Miha ( abstract ) ( full text )

Implications of Hyperinflation on Economic Activities: The example of the Former Yugoslavia - Nevena Panić ( abstract ) ( full text )

End Consumers’ Perceptions of Blockchain-Enabled Traceability Systems in the Food Industry - Nikol Xheli ( abstract ) ( full text )

Exploring Innovative Financing Strategies for Illicit Flows: A Study of Current Trends and Implications - Younis Allosh ( abstract ) ( full te xt )

The Integration of Contemporary African Art into Western Auction Houses - Lena Frank ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Growing Relevance of Social Media Marketing and Augmented Reality in the Premium Residential Real Estate Market - Clara Sophie Pabinger ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Development of the Viennese Wirtshaus through the Commercialization of Veganism - Nikola Konstantin Stupar ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Contribution of New Technologies in Increasing Persuasion of Social Media Marketing - Jiafen Zhan ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Emergence of Alternative Workspaces in Redefining the Future of Work: A Qualitative Study - Angelika Leiler ( abstract ) ( full text )

Connection of Innovative Strategies and Technologies with the Interests of Different Stakeholders: A Case Study of Ukrainian Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Main Sectors - Roksolana Hrodzitska ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Implications of Universal Basic Income for Higher Education in Austria - Sandro E. Mangold ( abstract ) ( full text )

Social Media and its effects on adolescents’ mental health - Neza Susnik ( abstract ) ( full text )

Agile Project Management Methods and Techniques and their Influence on Start-ups - Viktor Georgiev ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Music on Athletes’ Motivation - Petra Dragičević ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Contribution of Instagram to Increasing Customer Engagement of Austrian-based Food and Beverage Startups - Victoria Klein ( abstract ) ( full text )

Effects of Influencer Marketing in the Cryptocurrency Sector - Matteo Bertoletti ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Development of Employer Branding in the hotel industry through new media - Lea Weichselbaumer ( abstract ) ( full text )

Netflix's Machine Learning: The correlation between film selection based on tailored thumbnails and genre preference - Emily Viola Brunner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture on CSR - Ariana Vorobeva ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Non-Fungible Tokens on Collectors and Artists - Paul Laurenz Kapl ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 on the Manufacturing Industry in Vietnam - Carl Becker ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Role of Intermediaries in the Energy Transition Process of Companies in Vienna. The Example of klimaaktiv  - Klara Losert ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Effects of Customer Feedback on the Intrinsic Motivation of Employees within the Restaurant Industry - Tristan Ganahl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Co-Branding between Luxury and Mass Brands: its influence on consumers’ purchase intention - Eszter Schmidt ( abstract ) ( full text )

Examining the Factors that affect Housing Affordability in London - Beatrice Maier ( abstract ) ( full text )

Industrial Policy Options for a Post-Pandemic Global Economy - Anastasiia Solomakha ( abstract ) ( full text )

Passenger Intentions Toward the Use of Self-Service Technologies in the Air Transport Industry - Noel Demko ( abstract ) ( full text )

Examining Ethiopia’s Socioeconomic Development since 2010: An Examination of Development Strategies - Charlotte Haskamp ( abstract ) ( full text )

Examining the Consequences of Social Media Use on People’s Wellbeing - Szabolcs Olah ( abstract ) ( full text )

Data Analysis and Prediction with Medical Data and the Resulting Opportunities for Companies in the Medical Industry On the basis of an example analysis - Paul Zeileis ( abstract ) ( full text )

Exploring Innovative Financing Strategies for Illicit Flows: A Study of Current Trends and Implications - Younis Allosh ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Micro Influencer Marketing on Brand Image - Charlize Diehl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Consumers' Responses to Various Corporate Strategies aiming to cope with Ethical Failures in Companies - Lucia Klepetková ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Contribution of Generational Diversity to Employee’s Work Satisfaction - Stefanie Repnik ( abstract ) ( full text )

Gender Barrier: A Qualitative Approach to Gender Issues Present in Social and Work Environments - Seyed Amirhesam Pishnamazi ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Influencer Marketing on Brand Image and Brand’s Trustworthiness in the Fashion Industry - Valeriya Savyak ( abstract ) ( full text )

Can Digital Currencies Serve as an Everyday Means of Payment in Commerce? - Alexander Pink ( abstract ) ( full text )

Evolution of Cryptocurrency: Changes in the Use and Consumers’ Demands for Digital Transactions - Sahil Raza ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Covid-19 on Sponsor Agreements in Football in the Balkan Region - Milos Milojevic ( abstract ) ( full text )

Factors Influencing GenZ´s Intention to Purchase an Electric Vehicle - Fabio L. Santana Stork ( abstract ) ( full text )

Differences In Expectations And Demands on Leadership Between Students And Full-Time Employees - Moritz Schweitzer ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Relevance of Destination Placements in Movies for Tourism in Slovenia - Sara Siftar ( abstract ) ( full text )

To What Extent Do Health And Environmental Attitudes Influence The Purchase Behaviour Of Organic Food - Maximilian Knauer ( abstract ) ( full text )

What is the Role of Customer Centricity in Traditional Banks? - Ivan Ananiev ( abstract ) ( full text )

Different Leadership Styles and Their Impact on Generation Z's Employee Motivation - Katarina Nikolic ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Use Of Foreign Language On Product Packaging - Chih-Chi Luo ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on Investment Choices in the Art Market - Laurids Walkensteiner ( abstract ) ( full text )

How the Floor Plan Layout of a Casino can Improve Customer Relations and Revenue for the Central and Eastern European Market - Nico Weissengruber ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Hotel Supply Chains in Vienna - Lukas Kriegler ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Contribution of Transformational Leadership in Developing Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity of Employees - Eleonore Rupprecht ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Financial Effects of Sustainable Strategies in the Austrian Construction Industry - Felix Rametsteiner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Development of Augmented Reality in the Retail Sector during the Covid-19 Pandemic - Milena Deenichina ( abstract ) ( full text )

Drivers of Investment Intention in Cryptocurrencies: Before and during COVID-19 - Mona Rotim ( abstract ) ( full text )

Factors Contributing to Brand Alliances Success - Gabriela Damyanova ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of Health and Taste Claims in Consumer Perception of Food Products and Purchasing Intentions - Lauren Kelly ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Product Placements on Brand Attitude - Katharina Vilimsky ( abstract ) ( full text )

To What Extent do Health and Environmental Attitudes Influence the Purchase Behaviour of Organic Food - Maximilian Knauer ( abstract ) ( full text )

Gen Z’s Capacity for Leadership - William Burelli ( abstract ) ( full text )

Factors That Contribute to E-Loyalty in an Online Furniture Retailing Business - Nikolaus Huainigg ( abstract ) ( full text )

Which Budgets are Needed to Successfully Compete in the First and Second Professional Football Level in Austria? Is it Realistic for First Vienna FC to Play at the Second or First Level in Austria ? - Floris van Zaanen ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Underrepresentation of Women in Austrian Leadership Positions - Viktoria Julia Heinzl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Hotel Clustering & Sustainability: A Comparative Case Study of European Eco-certified Clustered and Unclustered Hotels - Eleonora Peruzzi ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Blockchain Technology on Hotel Booking Systems - Michael Katschnig ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of Entrepreneurial Innovation on the Economic Development of Bulgaria - Daniela Ilieva ( abstract ) ( full text )

TripAdvisor reviews vs. Instagram posts: influence on consumer restaurant choice from Viennese perception -   Isidora Radujkovic ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Integration of the Republic of Albania in the European Union Economy: the case of the banking system of Albania - Ardita Bendo ( abstract ) ( full text )

Online VS. Offline shopping, impact of Covid-19 on the digitalization process in Austria - Maximilian Matz ( abstract ) ( full text )

Vertically Integrated Companies in Luxembourg: A case study on the organic grocery market - Rick Walentiny ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of Emotional Customer Reviews on Perceived Usefulness, Credibility, and Booking Intention - Violetta Mucha ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Viennese Luxury Hotel Industry - Maximilian Strobl ( abstract ) ( full text )

Long-Term Effect of COVID-19 Outbreak on Consumer Behavior and Online Retail in the United Kingdom - Fedor Volchkov ( abstract ) ( full text )

Factors Consumers Consider When Purchasing Eyeglasses - Julian Tallier ( abstract ) ( full tex t )

Profiling Some Central and Eastern European Craft Beer Breweries through their Branding Strategies - Albert Andras ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Effects of Artificial Intelligence in the Future Economy - In Hong Kim ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Customers´ Purchasing Intention in the Cosmetics Industry - Laura Höfer ( abstract ) ( full text )

Traditional VS. Virtual Banks in Ukraine: is there a pendulum swing happening impart due to COVID-19 - Maxim Zemtsov ( abstract ) ( full text )

A Research Study of how Equal Employment Opportunities are Practiced in Azerbaijan: A comparison look at local and international companies - Rashid Sadikhov ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Success Factors in Social Media Marketing in Start-Ups and Small and Medium Enterprises - Eva Johanna Vipavc ( abstract ) ( full text )

COVID-19 Country Comparison - The economic impact of the crisis management in Austria and Sweden - Roxelane Schön ( abstract ) ( full text )

The effects of the Covid-19 crisis on climate change mitigation and adaptation measures: The case study of Tyrolian holiday hotels - Julia Pulai ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Applicability of Austrian Support Measures during the COVID-19 crisis for Viennese Cafés - Linda Korak ( abstract ) ( full text )

Economic development in Slovakia during five cabinet ministers from 1998 until the present and its influence on SMEs - Soňa Cecília Hrivňáková ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Effect of Virtual Showrooms on The Watch Purchasing Process - Michaela Riedl & Kolja Heimberger ( abstract ) ( full text )

A Comparison of Consumers’ Perceptions of Sustainable Supply Chains Between the Luxury and the Fast Fashion Industry - Laura Ivaci ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of Eco-Labels and their Diagnosticity on Credibility Perceptions, Consumer Trust and Visit Intentions in the Fashion Industry - Bertram Ponocny ( abstract ) ( full text )

A comparison between businesses and the general public when it comes to tax evasion and government fiscal policies. The case study of Albania  - Lorena Agalliu ( abstract ) ( full text )

Changing Cryptocurrency Perceptions: An Experimental Study - Evgenii Gorbunov ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Phenomenon of Consumer’s Showrooming behavior and what drives it  - Karapet Baghdasaryan ( full text )

The Role Of CSR with relation to Global Warming and its effects on Consumer Purchasing Behaviour in the fashion industry - Craig Leslie Pereira ( full text )

The Influence of Tradition on Consumer Behavior - Milica Jojic ( abstract ) ( full text )

Economic Development vs Debt Trap: Is China's involvement in East Africa's economy a front to take over the region for strategic purposes? A case study of Tanzania - Hamed Al Habsi ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Future Outlook regarding the Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Consumers' Food Purchase Behavior: A Case Study of Satu Mare, Romania - Marck Serban Pereni ( abstract ) ( full text )

Examining the Potential Benefits of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan on the Socioeconomic Systems of the Republic of Bulgaria - Sofia Rossen Jeliazkova ( abstract ) ( full text )

Successful Team Management in the Means of Increasing Team Performance and the Work Environment - Luis Eßmann ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Sustainability on SMEs and Company Valuation Methods to Measure Sustainable Development in SMEs - Paulina Rath ( abstract ) ( full text )

Social Perceptions of Women Executives at Work - Keisi Koni ( abstract ) ( full text )

What are Challenges Women face in the Workplace, especially in the Law Industry in France? - Chloé Staufer-Wierl ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Influence of the Role of Social Media on Generation Z's Choice to visit "Instagrammable Destinations" - Sebastian Janke ( abstract ) ( full text )

In what Way do Instagram Influencers impact the Promotion of Music Festivals among Millennials? - Josephine Nittel ( abstract ) ( full text )

What Start-Up Persona leads to Venture Capital Investment and why? - Denis Morozov ( full text )

The Role of Trust in Influencer Marketing when promoting two competing Brands - Anna Lechner ( abstract ) ( full text )

The NIS Law - a milestone for security standards - Larissa Reichl ( full text )

The Short Term and Medium Term Implications of the Brexit on the British Economy and its Industries - Isabelle Christin Sorf ( full text )

An Assessment of Trust in Blockchains and Bitcoin in Financial Applications - Hannah Nicole Griesmayr ( full text ) 

Investigating the Motivation of visiting a Dark Tourism Site - Ling Fung Hung ( abstract ) ( full text )

Can Fashion Retailers operate in a more socially and environmentally responsible Way, and which are the feasable approaches? - Mak Ho Sze ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Effects of Film-induced Tourism on the city of Dubrovnik from the Residents' Perception - Marlon Anthony Don Schmidt ( full text )

How does Economic Development affect Quality of Life in China and Taiwan in the past 40 Years - Pin Fei Huang ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Potential in Blockchain in Improving SME's Performance in Times of Crisis: the case of Slovenia - Zan Span ( abstract ) ( full text )

Impact of employee CSF in job satisfaction among developed and developing countries. A case study of Austria and Morocco - Karanfila Popovic ( abstract ) ( full text )

Exploring the Most Mentioned Factors of Why eSports has Grown so much in the Years of 2015 till 2020 - Lorenz Hirsch ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Effect of the European Corporate Green Bonds on Environmental Pollution - Gregor Potisk ( abstract ) ( full text )

Managing Intercultural Teams - Kristina Chaplik ( abstract ) ( full text )

Risk and Return of different Hedge Fund Strategies during the Financial Crisis 2008 - Jakob Kronawetter ( abstract ) ( full text )

The impact of blockchain technology on the music industry from the artists' perspective - Maximilian Kumptner ( abstract ) (full text)

Investment in Human Capital, in regard to the Direct Physical Work Environment, and its Effect on Productivity - Tara Shirepazazari ( abstract ) ( full text )

E-Invoicing in The Austrian Retail Sector: How to Increase Consumer Willingness to Adopt the New Technology - Daniel Mittheis ( full text )

Online versus offline grocery shopping: a segmentation approach - Richard Hinkelmann ( abstract ) ( full text )

Words decide what we eat - How sensory descriptive attributes on restaurant menus influence our food choice - Leonie Rocek ( abstract ) ( full text )

How employee satisfaction influences the attitudes towards innovation between Thailand and Austria - Patrizia Spiess ( abstract ) ( full text )

Outlier Detection, Explanation and Prediction: The influence of events on TV ratings - Sarah Fuchs ( abstract ) ( full text )

LGBTQ+ In Your Area - Dominique Dietz ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Generational Diversity on Organizational Culture within the Hotel Industry - Katharina Simic ( abstract ) ( full text )

How do Companies Benefit from Sponsoring an Event - Ariane Haager ( abstract ) ( full text )

An Assessment of Trust in Blockchain-based Assets and Technologies - Grigory Shkrbich ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Impact of Influencer Marketing in the Fitness Industry on Consumer's Trust - Rebecca Baranow ( abstract ) ( full text )

Responsible Gambling and the Communication to Customers through Casino Websites - Alexander Ullmann ( abstract ) ( full text )

The Performance of Impact Investing – a market comparison - Maximilian Schmerold ( abstract ) ( full text )

Trade Liberalization, The 2008 Food Price Crisis and The Philippines and Bangladesh's Efforts in Improving Food Security - Usman Abubakar ( abstract ) ( full text )

Internal Communication and Leadership: the effects on teams’ performances - Marcel Fassl ( abstract ) ( full text )

What makes a great Leader in the Hospitality Industry: the role of gender - Lucia Harbuláková ( abstract ) ( full text )

Service Quality in the Albanian Banking Sector - Aldi Ruli ( full text )

Gender Gap: Female Leader’s Perceptions in the Case of Austria - Katrin Schula ( abstract ) ( full text )

Implicit Patterns of Thoughts in Management in the Theoretic Methodic Field of Cognitive Framing - a cognitive discourse analysis of in-depth interviews - Martina Gragger ( abstract ) ( full text )

A Consumer Perspective on Shared Mobility Concepts: the case of GoUrban Vienna - Felix Painsi ( abstract ) ( full text )

Impact of Digitization and Web Technologies on Supply Chain Integration in Aviation MRO - Ivana Ivosevic ( full text )

Apple's iPhones in the Customer's Eyes: which features are the most important and what will the future bring? - Orsolya Schmidt ( abstract ) ( full text )

Marketing Tactics used by Early Stage Startups, an analysis of the Viennese startup scene  - Catharina Chalupa ( abstract ) ( full text )

Consumer Behavior of Female Millennials in the Case of Louis Vuitton: implications for Luxory Brand Management Practices  - Kristina Artner ( abstract ) ( full text )

Car Sharing as a new Dimension of Transportation among Millennials - Istvan Tamas Bito ( abstract ) ( full text )

Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis using Rapidminer - Parishek Singh Chauhan ( abstract ) ( full text )

Customer Relationship Management: analyzing differences of complaint management processes and procedures within the hotel environment: an investigation of differences between hotelgroups, individually/privately/family-owned hotels and non-classified lifestyle hotels within the luxury industry - Victoria Finger ( abstract ) ( full text )

Organizational Culture: A Link to High Performance – Nina Kollárová ( abstract ) ( full text )

How Does Search Advertisement Position Influence Readers' Awareness, Consideration and Willingness to Pay? – Fabian Kostrhon ( abstract ) ( full text )

Perception of the Service in Airlines: a comparison of Generation X and Generation Y – Diana Palnychenko ( abstract ) ( full text )

Human Resource Management in the Music Industry: Chances and Risks of New Platforms such as “SynchronStage” - Andreas Karall ( full text )

Pet Care Industry: Business Overview and Opportunities - Serena Ng ( abstract ) ( full text )

Identifying Product Values in the Corporate Sphere and Instilling these Values in Employees - Hubertus Kiesling ( abstract ) ( full text )

To What Extent Does Your Job Influence Your Overall Happiness? - Annika Lange ( abstract ) ( full text )

Change in Cultural Behaviour within the European Union, due to Impact of terroristic Activities and the Syrian refugee crisis, Case Study: “Brexit” - Markus Neubrand ( full text )

The role of Social Media in the Tourism Industry in Austria (How does Austria implement the social media to attract tourists?) - Liana Sabanaeva ( abstract ) ( full text )

Positive economic impact of a Free Trade Zone in the Dominican Republic - Thomas Wagner ( abstract ) ( full text )

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Bachelor’s & master’s theses & dissertations

Collection and publication of completed projects and academic papers dealing with family business-related issues*; Creation of a platform for assigning Bachelor’s thesis, Master’s thesis and dissertation topics.

Succession (selection)

• Master Thesis | Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in the Media Industry: Methods and Influencing Factors | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | From Failure to Thrive: How does the ability to recover from failure affect the next generation of potential entrepreneurs? | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis| Family Internal Versus Family External Succession – A Comparison | PDF | IMG
• Bachelor Thesis | Emotions in Family Business Succession | PDF | IMG
• Bachelor Thesis | Family Firm Succession: What Kind of Knowledge Does the Successor Need and How can He/She Facilitate the Transfer of it? | PDF | IMG

Entrepreneurship, Strategy & Marketing (selection)

• Dissertation | The Relevance of Entrepreneurial Orientation for Family Business Performance – A Study on Entrepreneurial Attitudes, Performance Goals and Heterogeneity of Family Firms
• Master Thesis | Entrepreneurial Behavior in the Leading and Succeeding Generation of Family-Run Businesses in the Hotel Industry | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | Customer Perception of Service Quality in Family-Run Hotels | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis |  Business Model Innovation in Family-owned car dealerships | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | Social Network Analysis of a family run business in a touristic destination | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | Prerequisites for the creation of a knowledge-oriented organisational culture in small family firms | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | Entrepreneurial Knowledge in Family Firms | PDF | IMG

Human Resource Management (selection)

• Master Thesis | The Role of CSR in Employer Branding – A Qualitative Research on Large Family Businesses within Southern Germany and Western Austria | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | Economic Possibilities to Foster Employee Retention for Family-Managed Small and Medium Sized Enterprises | PDF | IMG
• Master Thesis | Diversity and Inclusion Management: A Case Study based on the luxury hospitaly Industriy | PDF | IMG

Family (selection)

• Master Thesis | The development of the Family Constitution in Practice | PDF | IMG

Students projects on commission

The Family Business Center provides family-owned companies with the opportunity to commission relevant projects to either Bachelor or Master students. Commissioned projects make it possible to scientifically approach and empirically examine the challenges or problem areas of individual family businesses.

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Bachelor Thesis Examples | Business Administration, Psychology and more

More From Forbes

5 high-paying bachelor’s degrees in 2024.

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The highest paying bachelor's degrees are typically found within STEM fields (science, technology, ... [+] engineering, and mathematics)

If you're like most Gen Zers, you've probably observed how unstable the global economy and job market is, and you're most likely anxious to start your career and finances on the right foot. Deciding where and what to study— if you choose to even pursue higher education at all —is one of the most critical first steps to take as you embark on your career.

Priorities are shifting. You might have been able to get by on $50,000 a year, five or maybe 10 years ago.

But that is barely enough with inflation today, considering choices you need to make such as buying a house and a car, paying off student debt, bills, and credit cards, and the cost of everyday living expenses.

Now, at the outset of your career, you're forced to make some tough decisions. You need to ensure that if you pursue a three or four-year degree, it's actually worth the cost. You need a degree that provides you with a significant return on investment—a high-paying career—enabling you to easily pay off your student debt, and any other debts, and live comfortably.

How To Choose A Bachelor's Degree

When deciding on what to study, it's essential to not underestimate the importance of where you study. The educational institution providing your undergraduate course is equally critical as the subject you're majoring in.

Consider their success record for employment prospects. Of course they will boast on their website about their results, but you can also talk to alumni or current students to understand the full breadth of career development, job and entrepreneurship preparation/opportunities, and training that is on offer.

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Conduct thorough research to understand the employment rate for your desired college, and how long it takes for one of their graduates on your chosen course to land a job within the same field.

Not only should you assess average salaries, but you should also remember to take into consideration entrepreneurship success stories. This is because you'll need to ensure that you have more than just a job; you need to be able to launch your own business venture if necessary, so that your career is future-proofed against layoffs and other negative changes within your industry and job market.

All these are essential factors to consider when planning your career and professional development and choosing your bachelor's degree.

Five Highest-Paying Bachelor's Degrees

As Coursera well noted , not all bachelor's degrees are equal in terms of pay. If you thought that bachelor's degrees within STEM fields unmistakeably have a tendency to pay more, earlier in your career, than those within the liberal arts, then you're absolutely right.

According to research and analysis conducted in October 2023 by BestColleges.com , alongside up-to-date salary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, five of the highest-paying bachelor's degrees you should consider in 2024, include:

1. Petroleum Engineering

The average salary for a petroleum engineer is $131,800. This job involves not only extracting oil and natural resources such as gas, but also developing new processes and tools for their extraction from underground reservoirs.

2. Aeronautics and Astronautics

Roles within aeronautics and astronautics include avionics and aerospace engineering, aircraft maintenance technician, space mission planner, and satellite engineer. The average salary for roles within this field is $126,880, with a projected 6% job growth rate—faster than average.

When deciding on a bachelor's degree, remember that where you study is an equally critical choice ... [+] that can affect your employment and entrepreneurship prospects, and impact your career long-term

3. Actuarial Mathematics

Actuaries focus on analyzing risk and the financial costs associated with them, using their in-depth expertise within mathematics and statistics, and financial modelling. This role is critical to industries such as insurance, real estate, and the administration of government benefits.

Actuaries are one of the most in-demand roles currently, with a much faster than average 23% increase forecasted up to 2032, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average salary for this type of role is $113,990.

4. Computer Science

High-paying jobs that you can land with a bachelor's degree in computer science include web developer, software developer, app developer, and senior software developer. You can also specialize and progress further within machine learning, data science, and/or artificial intelligence for even higher earning potential.

There is a projected 25% surge in demand for computer science roles—which can be understandable, due to the AI boom—and you can expect to make $124,200 on average.

5. Business Computing

A bachelor's degree in business computing typically tends to merge computer science fundamentals from a commercial perspective, and a business administration or management degree.

This "best of both worlds" approach is particularly useful if you have a keen interest in both business and technology, but are not certain on your career path yet. Or perhaps, you wish to be a tech entrepreneur, and want to learn technology as well as business management and technology applications in the business context.

One example of a high-paying job that could benefit from a bachelor's degree in business computing is that of an information security analyst, with a projected 32% increase in job demand and boasting average salaries of $112,000.

Most importantly, when evaluating which degree to pursue, remember that there is no magic in pursuing a particular course of study, although some obviously pay more than others, as noted above.

There is hardly any tangible benefit in a paper or letters after your name.

There's no magic wand in a high-paying bachelor's degree; it's what you do with it that counts

The real tangible benefit comes through the experiences you gain while studying, and the transferable skills you develop as a result, such as communication, leadership, problem-solving, adaptability, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. These are the factors that propel your career and influence your salary.

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Bachelor Thesis at the Chair of Service Operations Management

We offer different types of Bachelor thesis topics, related to literature review, empirical research, or quantitative analysis of a decision problem.

Example Topics:

• Approaches for Measuring Business Process Performance
• How to Measure and Manage Service Quality?
• Lean Management in Service Industries – Potential and Limitations
• Recent Approaches for Service Experience Design – A Literature Review
• “Green” Product Design
• The Impact of Delivery Lead Time on Demand (literature review or empirical analysis)
• Pricing of Magazine Advertisements – Current Practice and Recommendations for Improvement
• A Comparison of State-of-the-Art Optimization Solvers
• Dell's hybrid supply chain – make-to-stock vs. make-to-order
• Train Scheduling bei der Deutschen Bahn
• Theorie und Praxis hybrider Leistungsbündel
• Skill-based Project Management
• Delay management in railway systems

Techniques for visualizing service processes

• Revenue Management – The on-line booking problem

We try to consider student preferences when assigning topics.

The thesis can be written in English or German.

Topics in FFSS24 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

• BA Topic SOM All FFS2024.pdf ( PDF , 401 KB )

Topics in FSS23 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

• Bachelor Thesis Topics FSS 2023.pdf ( PDF , 398 KB )

Topics in FSS22 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

• Bachelor Thesis 2022 Topics.pdf ( PDF , 395 KB )

Topics in FSS21 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Thema b01: home delivery with time windows.

In retail, the Corona crises accelerates a long-ongoing shift in customer preferences from purchase at physical stores to using e-commerce. While this change provides the opportunity for retailers to save on fixed costs for store locations in expensive city centers, the background processes such as delivery become more complex. Furthermore, e-commerce competes mainly via price putting all retailers under cost pressure. To stabilize the delivery process and fulfill customer expectations, assigning time slots for delivery becomes a viable option. On the other hand, popular time slots may even be “sold” following a Revenue Management approach.

The objectives of this thesis are to…

• introduce the home delivery problem and its foundation in the Operations Research literature,
• present and classify the literature (including assumptions, model characteristics & academical examples),
• discuss and / or improve one model in detail (optional),
• provide open research gaps and future trends.

Basic Literature:

Hernandez, F., Gendreau, M., & Potvin, J. Y. (2017). Heuristics for tactical time slot management: a periodic vehicle routing problem view.  International transactions in operational research ,  24 (6), 1233-1252.

Köhler, C., Ehmke, J. F., & Campbell, A. M. (2020). Flexible time window management for attended home deliveries.  Omega ,  91 , 102023.

Yang, X., & Strauss, A. K. (2017). An approximate dynamic programming approach to attended home delivery management.  European Journal of Operational Research ,  263 (3), 935–945.

Thema B02: Applications of Machine Learning in the Airline Scheduling Process

Airline Scheduling is one of the most complex problems in Operations resulting in a separation into four sequential steps. This separation helps to make the whole problem tractable but decreases the chance of finding an optimal solution for the whole process. As the schedule represents the product offering of an airline, suboptimal scheduling decisions have a large impact on the profitability of an airline. Machine Learning has recently gained importance for complex decision problems in various business applications where large datasets are analyzed in order to uncover patterns for better decision making. While machine learning might still not guarantee to find the globally best solution in scheduling decisions, it may be a building block for an improved scheduling process.

• introduce and compare different Machine Learning Approaches,
• summarize the problems of the Airline Scheduling & Recovery Process,
• identify and discuss applications of Machine Learning in the process & other practical applications,

Belobaba, P., Odoni, A., & Barnhart, C. (Eds.). (2015).  The global airline industry . John Wiley & Sons.

Grosche, T. (2009). Airline Scheduling Process. In  Computational Intelligence in Integrated Airline Scheduling  (pp. 7–46). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Yaakoubi, Y., Soumis, F., & Lacoste-Julien, S. (2020). Machine learning in airline crew pairing to construct initial clusters for dynamic constraint aggregation.  EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics , 100020.

Thema B03: Integrated Models in the Airline Scheduling Process

Due to its complexity, the airline scheduling process is separated into four sequential steps of schedule design, aircraft assignment, maintenance routing and crew scheduling. These problems are solved sequentially and each former problem’s output serves as input for the following problem. While some of these steps do have different planning scales such as all aircraft fleets vs. only a single fleet; a complete integration is possible to model but not to solve with the currently available methods for realistic instances. To come closer to this ideal state of the process, some models have been integrating one or even more scheduling steps.  

• introduce the Airline Scheduling Process and its sequential steps,
• summarize the literature of models covering multiple steps,

Sandhu, R., & Klabjan, D. (2007). Integrated airline fleeting and crew-pairing decisions.  Operations Research ,  55 (3), 439–456.

Shao, S., Sherali, H. D., & Haouari, M. (2017). A novel model and decomposition approach for the integrated airline fleet assignment, aircraft routing, and crew pairing problem.  Transportation Science ,  51 (1), 233–249.

Thema B04: Experiential Service Design – Empirical Evidence for Sequence Effects

Past researchers have found empirical evidence that customers consider the sequence of event utility when evaluating past and future service experiences. Dixon and Verma (2013) provide a thorough review of the psychology and behavioral economics literatures concerned with sequence effects and cite four main effects that emerge as relevant to sequencing service encounters: (1) the impact of the highest point, most intense, or highest utility part of an experience (Peak Effect); (2) the impact of the last point of an experience (End Effect); (2) the impact of the timing of the peak (Spread Effect); (4) and the overall trend of the experience over time (Trend Effect).

Because these sequence effects are used in optimization models (for example by Dixon & Thomson 2016), understanding empirical findings on these effects is very important for experiential service design.

• review current empirical knowledge on experiential service design with a focus on sequence effects (not limited to peak-, end-, trend-, and spread-effect);
• compare different empirical studies on sequence effects and discuss their limitations;
• discuss which findings could be generated in or adapted to services and give an outlook on future research opportunities in this field.

Bellos, I., & Kavadias, S. (2021). Service design for a holistic customer experience: A process framework. Management Science , 67(3), 1718-1736.

Dixon, M., & Verma, R. (2013). Sequence effects in service bundles: Implications for service design and scheduling. Journal of Operations Management , 31(3), 138–152.

Dixon, M. J., Victorino, L., Kwortnik, R. J., & Verma, R. (2017). Surprise, anticipation, and sequence effects in the design of experiential services. Production and Operations Management , 26(5), 945- 960.

Thema B05: Experiential Service Design – Empirical Evidence for Psychological Constructs

Customers evaluate past and future service experiences based on the sequence of events. The field of experiential service design uses this knowledge to develop optimization models increasing remembered utility – the utility that customers remember after the service has ended. Two perspectives have established: (1) Only a few defining utility values (highest utility or last utility value) or utility measures (trend over time, spread between peak and end) are used to calculate remembered utility (Dixon and Verma 2013). (2) All instant utilities at each service event are used to calculate remembered utility, thereby mapping the underlying mental processes in the consumer’s brain (Das Gupta et al. 2016). In recent years these psychological constructs are used in optimization models for experiential service design, demanding a deep understanding of empirical findings on these constructs.

• review current empirical knowledge on experiential service design with a focus on psychological constructs (not limited to memory decay or acclimation);
• compare different empirical studies on psychological constructs and discuss their limitations;

Bellos, I., & Kavadias, S. (2021). Service design for a holistic customer experience: A process framework. Management Science, 67(3), 1718-1736.

Das Gupta, A., Karmarkar, U. S., & Roels, G. (2016). The design of experiential services with accli- mation and memory decay: Optimal sequence and duration. Management Science , 62(5), 1278- 1296.

Roels, G. (2019). Optimal structure of experiential services: Review and extensions. Handbook of Service Science, Volume II , 105–146.

Thema B06: Digitization, Digitalization, and Digital Transformation – Creating a Research Landscape in an Emerging Field

Reviewing literature in both academic and business contexts, digital transformation can rapidly be identified as a trending topic in recent years. Besides of the term digital transformation itself, some authors also talk about digitization or digitalization. While the terms are often used interchangeably, they can also be defined individually and differentiated them from each other. Identifying similarities and differences between these terms is one focus of this thesis. The other focus is on digital transformation itself, referring to strategic business (model) changes taking advantage of digital progress. These changes have a fundamental impact for the respective company changing the way it operates in the market.    

• define and differentiate the terms digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation;
• identify, cluster and analyze key research topics and questions in the field of digital transformation;
• discuss latest trends in this research field and highlight potential topics for future research.

Verhoef, P. C., Broekhuizen, T., Bart, Y., Bhattacharya, A., Dong, J. Q., Fabian, N., & Haenlein, M. (2021). Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda . Journal of Business Research, 122, 889–901.

Vial, G. (2019). Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems , 28(2), 118–144.

Thema B07: Digital Transformation as an Interdisciplinary Research Area

In both the academic world and the business world there is a growing interest in digital transformation in recent years. The term refers to strategic business (model) changes taking advantage of digital progress. These changes have a fundamental impact for the respective company changing the way it operates in the market. Due to this complexity, a variety of research disciplines works on topics of digital transformation – each contributing in a different way. While marketing might focus on identifying new customer needs in a more and more digital world, operations research can enable these new services with digital processes.      

• review academic literature to introduce and define digital transformation and differentiate it from similar terms;
• discuss how different research areas like operations, marketing, information systems, and others contribute to digital transformation;
• focus on operations research and present research topics and trends in the context of digital transformation.

Li, F. (2020). Leading digital transformation: three emerging approaches for managing the transition. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.

Verhoef, P. C., Broekhuizen, T., Bart, Y., Bhattacharya, A., Dong, J. Q., Fabian, N., & Haenlein, M. (2021). Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda. Journal of Business Research , 122, 889–901.

Thema B08: Throwaway mentality and the environment – Are consumers responsible for the environmental damage?

Slade (2009) described that in North America over 100 million cell phones and 300 million personal computers were discarded each year in the beginning of the 20th century. Certainly, North America is not alone with such a development. The throwaway mentality is already in place in Europe and other regions.

Several factors have contributed to the emergence of this mentality. In particular, companies claim to be following consumer desires when creating new products. As a result, the policy of planned obsolescence – designing a product with an artificially limited useful life – is also justified by evolving consumer preferences.

• Review the development of throwaway mentality in the world;
• Identify main products and industries, this mentality occurs most in;
• Identify potential drivers of consumer throwaway mentality;
• Discuss whether consumers are responsible for the environmental damage;
• Discuss what future research in this field should focus on.

Echegaray, F. (2016). Consumers' reactions to product obsolescence in emerging markets: the case of Brazil. Journal of Cleaner Production , 134, 191–203.

Grewal, R., Mehta, R., & Kardes, F. R. (2004). The timing of repeat purchases of consumer durable goods: The role of functional bases of consumer attitudes. Journal of Marketing Research , 41(1), 101–115.

Slade, G. (2009). Made to break: Technology and obsolescence in America. Harvard University Press.

Thema B09: Planned obsolescence and environment – Are companies responsible for the environmental damage?

Planned obsolescence is a policy of designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, i.e. no longer functional after a certain period of time. The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases. Such a policy goes hand-in-hand with several side effects, in particular high impact on the environment in terms of resource use as well as waste disposal.

The impacts of this trend on the environment are manifold. First, natural resources become very scarce, since the increasing number of manufactured durables implies an increasing use of resources. Second, higher amounts of waste are created due to rising product disposals, which in turn increases the pressure for ex-post waste management. Third, impact on pollution and climate change stands out, since energy used in the manufacturing and distribution of durables is still strongly sourced from non-renewable fossil fuels.

• Review the literature for planned obsolescence and classify it;
• Identify potential drivers of planned obsolescence from the corporate perspective;
• Identify the implications of planned obsolescence from the triple bottom line perspective;
• Discuss whether companies are responsible for the environmental damage;

Agrawal, V. V., Kavadias, S., & Toktay, L. B. (2016). The limits of planned obsolescence for conspicuous durable goods. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management , 18(2), 216–226.

Guiltinan, J. (2009): Creative destruction and destructive creations: environmental ethics and planned obsolescence . Journal of business ethics 89(1), 19–28.

Thema B10: Comparison of Process Mining Tools for Academia and Industry

Process Mining combines process science and data science and provides many new forms of analysis in the area of business process management. For example, process discovery algorithms allow to derive process maps from the data collected during process execution, thereby creating a representation of the process as it is actually performed. For managers, these insights allow e.g. a comparison of the executed process model with the normative process model. Given the discovered process, further analyses can take place, such as the evaluation of process improvement possibilities. Using the output of the process mining’s discovery algorithm, a simulation model can be built in order to test different process variants and configurations.

Several process mining tools exist. As some of the offered functionalities are similar, other aspects as well as the respective target audiences of the tools differ. For example, the output of the tools, viz. the mined process models, can be compared as various algorithms for process discovery exist, allowing for potential differences in the output of two different tools. Hence, a comparison of the tools allows to specify the strengths and weaknesses on the basis of criteria defined through a previous literature review. A clear overview and recommendations for different user groups can be provided, offering valuable insights into the commonly used process mining tools in academia and industry.

• to provide an overview over the most commonly used process mining tools in academia and industry,
• to critically compare the process mining tools, including Celonis, ProM, Apromore and Disco, based on predefined criteria, and
• to give a recommendation concerning the tool selection based on different purposes.

Basic literature:

Mans R.S., Schonenberg M.H., Song M., van der Aalst W.M.P., Bakker P.J.M. (2008) : Application of Process Mining in Healthcare – A Case Study in a Dutch Hospital. In: Fred A., Filipe J., Gamboa H. (eds) Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. BIOSTEC 2008. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 25. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Van Der Aalst, W. (2016): Process mining. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Van der Aalst, W., & Damiani, E. (2015): Processes meet big data: Connecting data science with process science. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing , 8(6), 810–819 .

Van der Aalst, W. M., & Weijters, A. J. (2004): Process mining: a research agenda. Computers in Industry, 53 (3), 231–244 .

Thema B11: Pricing strategies for digital product bundles

Price bundling is a strategy whereby a vendor sells many different goods/ items and offers the entire bundle at a single price. In the simplest case, the seller can offer only once and the customer can either accept or reject the offer. Research provides different facets of product price bundling. E.g. using personalized bundling, the seller receives a request for quote (RFQ) and determines a price based on the utility function of requested products. To solve this problem Xue (2016) uses a top-down and a bottom up approach. Other bundling problems use a customized bundle price scheme, where customers may select a fixed number of goods for a certain fixed price (Hitt, 2005). With current developments in the digital market, existing models can be assessed if they are applicable to digital products as well.

• review pricing strategies for product bundles,
• comment if those methods are applicable to digital product bundles given their characteristics,
• explain one model in detail, and

Xue, Z., Wang, Z., & Ettl, M. (2016). Pricing Personalized Bundles: A New Approach and An Empirical Study. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management , 18 (1), 51–68. doi.org/10.1287/msom.2015.0563

Hanson, W., & Martin, R. K. (1990). Optimal Bundle Pricing. Management Science , 36 (2), 155–174. doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.36.2.155

Hitt, L. M., & Chen, P. (2005). Bundling with Customer Self-Selection: A Simple Approach to Bundling Low-Marginal-Cost Goods. Management Science , 51 (10), 1481–1493. doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1050.0403

Thema B12: Discrete choice for digital products and services

The choice between different software and service vendors can be characterized as a discrete choice situation, where the customer selects the best business partner. These decisions can be modelled with discrete choice models. One prominent functional specification is the multinomial choice model (MNL). An underlying assumption of the models is the possible decomposition of the product or service in attributes with different levels, where each attribute level is connected to a particular partial utility. While the model is well established for characteristics of transportation modes, little to no research has be done on digital products and services.

• introduce and compare the MNL and similar discrete choice models,
• provide an overview over empirical studies for drivers of software purchases,
• comment if and how a discreate choice model is applicable to digital products and services,

Gönsch, J., Klein, R., & Steinhardt, C. (2008): Discrete Choice Modelling (Teil I). WiSt Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium , 37(7), 356–362.

Train, K., & Ebrary, Inc. (2009): Discrete choice methods with simulation (Second ed.). Cambridge University Press . New York Melbourne Madrid Cape Town Singapore São Paulo Delhi Mexico City

Kekre, S., Krishnan, M. S., & Srinivasan, K. (1995): Drivers of Customer Satisfaction for Software Products: Implications for Design and Service Support. Management Science , 41(9), 1456–1470. doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.41.9.1456

Thema B13: Optimal pricing model for software vendors

Product pricing is an important strategic part of a business. Due to the economic characteristics specific to the software industry, pricing concepts existing in other industries cannot be transferred without adaptation (Lehmann and Buxmann 2009). With the advancement of technology several new business models suit perfectly to digital products. As there is no universal pricing model for software providers, pricing can be divided into pricing parameters like price bundling or price discrimination. With the growth of cloud computing, SaaS products are offered mostly based on service contracts.

• review and systematically summarize the literature on pricing models for software vendors,
• compare and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the different model categories,
• highlight one state-of-the-art pricing strategy and point out their benefits to comparable models,
• create a framework, which pricing model fits to what kind of digital product (optional).

Gurnani, H., & Karlapalem, K. (2001). Optimal pricing strategies for Internet-based software dissemination. Journal of the Operational Research Society , 52(1), 64–70. doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601046

Lehmann, S., & Buxmann, P. (2009). Pricing Strategies of Software Vendors. Business & Information Systems Engineering , 1(6), 452–462. doi.org/10.1007/s12599-009-0075-y

Ojala, A. (2016). Adjusting software revenue and pricing strategies in the era of cloud computing. Journal of Systems and Software , 122, 40–51. doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2016.08.070

Rohitratana, J., & Altmann, J. (2012). Impact of pricing schemes on a market for Software-as-a-Service and perpetual software. Future Generation Computer Systems , 28(8), 1328–1339. doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2012.03.019

Thema B14: Effects of empirical estimates on product line design models

A key strategic decision for a firm is the product offering to maximize profit through customer satisfaction. The manufacturer can not only customize and optimize a single product, but they can design a product line which can capture the needs of different market segments. Product Line Design problems determines the products which should be offered and how to design them. The design decision takes different attributes (e.g. price, size, color) into account. The potential advantages for the vendor of an extensive product portfolio have to be weighed against the cost and possible substitution effects between products. To capture customer choice behavior conjoint or discrete choice analyses are often used.

In the scientific literature, the problem is known as the product line design or product line selection problem, respectively. It has become a pivotal research focus at the interface between quantitative marketing and operations research. In the past four decades several quantitative models for optimal product line design have been developed (see Belloni et al., 2008). Conjoint or discrete choice analysis is typically used to estimate functional relationships between attribute specifications and customer utility and/ or choice behavior.

• review and systematically summarize the literature on Product Line Design in regards to there assumed customer choice behavior,
• identify the affect of empirical estimates on problem formulation and solution methods,
• highlight one model and point out their benefits to comparable models.

Belloni, A., R. Freund, M. Selove, D. Simester , Optimizing product line designs: Efficient methods and comparisons, in: Management Science, Vol. 54 (2008), S. 1544-1552.

Bertsimas, D., & Mišić, V. V. (2019). Exact first-choice product line optimization. Operations Research, 67(3), 651–670.

Dobson, G., S. Kalish , Heuristics for Pricing and Positioning a Product-Line Using Conjoint and Cost Data, in: Management Science, Vol. 39 (1993), S. 160–175.

Topic B15: Consumer Preferences for Sustainable Product Attributes and Implications for Product and Supply Chain Design

Product design decisions are important decisions at the interface of marketing and operations that are very costly to implement and change, and are determinant for market success. In order to systematically support decision-making in this area, a number of predictive consumer behavior models (in particular based on conjoint and discrete choice analysis) and prescriptive mathematical programming models for optimal product (line) design based on customer preference data have been developed in the last decades (see e.g. Belloni et al. 2008). In these models, a product is considered to be a bundle of buyer relevant attributes and their levels, respectively. Sustainable products are “all kinds of products that have or aim at an improved environmental and social quality, which can be related back to the already mentioned implementation of environmental and social standards. The ultimate aim is to satisfy customers and gain a competitive advantage in the market.” (Seuring & Müller 2008). Typical product attributes that determine a product’s sustainability include the product’s CO2 footprint,  its longevity, energy use during production, recyclability, whether it is regional, bio, fair traded (for food), its packaging and plastic content, etc. Various empirical studies show that sustainable attributes increase consumer willingness-to-pay and may pay off the efforts on the supply chain side if higher prices can be charged.

• briefly introduce conjoint analysis as a tool for measuring consumer preferences for certain attribute levels,
• review the empirical literature on consumer preferences for sustainable product features and provide a meaningful classification e.g. with regard to model assumptions, attributes, etc.,
• Is there any additional willingness-to-pay of customers for sustainable attributes? What evidence does the empirical literature provide for different sustainable attributes? What type of sustainable attributes are most preferable from a consumer’s and a designer’s perspective? How can empirical studies be classified?
• How does the seller’s cost structure change for producing “sustainable” attribute levels? What are the implications for optimal product and supply chain design?

Alriksson, S., & Öberg, T. (2008). Conjoint analysis for environmental evaluation. Environmental Science and Pollution Research , 15(3), 244–257.

Belloni, A., Freund, R., Selove, M., & Simester, D. (2008). Optimizing product line designs: Efficient methods and comparisons. Management Science , 54 (9), 1544-1552.

Hicks, R.L. (2012). Product Labeling, Consumer Willingness to Pay, and the Supply Chain. In: Boone, T., Jayaraman, V., & Ganeshan, R. (Eds.). (2013). Sustainable supply chains: Models, Methods, and Public Policy Implications. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4419-6105-1

Seuring, S., & Müller, M. (2008). From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. Journal of cleaner production , 16 (15), 1699-1710.

Topics in FSS21 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

Thema b01: improving process performance through simulation analysis – a literature review.

Responsiveness is one important dimension of service quality, which is often operationalized as the flow time or flow rate of a process. In many situations, customers expect a fast service. Already in a pre-purchase phase, responsiveness can impact the purchase decision significantly. For example, in the loan application process, customers need to fill in an application form which is then check by the back-office. While the bank evaluates the credit worthiness of the applicant, the applicant has to wait until the contracts are sent. If multiple applications at different banks are filed, the customer might more likely choose the bank which answers fastest, as long as the interest costs are comparable. Banking is however only one of many sectors, which consider responsiveness as increasingly important factor. Generally, service providers should reduce unnecessary waiting time for the customers. Hence, the analysis of queuing systems can provide valuable insights into process improvements related to responsiveness.

Simulation studies are a suitable measure to compare the performance of different process variants while controlling for the differences. As such, a simulation allows to e.g. evaluate the performance of different process paths in terms of process speed and waiting time. Recommendations for process improvements could be based on a change of, for example, the capacity distribution or the order of activities.

The objectives of this thesis are

• to provide an overview of the current literature on simulation studies with focus on optimizing process speed and responsiveness with applications in selected service industries after 1995,
• to compare the methodological analysis of the identified simulation studies, and
• to give some recommendations when to apply the improvement measures proposed in different studies.

Watson, E. F., Chawda, P. P., McCarthy, B., Drevna, M. J., & Sadowski, R. P. (1998): A Simulation Metamodel for Response‐Time Planning. Decision Sciences, 29(1), 217–241.

Kim, H. W., & Kim, Y. G. (2001): Rationalizing the customer service process. Business Process Management Journal , 7(2), 139–156.

Madadi, N., Roudsari, A. H., Wong, K. Y., & Galankashi, M. R. (2013): Modeling and simulation of a bank queuing system. In 2013 Fifth International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Modelling and Simulation , 209–215, IEEE.

Thema B02: Identifizierung und Priorisierung relevanter Customer Journeys zur Optimierung der Customer Experience

Englischer Titel: Identification and Prioritization of Relevant Customer Journeys to Optimize the Overall Customer Experience

Das Kundenerlebnis (engl. „Customer Experience“) spielt für Unternehmen eine immer größere Rolle, um bestehende Kunden zu halten und neue Kunden zu gewinnen. Um die gesamte Customer Experience zu verbessern, gilt es, die „Reise“ eines Kunden entlang verschiedener Kontaktpunkte mit einem Produkt bzw. dessen Anbieter (engl. Customer Journey) und deren zugrundeliegende Wertschöpfungsprozesse zu optimieren. Die meisten Unternehmen bieten eine große Zahl an Dienstleistungen an, die wiederum unterschiedliche Customer Journeys je nach Segment, Kontext oder Phase des Kundenlebenszyklus aufweisen. Eine parallele Optimierung aller Customer Journeys ist entsprechend kaum möglich, so dass eine Priorisierung zwingend erforderlich ist. Da sowohl Unternehmens- als auch Kundeninteressen bei dieser Priorisierung eine wichtige Rolle spielen, gilt es, die Customer Journeys auszuwählen, die den größten Einfluss auf die übergreifende Customer Experience haben und deren Optimierung sich gleichzeitig in einem angemessenen Kostenrahmen bewegen.

Die Ziele dieser Arbeit sind es…

• die Begriffe Customer Experience Management und Service Process Design zu definieren;
• die Rolle verschiedener Forschungsgebiete wie Marketing, Service Research und Operations Research im Kontext der obigen Begriffe herauszuarbeiten;
• empirische Studien, Optimierungsmodelle oder theoretische Modelle zusammenzutragen, die aufzeigen, inwiefern einzelne Customer Journeys die gesamte Customer Experience beeinflussen.

Einstiegsliteratur:

Fließ, Sabine und Kleinaltenkamp, Michael (2004) . Blueprinting the service company: Managing service processes efficiently. Journal of Business Research 57 (4), 392–404.

Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016) . Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of marketing , 80(6), 69–96.

Stickdorn, Marc und Schneider, Jakob (2011) . This is service design thinking. Basics – tools – cases. Amsterdam.

Thema B03: Kompetenzorientiertes Training für Piloten

Die Luftfahrtindustrie legt trotz starkem Kostendruck einen sehr starken Fokus auf den Aspekt Sicherheit, was sich auch in der Aus- und Weiterbildung von Piloten wiederspiegelt. Ein wichtiger Bestandteil ist unter anderem das Simulator Training, in dem die richtige Reaktion auf und Abarbeitung von herausfordernden Zwischenfällen in einer realitätsnahen Umgebung getestet wird. Die Form des Trainings hatte sich seit den 1960er Jahren nicht weiterentwickelt, bis eine branchenübergreifende Initiative das Konzept des „Evidence-Based Trainings“ definiert und passende Regularien erarbeitet hat. Der Hauptunterschied ist der Wechsel von einem Methodenfokus zu einem Kompetenzfokus.

Aufgrund der weniger vorher festgelegten und mehr an Kompetenzen ausgerichteten Trainingsinhalte stellt sich für Instruktoren die Frage, welches Trainingsszenario sich am besten für die Teilnehmenden eignet. Dafür können Daten aus der operativen Flugtätigkeit herangezogen und zur Bewertung des vorliegenden Kompetenzstandes eines Piloten genutzt werden. Aus diesen Daten wird ein Profil gebildet, welches die Stärken und Schwächen in Bezug auf die Kompetenzen erläutert und somit die Entscheidungsgrundlage für eine manuelle oder automatisierte Auswahl der Trainingsinhalte bietet. Während die Luftfahrt bisher wenige Systeme zur Entscheidungsunterstützung für Trainingsinhalte hervorgebracht hat, haben dort andere Anwender wie das Militär oder die Spieleindustrie mehr Erfahrungen sammeln können.

Ziel der Bachelorarbeit ist es,

• Evidence-based Training inklusive der Kernkompetenzen vorzustellen,
• Best Practices aus vergleichbaren Anwendungen des beruflichen Trainings und weiteren Feldern des Trainings mit Fokus auf Auswahl der Trainingsszenarios aufzuführen,
• die benötigten Daten und der Entscheidung zugrundeliegende Hintergrundprozesse aus den Best Practices zu erläutern,
• offene Forschungsfelder und –lücken darzustellen. 

Hörmann, H. J., Lehmann, O., & Schubert, E. (2007): Situationsbewusstsein und Fehlermanagement im Flugsimulator: Leistungsindikatoren von Flugzeugbesatzungen. Simulationsgestützte Systemgestaltung , 59–71

ICAO (2013): Manual of Evidence-Based Training. Doc 9995, AN/ 497. Montreal: International Civil Aviation

Kremer, H. H., & Zoyke, A. (2010): Kompetenzdiagnose als Basis individueller Förderung-Zum Geheimnis einer Black Box. Kompetenzermittlung für die Berufsbildung. Verfahren, Probleme und Perspektiven im nationalen, europäischen und internationalen Raum. Bielefeld: Bertelsmann , p. 145–160.

Zook, A., Lee-Urban, S., Riedl, M. O., Holden, H. K., Sottilare, R. A., & Brawner, K. W. (2012): Automated scenario generation: toward tailored and optimized military training in virtual environments. In Proceedings of the international conference on the foundations of digital games , p. 164–171

Topics in FSS20 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Topic b01: product durability and planned obsolescence – empirical evidence.

The objective of the thesis is to provide a review on the topic of planned obsolescence from the marketing and operations management perspective. Focus should be placed on empirical research (incl. case examples) for products and industries, where this phenomenon occurs most.

• to review the literature for planned obsolescence and classify it, focus on empirical evidence and case examples;
• to discuss the pros and cons of planned obsolescence;
• to discuss practices and capabilities that are needed to move beyond unsustainable practices that may motivate companies to move beyond planned obsolescence; and
• to highlight the 5 most relevant contributions to the topic of planned obsolescence from your personal perspective (from the reviewed literature). Point out the facts that lead you to the selection of these contributions.

Echegaray, F. (2016): Consumers' reactions to product obsolescence in emerging markets: the case of Brazil. Journal of Cleaner Production 134, 191–203.

Guiltinan, J. (2009): Creative destruction and destructive creations: environmental ethics and planned obsolescence. Journal of business ethics 89(1), 19–28.

Satyro, W., Sacomano, J., Contador, J., Cardoso A., & Silva, E. (2017): Planned Obsolescence and Sustainability. Ten Years Workıng Together For a Sustaınable Future, Săo Paulo-Brazil-24 May To 26th.

Topic B02: Customer demand models – A review of state-of-the-art approaches

Understanding and predicting customer demand is a crucial task for any company. Since nearly all decisions – sales planning decisions, marketing decisions, production planning decisions, procurement decisions, HR planning decisions, etc. – within a company are based on demand predictions, the role of predicting demand as precisely as possible is a very important task.

Researchers have developed different demand models, ranging from non-causal models – where demand forecast is independent of the company’s actions – to causal (“demand-response”) models – where company’s decisions, such as the pricing strategy, influence the demand. The latter can be further sub-categorized, for example, into first-choice models, share-of-preference models or neural network models.

• to review and systematically summarize the literature on first-choice, share of-preference and neural network models;
• to compare and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the different model categories (or individual models);
• to highlight the state-of-the-art approaches and point out their benefits as compared to the “older” models; and
• to select one of the reviewed models and implement a self-created example in Excel to explain how the model works (optional).

Bordoloi, S., Fitzsimmons, J. A., & Fitzsimmons, M. J. (2018). Service management: operations, strategy, information technology. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Denton, J. W. (1995). How good are neural networks for causal forecasting?. The Journal of Business Forecasting , 14(2), 17.

Train, K. E. (2009). Discrete choice methods with simulation. Cambridge university press.

Topic B03: Neural Networks in BPM – Application and Performance

The idea of Business Process Management (BPM) became popular in the 1980s. BPM academics discussed e.g. the need for cross-functional process flow through organizations or the BPM lifecycle, including designing, modelling, implementing, monitoring and improving business processes. Generally, BPM is defined as structured, comprehensive, and cross-functional approach for the development, ongoing management, analysis, and continuous improvement of business processes.

In recent years, research interests in BPM have risen again due to new technologies and their potential for process management. Neural networks, as just one example of these new technologies and machine learning approaches, promise great benefits and advantages as many constraints, which formerly restricted optimization models, can now be relieved. For example, process predictions on the next steps from neural networks allow to adequately manage the remaining process, to allocate resources accordingly, or to interfere if necessary. Success rates, remaining flow times, and resource requirements are further examples of such predictions.

• to briefly introduce neural networks for the BPM context,
• to identify studies which apply neural networks in BPM and to evaluate the performance, and
• to summarize the application cases and research questions addressed with neural networks.

Rehse, Jana-Rebecca; Dadashnia, Sharam; Fettke, Peter (2018): Business process management for Industry 4.0 – Three application cases in the DFKI-Smart-Lego-Factory. In it – Information Technology 60 (3), pp. 133–141. DOI: 10.1515/itit-2018-0006.

Evermann, Joerg; Rehse, Jana-Rebecca; Fettke, Peter (2017): Predicting process behaviour using deep learning. In Decision Support Systems 100, pp. 129–140. DOI: 10.1016/j.dss.2017.04.003.

Di Francescomarino C., Ghidini C., Maggi F.M., Milani F. (2018): Predictive Process Monitoring Methods: Which One Suits Me Best?. In: Weske M., Montali M., Weber I., vom Brocke J. (eds) Business Process Management. BPM 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11080. Springer, Cham

Nolle, T., Luettgen, S., Seeliger, A. et al. (2018): Analyzing business process anomalies using autoencoders. Mach Learn 107, 1875–1893

Topic B04: Reliability in Business Processes – Recommendations on Process Design and Management

The quality of a service can include many factors. ServQual (Parasuraman et al, 1988), a popular approach to evaluate service quality, proposes five principal components of service quality: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, tangibles, and empathy. Reliability can be seen as the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately, despite the often heterogeneous customer participation. In many succeeding studies, reliability appears to have the highest relevance for service quality. This topic can be linked to Business Process Management (BPM) as a service can be seen as a process. Therefore, designing a reliable service equals designing a reliable process.

Further, reliable service operations and processes can create a competitive advantage. Some firms may thus compete on reliability, which means that reliability is a competitive priority. Yet, not every business model strives for reliability as most important competitive priority. Thus, two questions arise, which are the focus of this thesis: (1) which kind of business models/ value propositions focus mostly on reliability? and (2) how can reliability be operationalized?, in order to give recommendations on how services should be designed to be highly reliable.

• to review the literature in order to determine for which kind of value proposition or business model reliability is a major competitive priority,
• to identify approaches in the literature on the measurement and operationalization of reliability as operational capability, and
• to give recommendations on (service) process design and management to achieve reliability.

Parasuraman, A Parsu & Zeithaml, Valarie & Berry, Leonard. (1988): “SERVQUAL: A multiple- Item Scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality”, Journal of retailing , Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 12–40.

Mehta, S. and Durvasula, S. (1998): “Relationships between SERVQUAL dimensions and organizational performance in the case of a business‐to‐business service”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 40–53.

Turner T.J., Bititci U.S. (1998): “Maintaining reliability of business processes using active monitoring techniques”, in: Bititci U.S., Carrie A.S. (eds) Strategic Management of the Manufacturing Value Chain. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, vol 2. Springer, Boston, MA

Vergidis, K., Saxena, D., & Tiwari, A. (2012): “An evolutionary multi-objective framework for business process optimization”, Applied Soft Computing , 12 (8), 2638-2653.

Topic B05: Using Data Driven Analytics in Healthcare Industry

Data driven healthcare analytics is about making the computer learn from observational data collected in the process of delivering care. Data driven analytics-based approaches like machine learning, data mining and data visualization have been explored in recent research efforts to provide personalized decision support for care delivery and care management. The core idea is to enable learning from the collective experience of a care delivery network as recorded in the observational data, to iteratively improve care quality as care is being provided in a real-world setting.

• to review data driven analytics-based approaches used in the healthcare industry to improve the quality of care,
• to comment theoretically on the healthcare-specific performance measures for care quality improvements, and
• to discuss relevance of data driven analytics approaches in the service industry.

Hu, J., Perer, A., & Wang, F. (2016): Data driven analytics for personalized healthcare. In Healthcare Information Management Systems (pp. 529–554). Springer, Cham.

Topic B06: Impact of Covid-19 on Global Supply Chains and Managing Global Risk through Risk-mitigation Strategies

Reports based on the impact of Covid-19 outbreak on supply chains and disruptions in manufacturing operations around the world are making headlines on a daily basis.  Haren and Simchi-Levi (2020) predict that the peak of the impact of Covid-19 on global supply chains will occur in mid-March, forcing thousands of companies to throttle down or temporarily shut assembly and manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe. The most vulnerable companies are those which rely heavily or solely on factories in China for parts and materials. The activity of Chinese manufacturing plants has fallen in the past month and is expected to remain depressed for months. For example, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV announced on 14 February that “it is temporarily halting production at a car factory in Serbia because it can’t get parts from China.” Similarly, Hyundai said that it “decided to suspend its production lines from operating at its plants in Korea due to disruptions in the supply of parts resulting from the coronavirus outbreak in China.”

• to review risks associated to global supply chain in face of disruptions caused by natural calamities e.g. earthquakes, pandemics;
• to discuss risk-mitigation strategies from the OR literature to manage such global risks; and
• to comment theoretically, how global risks can be managed by incorporating flexibility in system, process and product design.

Haren, P. and Simchi-Levi, D. (2020): How Coronavirus Could Impact the Global Supply Chain by Mid-March. HBS No. 603–068. Harvard Business Review . hbr.org/2020/02/how-coronavirus-could-impact-the-global-supply-chain-by-mid-march , accessed March 2020.

Simchi-Levi, D. (2010): Operations rules: delivering customer value through flexible operations., MIT Press , Cambridge, MA.

Topic B07: Service Network Design of Delivery Services using Location-Routing Models

Providers who deliver their products at the customer door-step have to incorporate several fundamental decisions related to network design to satisfy overall customer demand w.r.t. different objectives like maximizing market share or profit. Key decisions include where to locate the facilities, how to allocate customers to facilities, and how to route vehicles to serve customers. These facilities could be solid waste collection substations and distribution centers providing collection and/ or distribution functions in which demand is served by multiple drop off and/ or pickup routes. Such problems are studied under the literature stream of location-routing models.

• to review various variants of location-routing models in models,
• to tabulate important references in literature w.r.t. fundamental decisions (listed above) and applications therein, and
• to comment theoretically on using location-routing models for network design of delivery services e.g. Amazon, Lieferando.

Laporte, G. (1988): Location-routing problems. In: Golden, B.L., Assad, A.A. (Eds.), Vehicle Routing: Methods and Studies, North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp.163–198.

Current, J., Daskin, M., & Schilling, D. (2002): Discrete network location models. Facility location: Applications and theory , 1, pp.81–118.

Topic B08: Modeling Dynamics of Contagious Disease Spread Using Simulation

Since the beginning of 2020, Covid-19 is emerging as an epidemic disrupting global supply chains; and thus, hurting the economies worldwide. The 2002–2003 SARS epidemic and MERS-CoV are other examples of contagious disease spread globally. Using analytical modeling approaches like simulation, models mimicking the spread of such diseases can be developed and many important model outcomes like disease spread rate can be predicted. Such measures can be further translated in preparing the healthcare infrastructure in terms of number of care givers, preventive healthcare clinics network design and enhancing the quality of care.

• to review literature streams consisting of simulation-based models for contagious disease spread;
• to present a review of the existing models with the focus on objectives, model outcomes and methodologies; and
• to comment theoretically on how knowledge from the simulation models in the literature can be used for dealing with Covid-19.

Perez, L., & Dragicevic, S. (2009): An agent-based approach for modeling dynamics of contagious disease spread. International journal of health geographics , 8(1), 50.

Topic B09: Integrating Workforce Cross-training in Stochastic Location Models with Congestion

Network design and facility location are of great importance for a wide range of public and private firms e.g., in the health care industry. In location problems with congestion, customers generate streams of stochastic demand, and service times are uncertain. This combination may lead to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. This bachelor thesis only focuses on immobile servers, i.e., the servers are fixed and customers have to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g. supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of facilities with immobile servers. The main decisions involved in designing such a network is where to locate these facilities and what should be the capacities of the servers at these selected facility locations. Most of the literature assumes dedicated capacities at the services facilities. An important policy for decreasing operational cost of these networks is to consider a workforce mix of flexible and dedicated servers.

• to review literature streams which capture workforce cross-training at service facilities;
• to present a review of the existing models with the focus on objective function, queuing model, and decisions involved;
• to provide academic examples from the service industry where cross training is used; and
• to comment theoretically on benefits of cross-training in facility design.

Ahmadi-Javid, A., & Ramshe, N. (2020): A stochastic location model for designing primary healthcare networks integrated with workforce cross-training. Operations Research for Health Care, 24, 100226.

Topic B10: Customer Utility Functions in Airtravel

The choice between different transport modes for a trip can be characterized as a discrete choice situation, as the best travel option is selected by customers. These decisions can be modelled with discrete choice models; their most prominent functional specification is the multinomial choice model (MNL). An underlying assumption of the models is the possible decomposition of the product or service in attributes with different levels, where each attribute level is connected to a particular partial utility. As example, Coldren et al. (2003) identified  itinerary service characteristics for flights connecting east & west coast of the United States as attributes and estimate the part worth utilities of the respective attribute levels. The emergence of online booking engines and data availability create a new possibility to analyze real-life data for parameter-estimation.

• to introduce and compare the MNL and similar discrete choice models;
• to provide an overview of empirical studies measuring the utility choice behavior of air travel and competing transport modes including attributes, their levels, and chosen segments;
• to identify and discuss the state-of-the-art approach in choice model estimation for air travel; and
• to provide open research gaps and future trends.

Adler, T., Falzarano, C. S., & Spitz, G. (2005): Modeling service trade-offs in air itinerary choices. Transportation Research Record , 1915(1), 20–26.

Coldren, G. M., Koppelman, F. S., Kasturirangan, K., & Mukherjee, A. (2003): Modeling aggregate air-travel itinerary shares: logit model development at a major US airline. Journal of Air Transport Management, 9(6), 361–369.

Train, K., & Ebrary, Inc. (2009): Discrete choice methods with simulation (Second ed.). Cambridge New York Melbourne Madrid Cape Town Singapore São Paulo Delhi Mexico City

Topic B11: Three Process Models of Alertness in the Airline Industry

Sleep is a complex phenomenon of human nature and hard to quantify and model. Nevertheless, a few facts about sleep are well known: Once per day, there is a sleeping period of multiple hours to recover. Also, the level of sleepiness feeling varies within a day. These findings have been included in the Three Process Models (TPM) of sleep; they provide a measure for the current sleepiness of a person, its “inner time zone”, and the expected time of falling asleep and waking up. These models can also be used in crew scheduling of airlines as Yildiz, Gzara and Elhedhli (2017) suggest.

• to introduce and compare the specifications of TPM,
• to present different model specifications available the literature,
• to discuss the applicability of TPM in crew scheduling, and

Ingre, M., Van Leeuwen, W., Klemets, T., Ullvetter, C., Hough, S., Kecklund, G., Karlsson, D. & Åkerstedt, T. (2014): Validating and extending the Three Process Model of alertness in airline operations. PloS one , 9 (10).

McCauley, P. J. (2009): Fatigue risk management: modeling the sleep/ wake-based dynamics of performance. Dissertation. The University of Montana

Yildiz, B. C., Gzara, F., & Elhedhli, S. (2017): Airline crew pairing with fatigue: Modeling and analysis. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies , 74 , 99–112.

Topic B12: Airline Schedule Design Models with Customer Choice Behavior

The task of the schedule design (SD) is to assign frequencies and departure times for specific routes by choosing from a set of proposed flights while aiming for the highest possible profit. Schön (2008) states that the schedule in combination with the fare conditions mainly determine passenger choice behavior; similarly, Barnhart and Cohn (2004) call it the “single most important product of an airline”. These arguments underline the large impact of the schedule on profitability and therefore suggest to include customer behavior in the modelling approach to account for the market side. All these influences make the subproblem so complex that Airlines are still challenged by using models for their schedule design and rely on a manual approach as Barnhart, Belobaba and Odoni (2016) suggest.

• to introduce choice-based SD models as well as other solution approaches and the underlying problem,
• to develop a classification for SD models regarding their characteristics,
• to explain one SD model in detail, and

Barnhart, C., & Cohn, A. (2004): Airline schedule planning: Accomplishments and opportunities. Manufacturing & service operations management , 6, 3–22.

Barnhart, C., & Vikrant, V. (2016): Airline Schedule Optimization, in: Belobaba, P., Odoni, A., & Barnhart, C. (Eds.). The global airline industry . John Wiley & Sons.

Schön, C. (2008): Integrated airline schedule design, fleet assignment and pricing. DSOR-Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsinformatik , 5, 73–88.

Wei, K., Vaze, V., & Jacquillat, A. (2019): Airline Timetable Development and Fleet Assignment Incorporating Passenger Choice. Transportation Science .

Topic B13: Scheduling in Sports Leagues

Schedules of professional sport leagues are a huge challenge due to many requirements, multiple parallel competitions (such as cup rounds, national team games, and sharing of infrastructure with other teams), and a huge public interest. Also, a fair assignment needs to be considered while fulfilling the sometimes-conflicting objectives from different stake holders such as players, clubs, fans, sponsors and the media. This problem may be tackled with Integer Programming techniques as Kendall et al. (2010) show.

• to introduce the scheduling problem for sports leagues including requirements and objectives from different stake holders,
• to provide an overview of recent models in the literature and explain one model in detail,
• to create an academical example (optional), and

Bartsch, T., Drexl, A., & Kröger, S. (2006): Scheduling the professional soccer leagues of Austria and Germany. Computers & Operations Research , 33 (7), 1907-1937.

Durán, G., Guajardo, M., & Sauré, D. (2017): Scheduling the South American Qualifiers to the 2018 FIFA World Cup by integer programming. European Journal of Operational Research , 262 (3), 1109-1115.

Kendall, G., Knust, S., Ribeiro, C. C., & Urrutia, S. (2010): Scheduling in sports: An annotated bibliography. Computers & Operations Research , 37 (1), 1–19.

Krumer, A. (2019): Testing the effect of kick-off time in the UEFA Europa League. European Sport Management Quarterly , 1–14.

Topic B14: Optimizing Market Entry Time for New Services – a Customers’ Perspective

Developing new products or services is a very intense project for any company in terms of both time and money. A major challenge in this context is to find the optimal point in time to launch a product, start a service or release an app. From a company’s perspective improved cashflows and early customer feedback motivate an early launch or go-live. From a customer’s perspective the decision for an early or late product launch is diverse: In case of an early launch the customer can benefit from the product or service earlier, but must expect minor quality, more errors or other problems. In case of a later launch, a customer needs to wait longer for the product’s benefits, but receives a well-engineered product with for example higher usability and less defects. A prominent example is software development especially in gaming, which encountered a shift in recent years. More and more companies sell products on a beta test level and thus prepone the software launch and simultaneously the time they receive first cash inflows.

• to provide an overview of empirical studies on finding the optimal market entry time – first with a broad perspective across products and services; second, with a special focus on digital products or services;
• to present articles that try to optimize (at least certain aspects of) the market entry decision; and
• to develop an overview, which aspects such an optimization model should have – focus explicitly on the trade-offs that a customer is facing in this context.

August, T., and Niculescu, M. F. (2013) . The influence of software process maturity and customer error reporting on software release and pricing. Management Science , 59(12), 2702-2726.

Kalish, S., and Lilien, G. L. (1986). A market entry timing model for new technologies. Management Science , 32(2), 194–205.

Zachary, M. A., Gianiodis, P. T., Payne, G. T., and Markman, G. D. (2015). Entry timing: Enduring lessons and future directions. Journal of Management 41(5), 1388-1415.

Topic B15: An Overview of the Research Landscape in Service Process Mapping

In contrast to products services are intangible both for customers and the company offering the services. Nevertheless, a clear understanding of its own services is highly important for any company in order to offer high service quality and to continuously improve its services. Process mapping can help companies to achieve such an understanding of its own processes. Today, there is a variety of interesting tools like service blueprinting, process chain network analysis or customer journey mapping. Although most of these tools are very established and used for several years or even decades, research on these tools is still conducted leading to more insights and further improvements.

• to provide an overview of tools for service process mapping including (but not restricted to) the tools mentioned above,
• to identify the three most interesting tools from your perspective and analyze the research that has been done on these tools during the last ten years (2010–2019), and
• to cluster the research articles to derive a high-level overview of the research landscape on service process mapping in the last decade.

Kazemzadeh, Yahya; Milton, Simon K. and Johnson, Lester W. (2015) . An explication of three service business process modelling approaches. Australian Journal of Business and Economic Studies 1 (2), 40–53.

Sampson, Scott E. (2012). Visualizing Service Operations. Journal of Service Research 15 (2), 182–198.

Topic B16: Optimizing the Sequence of Events in Service Companies

Following the attribute-based utility theory, the overall utility of a product or service can be calculated by adding up the part-worth utilities for every attribute and attribute level of the product or service. As an alternative approach in recent years, research in the field of incident-based utility measurement has strongly increased. This new perspective is focused on services and interprets them as a series of events. Research in this context provides insights on how to order the events to maximize the customers utility or more precisely the customers’ retrospective global evaluation of a service experience. This so called remembered utility can be calculated in two different ways: First, calculated directly using psychological constructs like memory decay and acclimation and second, estimated using sequence effects like peak-effect or end-effect. While research publications in this field increased during the last decade, companies rarely use the insights derived in research.

• to introduce sequence effects and psychological constructs,
• to present an overview of managerial implications derived in research papers on these constructs, and
• to provide own ideas on where and how to use the optimization of the sequence of events in service companies.

Das Gupta, A., Karmarkar, U. S., and Roels, G. (2015) : The design of experiential services with acclimation and memory decay: Optimal sequence and duration. Management Science 62(5), 1278-1296.

Dixon, M. J., and Victorino, L. (2019) : The Sequence of Service: An Affect Perspective to Service Scheduling. In Handbook of Service Science, Volume II, p. 49–76.

Topics in FSS20 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

Thema B01: Einführung eines Customer Journey Mappings in einem digitalen Dienstleistungsunternehmen

Englischer Titel: Introducing Customer Journey Mapping in a Digital Service Company

Im Gegensatz zu physischen Produkten sind Dienstleistungen sowohl für den Kunden als auch für das Unternehmen selbst nicht direkt greifbar. Gerade unternehmensseitig ist ein klares Verständnis der eigenen Dienstleistungen aber elementar wichtig, um eine konsistente Qualität der Dienstleistung bieten und darüber hinaus Verbesserungen vornehmen zu können. Die Möglichkeiten der Darstellung des Dienstleistungsprozesses sind mittlerweile vielfältig und reichen vom Service Blueprinting, über das klassische Customer Journey Mapping bis hin zur PCN-Analyse. Unternehmen stehen entsprechend vor der Aufgabe, ein für ihre Bedürfnisse und Anforderungen adäquates Tool zu wählen und dieses im zweiten Schritt einheitlich über das gesamte Unternehmen an den relevanten Stellen auszurollen.

• aufzuzeigen, welche Möglichkeiten des Customer Journey Mappings es gibt und was ggf. sinnvolle Alternativen sind,
• darzustellen, an welchen Stellen im Unternehmen man Customer Journey Maps sinnvoll einsetzen kann,
• zu analysieren, welche Vor- und Nachteile die einzelnen Alternativen im Kontext der verschiedenen Anwendungsgebiete haben,
• und abschließend zu erläutern, was bei der Einführung eines Customer Journey Mappings in einem digitalen Dienstleistungsunternehmen zu beachten ist.

Thema B02: Measurement of Process Capabilities

The literature agrees on the importance of capabilities possessed by a firm, e.g. for achieving a competitive advantage. Yet, there is some dissent on the best measurement approach, as capabilities are intangible and tacit in nature. In the field of business process management, process capabilities are needed for effective operations. They are thus closely linked to the strategic alignment of operations and value proposition. To assess this strategic fit, process capabilities ought to be measured, which can often only be done indirectly. How can capabilities in general and process capability specifically be measured?

The aim of this bachelor thesis should be:

• to identify approaches given by the existing literature for the measurement of process capabilities and capabilities in general
• to discuss and compare the most relevant approaches

Peng, David Xiaosong; Schroeder, Roger G.; Shah, Rachna (2008): Linking routines to operations capabilities: A new perspective. In Journal of Operations Management 26 (6), pp. 730–748. DOI: 10.1016/j.jom.2007.11.001.

Houy, Constantin; Reiter, Markus; Fettke, Peter; Loos, Peter; Hoesch-Klohe, Konstantin; Ghose, Aditya (2012): Advancing Business Process Technology for Humanity: Opportunities and Challenges of Green BPM for Sustainable Business Activities. In Jan Vom Brocke, Stefan Seidel, Jan Recker (Eds.): Green business process management. Towards the sustainable enterprise, vol. 25. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Progress in IS), pp. 75–92.

Wu, Sarah Jinhui; Melnyk, Steven A.; Flynn, Barbara B. (2010): Operational Capabilities: The Secret Ingredient. In Decision Sciences 41 (4), pp. 721–754. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5915.2010.00294.x.

Thema B03: Product durability – Expert interviews and online evaluations

A product’s durability is a central decision component in product development stage. While decades ago long durability was a key determinant of quality and thus an essential part of product attractiveness, the strategy of planned obsolescence has become very popular in recent years (Guiltinan 2009, Slade 2009).

The objective of the thesis is to conduct expert interviews (e.g., with personnel in electronic markets, fashion markets, etc.) and to statistically evaluate online evaluations (e.g., on Amazon website) of different products with regard to their durability decades ago and nowadays.

The objectives of this thesis are to:

• Conduct expert interviews and statistically evaluate online evaluations of different products
• Derive products (or product categories) that are most affected vs. those that are least affected by planned obsolescence
• If applicable: Derive different business strategies of different companies for the same product (or product category)
• Discuss whether the adopted strategies of planned obsolescence are beneficial based on triple bottom line analysis (see, for example, Elkington 2013)

Elkington, J. (2013). Enter the triple bottom line. In The triple bottom line (pp. 23–38). Routledge.

Slade, G. (2009): Made to break: Technology and obsolescence in America. Harvard University Press.

Thema B04: Kompetenzorientiertes Training für Piloten

Obwohl in der Luftfahrtindustrie ein starker Kostendruck herrscht, legt sie einen sehr starken Fokus auf den Aspekt Sicherheit. Ein Unfall kann nicht nur eine dreistellige Anzahl an Opfern fordern, sondern auch das Vertrauen in einzelne Airlines oder das Fliegen an sich zerstören. Daher werden zahlreiche Systeme mit dem Ziel höchstmöglich Sicherheit geschaffen, sei es in der reinen Luftfahrzeugtechnik, in der Wartung oder auch in der täglichen „Operations“. Auch die Aus- und Weiterbildung von Piloten und anderem Personal ist mit dem Fokus auf größtmögliche Sicherheit gestaltet. Ein wichtiger Bestandteil ist unter anderem das Simulator Training, in dem die richtige Reaktion und Abarbeitung von herausfordernden Zwischenfällen in einer Realitätsnahen Umgebung getestet wird.

Die Form des Trainings hatte sich seit den 1960er Jahren nicht weiterentwickelt, bis sich ICAO, die IATA im Namen der Luftfahrtindustrie und die Pilotenverbände sich zusammengetan haben, um das Konzept des „Evidence-Based Trainings“ für die Industrie zu definieren und Regularien zu erarbeiten. Der Hauptunterschied ist der Wechsel von einem Methodenfokus zu einem Kompetenzfokus, bspw. würden beim Üben von Landungen mit unerwarteten Turbulenzen kurz vor der Landung weniger die isolierte Fähigkeit „Durchstarten bei gefährlichen Landungen“ anstatt den Kompetenzen „Problemlösung und Entscheidungsfindung“ oder „manuelles Verfolgen eines Flugpfades“ geübt werden. Diese Kompetenzen sind dann auch auf andere Herausforderungen, die geringe Gemeinsamkeiten mit den geübten Fähigkeiten haben (hier z.B. eine unverzügliche Landung wegen eines medizinischen Notfalls), übertragbar. Außerdem wird nun auf die individuelle Leistung, Stärken und Schwächen von Piloten eingegangen.

• das Konzept des Kompetenzorientierten Lernens vorzustellen und die Entwicklung von einem Methodenorientierten Ansatz auf einen Kompetenzorientierten Ansatz im beruflichen Lernumfeld sowie dessen Vor- und Nachteile zu erläutern,
• Evidence-based Training inklusive der Kernkompetenzen und benötigten Prozesse für die Umsetzung vorzustellen,
• einen Überblick über Möglichkeiten zur Erfolgsmessung von verschiedenen Trainingskonzepten zu geben und Industriespezifische Vor- und Nachteile zur erarbeiten,
• ein Pilot oder ein Mitglied aus dem Sicherheitsteam einer Fluggesellschaft zu den eigenen Erfahrungen zu interviewen (optional),

Klotz, V. K. (2015): Diagnostik beruflicher Kompetenzentwicklung: Eine wirtschaftsdidaktische Modellierung für die kaufmännische Domäne . Springer-Verlag .

Topics in FSS19 for students “B.Sc. Betreibswirtschaftslehre”

Flight Schedule Design under customer choice

The task of the schedule design (SD) is to assign frequencies and departure times for specific routes by choosing from a set of proposed flights while aiming for the highest possible profit. Schön (2008) states that the schedule in combination with the fare conditions is the main criterion for passengers to choose an airline; similarly, Barnhart and Cohn (2004) call it the “single most important product of an airline”. These arguments underline on one hand the large impact of the schedule on profitability but on the other hand, suggest to include customer behavior in the modelling approach to account for the market side. All these influences make the subproblem so complex that Airlines are still challenged by using models for their schedule design and rely on a manual approach as Barnhart, Belobaba and Odoni (2016) suggest.

Aim of the bachelor thesis should be to,

• introduce schedule design models and compare the most important models,
• to discuss a specific model in detail,
• to create an academical example in Excel (optional),
• to provide open research gaps and future trends. 

Fleet Assignment in the Airline Scheduling Process

For the fleet assignment (FA) the chosen flight legs from schedule design are assigned to a particular fleet of an airline in order to manage the tradeoff between lost revenue from spill of customers and higher operational costs for larger aircraft. The decisions are not taken in isolation for each leg and route, rather, the fixed fleet mix requires an efficient allocation of resources over the whole flight network as Barnhart and Cohn (2004) point out. Usually, the problem is modelled as a multicommodity network flow problem with side constraints and an underlying time-line network. Barnhart, Belobaba and Odoni (2016) suggest that the problem size under this setting is much smaller and it can be solved faster in comparison with other alternative settings.

• introduce fleet assignment models and compare the most important models,
• to create an academical example (optional),

Maintenance Routing

In Maintenance Routing (MR) all assigned flight legs of a particular fleet have to be assigned to specific aircrafts on each day. As the aircraft type is fixed, MR is done for each fleet individually. Following Barnhart and Cohn (2004) as well as Gopalan and Talluri (1998), MR is modelled as a network circulation problem with side constraints and it is only solved for feasibility as different routings do not result in different costs. Others, e.g. Gabteni and Grönkvist (2009), model it as extended Set Partitioning problem. While the assignment of flight legs to aircraft should be feasible due to the fleet assignment, the challenge is to include all required maintenance events for each individual aircraft. These maintenance events can only be undertaken at specific airports; furthermore, it is beneficial to let aircrafts fly to maintenance airports regularly because when a non-critical component breaks it can be fixed quickly. 

• introduce MR models and compare the most important models,

Crew Scheduling for Railways

In all transportation industries several scheduling steps are required to assign available resources to the given demand as the Railway Planning Process by Lusby et al. (2011) shows; somewhat similar steps can be found in the airline industry. The last step is usually crew scheduling which assigns to each trip or flight a human resource (train conductor or pilot, respectively) to operate it. Research has so far focused on the airline industry because airline crews represent one of the biggest cost factors in their business model; for railways there have been fewer models and approaches. While the underlying assumptions and constraints may be different, both model types share the same objective of cost minimization.  

• introduce and compare crew scheduling models from railways and airlines,
• to discuss a specific railway crew scheduling model in detail,

Allocation of Customer demand to Service Facilities in Inventory Location Models

In inventory location models, the service providers decide on locations of facilities subject to stochastic demand and the amount of inventory to be held at each facility. Another essential aspect of the location models is the mechanism by which customer demand is allocated to facilities. Directed Assignment (DA) and Customer Choice (CC) are the two mechanisms used widely in location literature. In DA, the customers are assigned to facilities by a central decision maker such that overall system performance is optimized. On the contrary in CC, customers self-select facilities maximizing their own utilities based on their choice preferences associated to service offerings at the facility.

The objectives of this thesis are to

• review closely the objectives and decisions in Inventory-location models
• compare DA and CC
• comment theoretically, on the relevance of each DA (or CC) to various service facility settings.
• Provide academic examples from the service industry to support the findings of the thesis.

Integration of Customer Behavioral Models in Operations Research

The vast majority of OR models in the literature are inclined towards the “supply” side of the problem. The “demand” side is often neglected, assumed as a known parameter and modeled using simplifying assumptions. These assumptions are often not justified for real-world applications.  Therefore, policy makers encounter huge uncertainties associated to customer demand while planning for their systems. To bridge the demand and supply gap, it is crucial to understand customer patronization behavior and preferences associated to service offerings. These preferences are formalized with discrete choice models. The mathematical models associated to planning problems (e.g. design and system configurations) are often Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) models.

• review OR models, in which demand and supply interact closely and where integration of customer behavioral models might result in better decisions from policy maker’s perspective
• discuss methods, to integrate discrete choice models in MILP and resulting complexity of the mathematical models.

Choice-based Revenue Management: Theory and methods

Revenue Management (RM) as a discipline has its roots soaked in the Airline Industry. At present RM is used widely across many industries, ranging from transportation to broadcasting and advertising. In previous literature, demand is often assumed to be independent.  In other words, it was assumed that customers would never substitute one product for another, but instead would consider the purchase of a specific product only and, if this was not available, not to purchase at all.  However, in case of airlines, by the early 21st century, the independent demand assumption turned out to be problematic due to the increased competition and visibility of different fares.

• review the design and estimation of discrete choice models for RM
• comment theoretically on, how to control demand via product availability over a finite period of time while accounting for customer’s choice behavior

Service Network Design in Face of Stochastic demand and Congestion

Network design and facility location are of great importance for a wide range of public and private firms (eg, in the health care industry). In location problems with congestion, customers generate streams of stochastic demand, and service times are uncertain. This combination leads to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. This bachelor thesis only focuses on immobile servers i.e. server is fixed and customers has to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g. supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of immobile servers. The main decisions involved in designing such a network is where to locate these facilities and what should be the capacities of the servers at these selected facility locations. Most of the literature assumes that the waiting rooms at the services facilities are infinite. Also, the existing location models with congested immobile facilities focus on the expected waiting time and pays less attention towards other performance measures percentage of blocked or delayed customers.

• review literature streams which capture finiteness of the waiting rooms at service facilities
• present a review of the existing models with the focus on objective function, queuing model and decisions involved
• comment theoretically, on how service performance measures other than expected waiting time can be integrated into location models subject to congestion

Public Sector Facility Location Planning

Facility location planning in the public sector is different from private sector in terms of the objective functions considered by the planners. The objective functions considered in public sectors are often social cost minimization, access, efficiency, and equity. Facility location planning in the public sector has a wide range of applications: Bike sharing systems, simultaneous bus scheduling and depot location planning, electric vehicle charging station planning, healthcare facility location planning, and school location planning.

• review the academic literature on the public sector facility location planning with focus on objective functions considered, approaches to include more and more relevant planning decision factors
• suggest directions for future research
• Provide academic examples from the public sector applications to support the findings of the thesis

Revenue Management in Railway Companies

Revenue Management (RM) for Railway Companies is a small but active research field. Railway business can be divided in passenger and cargo traffic, i.e. transporting people in regional or long-distance trains and transporting freight in cargo trains. Although both branches are dealing with railway traffic, they have significant differences in their business model and revenue management models have to be adapted on these special properties.

Since a working paper of Armstrong, Meissner (2010) is currently the only paper that gives an overview of RM in the rail industry, the objective is to do a literature review for railway RM with a focus on recent contributions in renowned journals. The literature review should include explanations of the different approaches in research and compare/ distinguish them among each other.

The relationship between income and happiness

Sustainability in general terms is about maximizing social well-being in the world, from today to infinite future. Well-being can be well characterized by happiness of people. While for long income was assumed to improve happiness, doubts have risen in (recent) past. The research on happiness topics thus experienced a major attention. For example, the aspiration-based theory was developed, claiming that income only leads to short-term but not to long-term happiness. The goal of this thesis is thus to examine the “income-happiness” relationship from different perspectives.

Aim of the bachelor thesis should be to

• Present a brief historical development of the “income-happiness” beliefs in scientific world
• Differentiate between qualitative and quantitative literature and classify quantitative literature according to Bertrand and Fransoo (2002)
• Identify the latest status of scientific view on the “income-happiness” relation
• Conclude with ideas for future research in this field
• Discuss, how a good prescriptive model for the relationship between income and happiness could look like
• Highlight the 5 most relevant contributions to this field of research from your personal perspective. Point out the facts that lead you to the selection of these contributionsto discuss a specific model in detail,

Does human dynamism and thrust for new truly drive growth?

Sustainability in general terms is about maximizing social well-being in the world, from today to infinite future. Economic growth was for long believed to be the main (and sometimes the only) driver of well-being increase. Economic growth of course directly translates to growth of the corporate sector in the industrialized world. One of the main claims is as follows: “Growth and profitability on corporate level are driven by two factors: 1) The human self-interest and dynamism in terms of innovativeness and thrust for the new; 2) The human desire of increasing power compared to their peers”

The goal of this thesis is to examine the above-mentioned claims and develop an own qualitative model of growth drivers.

• Review the literature for drivers of growth and profitability on corporate level
• Identify potential corporate concepts and approaches in pursuit for growth
• If applicable: Has the perspective or the focus changed over time?
• Identify the latest status of scientific view on the growth drivers
• Develop an own qualitative model on the interplay between human dynamism, human desires, growth and other factors
• Highlight the 5 most relevant contributions to this field of research from your personal perspective. Point out the facts that lead you to the selection of these contributions

The throwaway mentality in the developed world and the influence of planned obsolescence

Slade (2009) described that in North America over 100 million cell phones and 300 million personal computers were discarded each year in the beginning of the 20 th century. Certainly, North America is not alone with such a development. The throwaway mentality is already in place in Europe and other regions. Planned obsolescence is a policy of designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, i.e. no longer functional after a certain period of time. The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases.

The objective of the thesis is to provide a review on the topic of throwaway mentality, its drivers, development over time and impact on environment and humans. A guiding question is to identify the main products and industries, this phenomenon occurs most in and the reasons for this observation.

• Review the development of throwaway mentality in the world
• Identify main products and industries, this phenomenon occurs most in
• Highlight statistical development of throwaway mentality in different regions of the world and identify the regions where this mentality is most advanced
• Identify empirical evidence regarding consumer attitudes driving this phenomenon
• Implications of this phenomenon on environment and humans
• Potential strategies that can help to mitigate this phenomenon and its harmful effects
• What future research in this field should focus on
• Optional: Highlight the 5 most relevant contributions to this field of research from your personal perspective. Point out the facts that lead you to the selection of these contributionsto provide open research gaps and future trends. 

Literature review on transportation planning process aiming for environmental impact reduction

The transportation industry plays an important role in today’s world. Not only does it transport products and goods, it also connects people and nations. A downside of the growing transportation practice is the impact on environment, in terms of emissions. Belobaba, Odoni and Barnhart (2016) describe the Airline planning process (Chapter 7), which can be generalized to the transportation industry. It aims at planning all relevant processes. Operations research typically focuses on the four-step Scheduling Process (Chapter 8) and Barnhart and Cohn (2004) argue that the schedule is the main product.

The objective of the thesis is to critically review and classify the literature regarding the route planning and schedule design and approaches to manage emissions, present the state-of-the-art, and assess the potential to achieve environmental improvements. Focus should be placed on quantitative Operations Management or Operations Research models.

• Review the importance of transportation industry (focus on aviation) for GHG emissions
• Describe the Planning Process and point out the importance of Route planning and Schedule Design with respect to the environmental impact
• Review the different approaches of incorporating two objectives (economic and environmental) into the same model
• Optional: Highlight the 5 most relevant contributions to this field of research from your personal perspective. Point out the facts that lead you to the selection of these

The Potential of leasing/ servicizing as a sustainable business model

Sustainability in general terms is about maximizing social well-being in the world, from today to infinite future. Economic growth was for long believed to be the main (and sometimes the only) driver of well-being increase. However, the increasing number of products manufactured and sold increases the impact of the economy on the environment. Leasing or servicization is a business strategy to sell the functionality of a product rather than the product it-self. It has been argued that leasing/ servicizing business models are environmentally friendly as they encourage manufacturers to take more responsibility for their products and to offer products with higher efficiency. Motivated by these arguments, an increasing number of papers investigate the economic and environmental potential of leasing/ servicizing business models.

The objective of the Thesis is to critically review and synthesize the scientific literature, assess the potential of leasing/ servicizing as a sustainable business model, and identify open questions as future research opportunities.

• Review and classify the literature for leasing/ servicizing business models and identify key characteristics of these business models
• Highlight the links of such business models to sustainability and assess their potential as sustainable business models
• Develop an own qualitative model on the interplay between business model, economic success and environmental impact
• Identify open questions as future research opportunities
• Optional: Highlight the 5 most relevant contributions to this field of research from your personal perspective. Point out the facts that lead you to the selection of these contributions

Finding the best sequence of events – theory and applications

The sequence of events plays a crucial role for the customers’ evaluation of a service experience. With the optimal sequence, both repurchase and positive word-of-mouth can be maximized. Companies can alter the sequence of their service events in order to influence the retrospective global evaluation of their service experience. This remembered utility is either directly calculated using psychological constructs like memory decay and acclimation or estimated using sequence effects like peak-effect or end-effect.

This bachelor thesis should review both of these approaches and explain the diverse ways of calculating remembered utility. A simple application example might illustrate the differences of the approaches and make them more transparent. In a last step, the thesis should derive guidelines on how companies should schedule their service events.

A methodological overview on measuring schedule preferences

To further improve customers’ likelihood to (re)purchase, a company can focus on the utility of its products or services. For products, utility is usually measured through conjoint analysis, a popular technique in the field of multi-attribute utility theory. According to this theory, every product can be described through different attributes and the respective attribute levels. The same logic can also be applied to services with some limitations. Alternatively, there is also an incident-based approach that is especially designed for services. Every service is here interpreted as a series of events and the goal is to find the right order and time of events to maximize the utility of the schedule.

The objective of this thesis is to provide a review on both fundamental and most recent literature on attribute-based and incident-based utility measurement. The focus should be on finding, explaining and evaluating empirical studies that try to measure customers’ utility for a schedule or series of events. A broad focus should be set without restrictions to service design or scheduling.

Service design as an interdisciplinary research discipline

Services play a significant role in our economy in terms of number of employees, sales volumes and market size. Any company competing for these goals should set high priorities on designing and optimizing its services. Traditional methods of product design can only be adapted to some extent – leading to the establishment of service design as a research field. Researchers working in this field usually just focus and problems and research questions within their respective research discipline. Nevertheless, only by analyzing service design decisions integratively new holistic approaches can be derived.

This bachelor thesis should first provide an overview of the research disciplines working on questions of service design and present their key interest in that topic. Based on that the focus should be set on the interface of marketing and operations research by presenting current research papers linking tools and techniques from both areas. In a final step, the importance and strength of such an integrated perspective should be discussed and future research opportunities should be presented.

Topics in FSS19 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

Industry 4.0 and the Circular Economy for Sustainable Operations

What is the circular economy (CE) and how can Industry 4.0 and Digitization help to manage in line with CE principles and make operations more sustainable? The objective of the thesis is to critically review and classify the empirical and normative literature, present the state-of-the-art, and assess the potential of Industry 4.0 to achieve sustainable operations.

Planned Obsolescence in Product Design – Critical Review and Servicizing Opportunities

Planned obsolescence is a policy of designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, i.e. no longer functional after a certain period of time. The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases. The objective of the thesis is to provide a literature review on the topic and thereby, answer the following question: which products/ industries typically apply the policy of planned obsolescence? What is the economic rationale for planned obsolescence? What are the pitfalls and critical assumptions underlying the planned obsolescence rationale? What empirical evidence of consumer attitudes to product obsolescence do we have? What other strategies such as service differentiation could help to mitigate product obsolescence?

Methoden zur Präferenzmessung von Zeitplänen  

Der Nutzen eines Produktes oder einer Dienstleistung stellt ein wichtiges Konstrukt für jedes Unternehmen dar und hat direkte Auswirkungen auf die (Wieder-) Kaufwahrscheinlichkeit der Kunden und somit auch auf Absatz und Gewinn des Unternehmens. Bei Produkten wird dieser Nutzen mit Hilfe der Conjoint-Analyse gemessen, die einen weitverbreiteten Ansatz im Bereich der multiattributiven Nutzentheorie darstellt. Demnach lässt sich jedes Produkt durch verschiedene Attribute beschreiben, die jeweils wiederum unterschiedliche Ausprägungen annehmen können. Auch wenn sich die Methodik mit einigen Einschränkungen auch auf Dienstleistungen anwenden lässt, gibt es mit der ereignisbasierten Nutzenmodellierung einen speziell für Dienstleistungen entwickelten Ansatz. Demnach wird jede Dienstleistung im Sinne eines Zeitplans als Serie von einzelnen Ereignissen interpretiert, die dann zur Maximierung des Nutzens in die richtige Reihenfolge gebracht und zum richtigen Zeitpunkt terminiert werden. Trotz der Vorteile dieses neuen Ansatzes stellt gerade die immense Anzahl an alternativen Zeitplänen / Dienstleistungskonfigurationen eine große Schwierigkeit dar. 

Im Rahmen der Bachelorarbeit sollte zunächst die grundlegende und aktuellste Literatur zur ereignisbasierten Nutzenmodellierung zusammengetragen werden. Darauf aufbauend gilt es, empirische Studien vorzustellen, die den Kundennutzen von Zeitplänen versuchen zu messen. Inhaltlich sollte die Suche einen breiten Fokus haben und nicht zwingend auf das Gebiet der Dienstleistungsgestaltung begrenzt sein. Abschließend sollte die Eignung der verschiedenen Lösungsansätze zur Reduzierung der oben dargestellten Komplexität diskutiert und nach Möglichkeit verglichen werden.

Dienstleistungsgestaltung an der Schnittstelle zwischen Marketing und Operations  

In unserer Wirtschaft, in der der tertiäre Sektor eine maßgebliche Rolle in Bezug auf Mitarbeiterzahlen, Absatzvolumen und Marktausdehnung einnimmt, ist die Gestaltung und Optimierung von Dienstleistungen von großer Bedeutung. Klassische Methoden der Produktgestaltung lassen sich nicht oder nur eingeschränkt übertragen, so dass sich ein eigenes Forschungsfeld – das Service Design – entwickelt hat. Wissenschaftler verschiedener Disziplinen haben sich dem Thema angenommen und beantworten Fragestellungen, die sich meist auf ihr jeweiliges Forschungsgebiet fokussieren. Gerade aber durch die Verknüpfung verschiedener Bereich können ganzheitlichere Ansätze entwickelt werden. 

Diese Bachelorarbeit sollte zunächst eine grundlegende Einführung in das Service Design geben und die verschiedenen Disziplinen aufzeigen, die sich dem Thema annehmen. Anschließend sollte der Fokus jedoch ausschließlich auf die Schnittstelle zwischen Marketing und Operations Management gelegt werden. Hier gilt es, aktuelle Studien und Forschungsbeiträge zusammenzutragen, die beide Sichtweisen miteinander verknüpfen und so integrierte Lösungsansätze aufzeigen. Abschließend sollten die Bedeutung der ganzheitlichen Betrachtungsweise bewertet und zukünftige Forschungsfelder an der Schnittstelle diskutiert werden.

Modelle im Störungsmanagement von Airlines

In der Airline Industrie gibt es vier Planungsschritte, um den Flugplan, die Routen für einzelne Flotten sowie die Einteilung der einzelnen Flugzeuge und Crewmitglieder festzulegen – alle mit dem Ziel, den Gewinn zu maximieren bzw. die Kosten zu minimieren. Diese Pläne sind optimal für den Fall, dass die Umweltzustände wie erwartet eintreten und keine Störungen durch Wetter, Defekte, Staus oder Streiks auftreten. Wenn Störungen auftreten, ist es wahrscheinlich, dass durch die vielen operativen Regeln der ursprünglich optimale Plan nicht mehr zulässig ist und umgeplant werden muss. Dies betrifft sowohl die Flüge als auch Flugzeuge, Crews und Passagiere. Hierfür wurden schon zahlreiche Optimierungsmodelle aufgestellt, die sich entweder auf einzelne Planungsschritte fokussieren oder mehrere ineinander integrieren. Außerdem liegt der Fokus auf der schnellen Lösung der Probleme, weil sofort eine Entscheidung getroffen werden muss. 

Ziel der Bachelorarbeit ist es, 

• neue wichtige Quellen nach Clausen et al. (2010) zu finden und aktuelle Trends aufzuzeigen,
• das Modell von Barnhart und Vaze (2016, Seite 274) zu diskutieren,
• ein akademisches Beispiel aufzusetzen (optional),
• offene Forschungsfelder und –lücken darzustellen.

Topics in FSS18 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Franchise Distribution Systems: International Service Network Expansion

In the 1950s, the setting stone of modern day business format franchising was laid with the foundation of the two fast-food restaurant franchises, well-known today and growing till date: Burger King and McDonald’s (Rajiv2014 JMC). The profit-driven, Franchise Distribution Systems (FDS), benefit in terms of increasing sales; primarily by adding superior locations to their service network. This is evident from the current expansion trends of the veteran brands (Ikea, Subway, KFC) to the US-based restaurant franchise, Sweetgreen, blowout hair salon franchise Drybar and many more upcoming franchises.

The objectives of this thesis are: a) to review closely the objectives and decision making process of FDS, when expanding internationally and b) comment theoretically, on the importance to strike balance between maximizing system revenue and minimizing the cannibalization of sales of existing outlets, when a firm expands its FDS. Provide academic examples from the franchise industry to support the findings of the thesis.

Convenience in Service Industry

In highly competitive businesses, offering similar services or products, the service provider needs to strengthen its position in the market with respect to its competitors; by offering a unique and convenient service experience.  In order to attract a new market segment, or gain a competitive advantage in serving an existing segment, service providers often focus on delivering the ultimate convenient product or service. For example, a pizza delivery service can offer convenience to its customer at different steps of its service process: ordering (phone and online), payment (cash, credit/ debit card, online payment (e.g. paypal)) and delivery (pleasant wait times).

With the increase in number of dual-worker families, the service industry has witnessed a rise in convenience consumption. The desire to save, or at least to manage time better, is an important factor in convenience consumption.

The objectives of this thesis are: a) to review how the definition of convenience has evolved in the convenience literature and b) discuss measures/ methods, adopted by service providers, to offer and improve service convenience. Provide academic examples from the service industry to support the findings of the thesis.

Customer’s Purchasing Behavior, when Wait-times Infer Quality

Customers encounter queues in everyday life, whether queuing up virtually for ordering food online or physically while withdrawing cash at ATM. Due to demand and service time uncertainty at a service station, queues are unavoidable. Therefore, it becomes important for the service provider to understand a customer’s threshold (or satisfaction) in terms of waiting time.

In case of service facilities, e.g. supermarket, wait times at checkout are perceived negatively. Huge volume of OR/ OM literature focuses on strategies and technology used by service providers to minimize wait times. On the other hand, long shipping delays of Apple’s iPad is associated with high demand and superior quality. Also, tourists while selecting a restaurant are more confident about the restaurant in terms of quality, if it has longer wait times.

The objective of the thesis is to review observational learning literature, to derive relations between wait times and customer purchasing behavior, along with academic examples from service industry.

Competitive Stochastic Location Models with Congestion

Stochastic location models are facility location models where consumers generate streams of stochastic demands for service and service times are stochastic. This combination leads to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. This bachelor thesis only focuses on immobile servers i.e. server is fixed and customers has to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g. supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of immobile servers. The main decisions involved in designing such a network is where to locate these facilities and what should be the capacities of the servers at these selected facility locations. Some of the models in literature do not consider the competition due to the existing facilities in the region of interest.

The aim of thesis is to review literature streams which capture competition due to existing facilities in stochastic location models with congestion. The thesis should present a review of the existing models with the focus on objective function, queuing model and decisions involved.

Assortment Planning in Retail Industry

The physical distribution channel stores in the retail category sell products ranging from specialty retail industry, like electronic goods, automotive, home furnishing, and apparel to products of daily usage at convenience stores.

A retailer’s assortment is the set of products carried in each store at each point in time. The objective of assortment planning is to specify an assortment that maximizes sales or gross margin subject to various constraints, such as a limited budget for purchase of products, limited shelf space for displaying products, and a variety of miscellaneous constraints such as a desire to have at least two vendors for each type of product.

The objective of this thesis is to review the academic literature on assortment planning, to overview the approaches to assortment planning used by several retailers and to suggest directions for future research.

Modelling Remembered Utility Using Psychological Constructs

The utility of its products or services is very important for any company. It directly affects consumers’ likelihood to buy a product and thus has a crucial impact on economic success. Considering the process characteristic of services event-based utility modelling is a new approach to better align customer preferences and services. According to this perspective, a service can be described as a series of events, each generating instant utility to the customer. In order to derive an aggregate measure of service utility, a remembered utility value needs to be calculated as a function of these instant utilities. In this formulation different psychological constructs like acclimation or memory decay might play a role. 

The first goal of this thesis is to come up with a short introduction to sequence-based service design. In a second step, the thesis should present a broad range of psychological constructs and their impact on the remembered utility. The pros and cons of these constructs might add additional value to the thesis.

Menu-based Conjoint-Analysis as a Tool for Service Design

One way of increasing the attractiveness of products or services is to maximize the respective utility from a customer’s point of view. According to the attribute-based utility modelling concept every product or service can be described with a list of determinant attributes and their levels. In order to derive utility values for each attribute level, conjoint analysis (CA) is an established tool in theory and practice. During the past decades a variety of different CA techniques like conjoint value analysis (CVA) or choice-based conjoint (CBC) has emerged. One technique that best reflects the menu-type of choice situation of different services or products is menu-based conjoint analysis.

In a first step of this bachelor thesis, an introduction to the concept and different forms of conjoint analysis should be presented. Afterwards, a deep-dive into the technique of menu-based conjoint analysis is required. In a last step, current and future areas of application of this approach should be analyzed and discussed – with a strong focus on the strengths and weaknesses compared to other related techniques.

Current State and Future Research of Service Bundling

A service bundle can be defined as a combination of several different services, which are sold in one single package. Examples are widespread and range from telecommunication providers offering phone, mobile and TV solutions to season subscriptions for sports events. The concept of bundling is already well established in a product or goods context with several years of research in this area.

The goal of this bachelor thesis is to provide and introduction to the topic of bundling in general and to compare similarities and differences between the bundling of goods and services. Beside of key concepts and important quantitative models in this field, the thesis should also collect and present ideas for future research.

Revenue Management for Ski Resorts  

During the last years, ski resorts started to use revenue management techniques. With different prices for their tickets (dependent on booking time, validity etc.) they try to attract customers and therefore increase revenues. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the current situation in the ski resort market, analyze the business model of ski resorts and describe how/ why revenue management can be applied. Furthermore, a concept for a fictional ski resort should be developed and explained. Optionally the thesis can include a survey/ interviews with ski resort representatives to get deeper insights and describe the topic from a practical perspective.

Revenue Management for Small Enterprises

Revenue Management (RM) techniques are typically applied in medium or large sized companies. Still RM could also be beneficial for smaller companies like a family-run hotel, local concert hall or a small car rental company. The thesis should analyze if and how RM techniques can be used in small enterprises. This includes the analysis of selected business models (e.g. hotel, ticket office), analysis of necessary data for RM models and interviews with owners of such companies. The goal is to develop a blueprint for RM in small companies.

Airline Crew Scheduling: Current state of research

The Airline Crew Scheduling problem is one of the most complex crew scheduling problems in transportation due to various reasons: Airlines often have a large number of flights to be covered and many operational requirements due to union agreements, regulatory agencies and the flight network infrastructure which all impose constraints in the problem. As Kasirzadeh, Saddoune and Soumis (2017) point out, the two major techniques to solve the Airline Crew Scheduling problem are the Set Covering Problem and the Set Partitioning Problem. Furthermore, they point out that the whole Airline Crew Scheduling Problem is split in two subproblems: The Crew pairing problem creates pairings by deciding which flights are combined to become a work schedule of several days for a crew while in the crew assignment problem these pairings are assigned to particular crew members for a planning period such as a month. E.g. a bidding approach, where each crew member bids on vacation times and particular flights, is used. 

Task of the thesis is to compare the different current approaches in the Airline Crew Scheduling Problem and to provide current research gaps as well as trends in research. Optionally, a small academical example of a crew pairing problem may be modelled.

Behavioral Scheduling: Current state of research

The Airline Crew Scheduling problem helps to decide which pilot is assigned to which flight and vice versa. It is one of the most complex crew scheduling problems in transportation due to various reasons: Airlines often have a large number of flights to be covered and many operational requirements due to union agreements, regulatory agencies and the flight network infrastructure which all impose constraints in the problem. While the basic problem is well discussed and solved by various contributions, Yildiz, Gzara, and Elhedhli’s (2017) provided a new aspect by including behavioral factors such as sleepiness into a model. The aim of their model is to avoid assigning duties which are especially tiring for pilots in order to decrease the risk of accidents in the airline industry; therefore they go beyond the single objective of only minimizing cost.

Task of the thesis is to recap Yildiz, Gzara, and Elhedhli’s (2017) model with focus on the scheduling part and to compare it to other scheduling models from the Airline Crew Scheduling Problem or other scheduling problems. These models should include sleeping and/ or other behavioral factors. Optionally, a small academical example of a crew pairing problem may be modelled.

Railway Rescheduling – Using Passenger Feedback for Dispatching Decisions

The main goal of railway rescheduling is to take dispatching decisions if the actual timetable is no longer feasible, e.g. after disruptions. But to determine what the best decision is, depends from case to case and even from passenger to passenger. Therefore it could be very helpful to have further information about the passengers’ travel plans. In Stelzer et al. (2016) the exchange of information between passengers and transportation companies is analyzed. The thesis should describe how they can use the customer feedback for dispatching decisions and to improve the service quality.

Delay Propagation in Railway Networks

Punctuality is an important topic in railway scheduling. Delays cause a lot of problems for railway companies and inconvenience for passengers. Several models exist to cope with delays, e.g. taking wait-depart decisions, creating robust timetables, etc. But to improve solution models or timetables it is helpful to understand the propagation of delays in networks. The goal of the thesis is to explain how the delay propagation can be quantified and included in delay management models.

Buffer Allocation for Robust Railway Timetables

Timetables for railways are often periodic so they can be easily kept in mind. But this is not always the best structure to cope with unforeseen events like disruptions. In literature several approaches exist to create robust timetables or to make a timetable more robust against disruptions. This can be done e.g. by adding buffer times in the schedule. The thesis should contain an overview of buffer allocation methods for timetables and a comparison of them.

Railway Timetable Adaptions by Optimizing Stopping Patterns

Railway operators create timetables for customer needs and in regard to the infrastructure of train lines. Sometimes these timetables have to be adapted due to unforeseen events. In the case of e.g. insufficient capacity of a train it might be necessary to pass a station without stopping. In literature several works exist that analyze train stopping patterns. The goal of the thesis is to explain the different patterns and their use for timetable adaptions.

Topics in FSS18 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in Revenue Management

To measure the performance of a company, typically predetermined KPIs are used. As these KPIs are also very interesting for financial investors/ stockholders, companies started to publish them in their annual reports. In companies that use revenue management techniques (e.g. airlines, hotels) the Yield or RASK are popular KPIs.

The thesis should 1. present, explain and discuss possible KPIs in RM context, 2. study annual reports and press releases of companies that typically use Revenue Management techniques and present the findings to give an overview of used KPIs in practice. 3. Analyze if there is a relationship between financial performance of the company and the amount/ relevance of Revenue Management content in the annual report.

Attribut-basierte Nutzenmodellierung im Dienstleistungsbereich

Ein elementares Mittel, um Güter oder Dienstleistungen attraktiv für den Kunden zu gestalten und das entsprechende Absatzpotenzial zu entfalten, ist die Maximierung des Nutzens aus Kundensicht. Je größer der Kundennutzen ist, desto höher sind Kaufwahrscheinlichkeit und Zahlungsbereitschaft der Kunden. Um diesen Nutzen zu erfassen, kann die Attribut-basierte Nutzenmodellierung als ein mögliches Konzept herangezogen werden. Güter oder Dienstleistungen werden demnach durch mehrere Attribute beschrieben, wobei jedes dieser Attribute verschiedene Ausprägungen annehmen kann. Unterschiedliche Ausprägungen können entsprechend unterschiedlich große Nutzen für den Kunden entfalten. Die dem Modell zugrundeliegende Datenerhebung erfolgt dabei meist mithilfe einer Conjoint-Analyse.

Die vorliegende Arbeit sollte zunächst eine kurze theoretische Einführung sowohl in die Grundlagen der Attribut-basierten Nutzenmodellierung, als auch in die Empirie der Conjoint-Analyse geben. Darauf aufbauend gilt es, Anwendungsbeispiele im Dienstleistungsbereich zu sammeln und strukturiert darzustellen. Abschließend sollten dann Stärken und Schwächen der Modellierung im Dienstleistungskontext gerade auch im Hinblick auf den Prozess-Charakter von Dienstleistungen aufgezeigt werden.

Ereignis-basierte Nutzenmodellierung – Grundlagen der Psychologie und ihre Anwendbarkeit auf Dienstleistungen

Der Nutzen von Gütern oder Dienstleistungen ist ein zentrales Entscheidungskriterium in jedem Unternehmen. Er bestimmt, wie gut das Angebot vom Kunden angenommen wird und ist entsprechend ein Wegbereiter für den wirtschaftlichen Erfolg eines Unternehmens. Während im Allgemeinen zur Modellierung des Kundennutzens meist Attribut-basierte Modelle und Erhebungsmethoden wie die Conjoint-Analyse eingesetzt wurden, hat sich speziell im Bereich der Dienstleistungen eine neue Herangehensweise etabliert. In dieser Ereignis-basierten Perspektive wird eine Dienstleistung als Prozess gesehen, der sich über mehrere Ereignisse hinweg abspielt. Jedes dieser Ereignisse generiert einen bestimmten direkt messbaren Nutzen beim Kunden. Um übergeordnet für die Dienstleistung einen Gesamtnutzen zu ermitteln, braucht es jedoch Regeln, die über die rein additive Modellierung hinausgehen.

Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es entsprechend im ersten Schritt, die unterschiedlichen Formen des Nutzens (erwarteter, unmittelbarer und erinnerter Nutzen) zu definieren. Im Speziellen soll dann ein Fokus auf den erinnerten Nutzen gelegt werden. Hierzu gilt es, die unterschiedlichen Regeln zusammenzutragen, mit denen sich der retrospektive Nutzen modellieren lässt. Der Fokus sollte dabei möglichst breit gewählt und auch Studien fernab des Dienstleistungsbereiches untersucht werden. Interessante Ansätze lassen sich dabei u.a. in Studien aus dem Umfeld der Psychologie bzw. Medizin finden.

The main goal of railway rescheduling is to take dispatching decisions if the actual timetable is no longer feasible, e.g. after disruptions. But to determine what the best decision is, depends from case to case and even from passenger to passenger. Therefore it could be very helpful to have further information about the passengers travel plans. In Stelzer et al. (2016) the exchange of information between passengers and transportation companies is analyzed. The thesis should describe how they can use the customer feedback for dispatching decisions and to improve the service quality.

Topics in FSS17 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Bridging the Gap between Facility Location Models and Supply Chain Management

Given a set of customer demand nodes and potential facility locations, the location of new facilities and allocating customer demand to newly located facilities are main decisions of facility location models. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing and controlling the operations of the supply chain; spanning from the point-of-origin to the point-of-consumption in an efficient way. Researchers in (service) system design often discuss the design of distribution systems without taking into account the whole supply chain. The output of the facility location problem is strategic input for supply chain network design. Therefore, it is important to study features and decisions most important for supply chain planning; and need to be captured in facility location models.

The aim of thesis is to review role of facility location models in SCM, with academic examples from various application industries. The thesis should point out drawbacks of existing facility location models with respect to the decision-making process in integrated supply chain planning.

Stochastic Location Models with Congestion for mobile servers

Stochastic location models are facility location models where consumers generate streams of stochastic demands for service and service times are stochastic. This combination leads to congestion. This bachelor thesis only focuses on mobile servers i.e. server travels to customer’s location to provide service. Delivery services (food, grocery, online purchased goods etc.), emergency medical and firefighting services are examples of mobile servers.

The aim of thesis is to review stochastic location models for mobile facilities subject to congestion. The review should classify different existing mathematical models based on the objective function, involved decision variables, congestion modeling (explicit or implicit) and solution procedures (exact or heuristic).

Response Time in Public Services

In day to day life, in cases of natural calamities, criminal encounter, medical emergency, and fire, responsiveness of the concerned public service provider plays a vital role in deciding the fate of human life at risk. In other public (or formerly public) services like telephone, electricity, and consumer gas supply, maintenance of water supply and sewage disposal systems responsiveness of service provider is a competitive priority and hence an important element for creating value for the customer.

Responsiveness being a measure of delivery performance can be measured in terms of the average response time to a random call for service. In Operations Research terminology, this problem can be rephrased as estimating average response time for spatially distributed networks of demand nodes serviced by mobile servers. The demand nodes can be thought of as representing city neighborhoods connected by roads. Each node represents demands for service originating from that neighborhood. The demands are generated stochastically and the service units, stationed in service centers, go and service these calls according to a preselected policy.

The aim of thesis is to review mathematical formulations related to response time approximations for public services.

Service Process Improvement: the Customer’s Waiting Experience

Promptness of service and the customer’s perceived waiting experience (e.g. at checkout) or related service attributes can have a significant impact on value-to-the-customer. Therefore, service process improvement should include proactively managing the customer’s wait in a better way to improve customer’s perception of wait times and hence strengthen the competitive position of service provider.

The objective of thesis is to review strategies and technology used by service providers to make customer’s waiting experience a pleasant one.

Modern Trends in Revenue Management

The increasing availability of data in businesses like e-commerce, online advertising, retailing etc. made it possible to apply new methods for price optimization (like Google’s way of selling advertising space or grocery stores with electronic shelf labels). This thesis should identify and analyze these new approaches and compare it to traditional revenue management techniques to derive implications for the field of revenue management.

Customer Choice Behavior in Revenue Management

Traditional Revenue Management models typically assume that customer’s buying decision only depends on the price of the sold product. During the past years, customer choice behavior (i.e. applying additional criteria like quality of the product compared to other products) was integrated in many RM-models to capture the effects of a more complex buying decision. This thesis should review and explain current approaches of customer choice behavior in Revenue Management and identify differences compared to traditional RM models.

Overbooking in Revenue Management

One important aspect in many Revenue Management models is to determine the optimal number of overbookings (i.e. number of sold tickets beyond the available fixed capacity). For example it is quite common in the airline industry to sell a number of tickets that exceeds the available seat capacity on the airplane. This thesis should explain the idea of overbooking in Revenue Management and give an overview about current approaches in literature. In addition it should be briefly discussed how these approaches could be applied in different industries.

Network Revenue Management

Companies with a complex structure of products (Lufthansa or Deutsche Bahn with many flights/ connections in the network) face the problem that multiple products use the same capacity.  For example, the Lufthansa flights from Hamburg to Bangkok (via FRA) and from Düsseldorf to Bangkok (via FRA) both use the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok. A Network Revenue Management model addresses this sharing of capacity and finds optimal prices for both connecting flights.

This thesis should explain the idea of Network Revenue Management in more detail and give an overview of current Network Revenue Management models in literature.

Conjoint Analysis with Experiential Attributes – A Literature Review

Conjoint analysis is a well-established tool to evaluate customers’ attitude towards a product or service. The disciplines of application are widespread – ranging from engineering and architecture to medicine and business. Using verbal representations, 2D or 3D models as well as prototypes each discipline takes advantage of this technique differently. Studying these applications raises two questions with high importance for business in general and service design in specific: 1) Are new procedures of conjoint analysis superior to classical forms? And if so, 2) how can a service process alternatively be described instead of a verbal representation? Advances in technology might improve realism of the hypothetical situation and help to better capture process attributes. Virtual reality techniques may be of interest in this context putting the customer in an active role instead of a passive observer.

Thus, the thesis should elaborate on the following questions and tasks: What forms of representations of a product or service with experiential attributes have been used in conjoint analysis independent of a specific research area? Did these studies prove a benefit of a certain technique over the other? How can virtual reality help to better capture process attributes and which studies did already apply it? Which implications can be drawn with regard to the research design? Are there any methodological changes beyond the interviewing technique itself?

On the Concepts of Outcome and Process Utility

The health care sector plays an important role in service research and is often an excellent area of application for general models and methods of service design. One such example is a study conducted by Ryan (1999). With a conjoint analysis based approach the author tries to find an empirical evidence for both outcome and process utility. The underlying idea is that any service might not only be evaluated based on the outcome itself, but additionally on the process executed to achieve the outcome.   

The goal of this thesis is to analyze the constructs of outcome and process utility, while the literature to be analyzed does not necessarily need to be related to a service context. In specific the questions are: What studies have been conducted to analyze and measure these constructs? Are there any other constructs related to this topic and need to be considered for further analysis? What implications could be derived from these studies and which future research is needed to advance this field?

Sequence Effects in Service Design – Background, Importance and Implications

The sequence of events plays an important role in a customer’s evaluation of an overall service experience. Different sequences of positive and negative experiences during a service encounter can have different influences on the overall evaluation. The peak-end-rule for example suggests that incidents that occurred at the end of an encounter have a much stronger effect on the overall evaluation than the incidents during the rest of the experience.

The goal of this thesis is to analyze these sequence effects with a strong focus on the psychological aspects. The literature to be analyzed does not necessarily need to be related to a service context. Detailed questions are: What experimental, quantitative studies have been conducted to analyze these sequence effects? How did those studies measure the occurrence and implications of this phenomenon? How do consumers combine memories of a sequence of pleasant and unpleasant moments to form an evaluation of the experience as a whole?

Rerouting Railways versus Rerouting Aircrafts – A Comparison

In case of disruptions, scheduled flight resp. railway trips are sometimes no longer feasible. Due to missing capacities it can be necessary to use other routes. In the literature exist rerouting models for aircraft as well as for railways. The goal of the thesis is to compare both streams. Illustrate similarities and differences concerning the contents. Which industry is further developed?

Railway Scheduling – Capacity Analysis

A railway network underlies several restrictions. To yield a feasible model, considering capacities, such as capacities of stations, lines, etc. is necessary. In Abril et al. (2008) a capacity analysis for railway networks is done. The thesis should provide an overview of the different kinds of capacity. Furthermore, influence factors on capacities should be analyzed and methods for evaluation be explained.

Demand Oriented Timetables for Railways

A basis for running a railway system among a network of tracks is a timetable. Creating railway timetables can be subject to several objectives, e.g. minimal trip times or cyclicity. Some models in the literature try to focus on demand for railways. The goal of the thesis is to explain how passenger demand is measured in Canca et al. 2014 and to compare their method with further examples from literature.

Topics in FSS17 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

Revenue Management für den Schienenpersonenfernverkehr

Das Themengebiet Revenue Management (RM) ist in bestimmten Industrien (Luftverkehr, Hotels, Mietwagen) bereits seit Jahren etabliert. Auch im Schienenverkehr werden Revenue Management Methoden genutzt, um die Kapazität der Züge möglichst umsatzmaximierend zu verkaufen. Jedoch wurde dieser Industrie vor allem in der Forschung bisher deutlich weniger Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Ziel ist es, neben einem Literaturüberblick zu Revenue Management (im Allgemeinen sowie im speziellen Fall des Schienenverkehrs), zu analysieren, welche aktuellen RM-Ansätze sich aus anderen Industrien auf den Schienenpersonenfernverkehr übertragen lassen.

On the Importance and Impact of Customers’ Experiencing and Remembering Self

When analyzing customer experiences, one important criterion is the point in time of the evaluation. Every event can be assessed either in real time or retrospectively, reflecting the actual experienced utility and the way it is summarized afterwards, respectively. Each event is associated with a stream of affective states that may vary in intensity from moment to moment within a single episode. A summary evaluation is attached to events in past experiences: customers may remember them as more or less good or bad, and are accordingly prone to seek or avoid repeated encounters, or to recommend or not recommend the experience to others.

This bachelor thesis should present the current state of research with a strong focus on the psychological aspects of the problem mentioned above. Key questions are: What experimental, quantitative studies have been conducted to analyze the impact of the time of evaluation? How did those studies measure the occurrence and implications of this phenomenon? How does the evaluation during the experience differ from the overall evaluation after the experience? What are reasons and implications?

Dynamic Impact Factors on the Customer – Service-Provider – Relationship

A customer-company-relationship is rather a dynamic process than a static construct. Different parameters like customer satisfaction or experiences from former service encounters may have an impact on length and strength of such a relationship.

This seminar thesis should first review the empirical literature on dynamic relationship modeling. It should clearly describe the influencing factors and the studies performed to gain these research insights. In a second step, the thesis should discuss how service designers may take advantage of these finding to increase retention and profitability in the long-run. The thesis should conclude by deriving implications for future research.

A review on railway crew scheduling

One topic of the tactical level of railway planning problems is crew scheduling. Each train running in a network needs an appropriate crew to operate it. After disruptions it can be possible to reschedule plans of action. In the literature, several works about crew scheduling respectively crew rescheduling already exist. The topic of this thesis is to survey the literature about crew scheduling and to summarize the respective contents.

Railway rescheduling – minimizing passengers’ discomfort

Rescheduling trains in case of disruptions has to be done with regard to a feasible solution for the infrastructure. But other topics, e.g. solution quality or minimizing waiting times for passengers, play also important roles. In the paper of Corman et al. (2015), the model aims at minimizing passengers’ discomfort, more precisely the quality of service perceived by passengers after rescheduling decisions. The thesis should describe this model and explain the heuristics used to find solutions as well as the associated numerical study.

Topics in FSS16 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Exact Solution Procedures for Stochastic Location Models with Congestion

Stochastic location models are facility location models where consumers generate streams of stochastic demands for service and service times are stochastic. This combination leads to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. This bachelor thesis only focuses on immobile servers i.e. server is fixed and customers has to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g. Supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of immobile servers. The literature streams based on stochastic location models with immobile facilities and congestion (SLMIFC) can be divided into two types of models on the basis of solution procedures: exact and heuristic.

The aim of thesis is to study exact solution procedures for SLMIFC. The thesis should present a review of the exact solution procedures in the literature with focus on methodology, parameters, decisions, maximum size of the problem solved and computational times.

Heuristic Solution Procedures for Stochastic Location Models with Congestion

The aim of thesis is to study heuristic solution procedures for SLMIFC. The thesis should present a review of the heuristic solution procedures in the literature with the focus on methodology, parameters, decisions, maximum size of the problem solved, nearness to optimality and computational times.

Stochastic Location Models with Congestion modeled using G/ G/1

Stochastic location models are facility location models where consumers generate streams of stochastic demands for service and service times are stochastic. This combination leads to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. This bachelor thesis only focuses on immobile servers i.e. server is fixed and customers has to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g. Supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of immobile servers. The literature streams based on stochastic location models with immobile facilities and congestion (SLMIFC) comprises of different types of models, modeled assuming different queuing systems.

The aim of thesis is to study SLMIFC modeled using G/ G/k  (k is the number of servers) queuing systems. The thesis should present a review of SLMIFC modeled using G/ G/k in the literature. The thesis should also review how the performance measures related to G/ G/k queuing system are modeled in the existing mathematical models from the literature. These performance measures could be the expected waiting time in queues or expected number of entities waiting in the queue.

Preventive Healthcare Facility Network Design with Congestion

Preventive Healthcare Facility Network Design (PHFND) models with congestion are a special case of Stochastic Location models with Congestion (SLC). SLC are facility location models where consumers generate streams of stochastic demands for service and service times are stochastic. This combination leads to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. The servers could be categorized as mobile servers and immobile servers. Immobile servers are those in which server is fixed and customers has to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g.  Supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of immobile servers. This seminar thesis only focuses on PHFND with congestion at immobile servers.

Preventive healthcare is much needed for early detection of life-threatening diseases like breast cancer in women. The aim of the thesis is to review PHFND models with congestion. 

Stochastic location models are facility location models where consumers generate streams of stochastic demands for service and service times are stochastic. This combination leads to congestion. Therefore, each facility in these models can be modeled as a queuing system. This bachelor thesis only focuses on immobile servers i.e. server is fixed and customers has to visit the facility to use the services offered by the server. Retail stores (e.g. Supermarkets, IKEA etc.), ATM machines, government offices and hospitals are examples of immobile servers. The main decisions involved in designing such a network is where to locate these facilities and what should be the capacities of the servers at these selected facility locations. Some of the models in literature do not consider the competition due to the existing facilities in the region of interest.

On the impact of behavioral aspects on operations research

The term  operations research  describes a discipline using mathematical models to support company decision making. Since its emergence at the beginning of the 20 th  century most formal analytical models have assumed that participants in a process behave fully rationale. The new stream of  behavioral operations  is challenging this perspective by incorporating more realistic behavioral attributes into analytical models.

This bachelor thesis should provide a structured overview of the concept of  behavioral operations . Key questions to be answered are: How can behavioral operations be defined? What are the origins and in which specified areas can this new research stream be subdivided? What is the current state of research in these areas and what are potentials topics for future research? Throughout the whole thesis the major focus should be on service operations.

Customer-Oriented Service Design – Fundamentals and Methods

Designing services is a key success factor in every modern business. The final design must effectively meet the needs and desires of the targeted customer groups. At the same time, it must be aligned with the internal company perspective and its processes. To achieve these goals both qualitative (e.g. QFD) and quantitative (e.g. optimization) approaches can be used. Each class of tools has its own strengths and weaknesses, which should be analyzed in this bachelor thesis. The analysis should be based on a profound overview of tools for service design from both categories. In the second step each tool should be evaluated according to the extend that it integrates the customer perspective.

Simulating Service Processes

Simulation is a powerful tool to analyze complex problems from all scientific fields. Even in business, the areas of application are widespread ranging from production, through logistics to services. Depending on the context and goal of the respective simulation, different approaches might be used. Beside discrete-event simulation and the system-dynamic approach, agent-based modelling accounts for the latest development. This bachelor thesis is intended to provide a service-focused overview of simulation applications. Key questions are: In which industries and for which scenarios has simulation already been applied in services? Which simulation techniques are most common in service simulation? Based on the answers, the root causes for these trends should be analyzed. The thesis will conclude with an outlook on the future of simulation in service research.

Multilevel Service Design (MSD) – Minor progress or groundbreaking evolution?

In order to design services, people in both research and business have a variety of tools at hand – service blueprinting, PCN-Analysis, QFD, conjoint analysis, and optimization are just a few to mention. Each tool has its own strengths and weaknesses that the user has to consider before and during the application. The most promising approach is often a sophisticated combination of several techniques. One such integrated approach was presented in 2011 by Patrício et al. and is called Multilevel Service Design (MSD). Instead of designing all service aspects simultaneously, the authors suggest a three-step-approach. In each of the three hierarchical layers the level of detail increases from a general conceptual perspective to the detailed design of the service encounter.

This bachelor thesis should critically assess the Multilevel Service Design technique. Key questions might be: What are the strengths and weaknesses of this technique? What tools have been integrated into MSD and would there have been other alternatives to achieve the respective goals? For which services or industries is the tool best suited? What is the future of MSD and how can it be further improved?

Railway Delay Management: Online vs. Offline Solutions

In der klassischen Optimierung wird davon ausgegangen, dass Daten, die zum Lösen eines Problems benötigt werden, vollständig vorliegen. Aufbauend auf diesem vollständigen Wissen wird dann die optimale (oder approximative) Lösung berechnet. Durch diese Art der Optimierung werden Situationen aus der Praxis oft jedoch die nur ungenügend modelliert. Zahlreiche Problemstellungen erfordern Entscheidungen, die unmittelbar und ohne Wissen zukünftiger Ereignisse getroffen werden müssen. Die Daten zum Lösen eines Problems liegen also nicht vollständig vor. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit soll das  Railway Delay Management Problem  diesbezüglich untersucht werden. Beispielsweise wird die Entscheidung ob ein verspäteter Zug warten soll (oder nicht) häufig unmittelbar getroffen. Die Frage, unter welchen Annahmen das Problem in der Literatur gelöst wird, ist in Form eines Literaturüberblicks zu beantworten. Bestehende Literatur soll basierend auf den Annahmen zur Datenverfügbarkeit ( online  vs.  offline ) untersucht und klassifiziert werden.

The Concept of Lookahead in Railway Delay Management

In the Online Delay Management Problem the number of delayed passengers who want to board the train is not known beforehand but revealed in an online fashion once the train arrives at the corresponding station. The goal is to decide at which station a train should wait in order to minimize the total delay of all passengers. In this thesis two approaches of Bender, M.; Büttner, S. & Krumke, S. (2013) that overcome the often criticized pessimism of standard competitive analysis, namely lookahead and comparative analysis, should be presented and illustrated by an example. These approaches extend the classical worst-case approach of competitive analysis in different aspects.

Average-case Analysis in Railway Delay Management

In the Online Delay Management Problem the number of delayed passengers who want to board the train is not known beforehand but revealed in an online fashion once the train arrives at the corresponding station. The goal is to decide at which station a train should wait in order to minimize the total delay of all passengers. In this thesis the average-case analysis approach of Bender, M.; Büttner, S. & Krumke, S. (2013) to overcome the often criticized pessimism of standard competitive should be presented and illustrated by an example. This method extends the classical worst-case approach of competitive analysis in different aspects.

Uncertain multi-product newsboy problem

In the uncertain multi-product newsboy problem demands for the products are estimated by experts and assumed to be independent uncertain variables. Uncertainty theory, which is a new mathematical tool to deal with human uncertainty, is employed to model demand distributions. A fixed setup cost and a linear ordering cost are incurred if products are ordered. The focus of this thesis is to present and illustrate the methodology of Ding, S. & Gao, Y. (2014) for determining an optimal ordering policy. A two-product example should be provided to show how to design an optimal policy in a realistic situation.

A portfolio approach to the multi-product newsboy problem

When solving the multi-product newsboy problem via a portfolio approach, a procurement strategy for each newsboy product is designed as portfolio contract. A portfolio contract consists of a fixed-price contract and an option contract. In this thesis the portfolio solution procedure with budget constraint of Zhang, B. & Hua, Z. (2010) should be illustrated and compared to three different existing procurement contracts: fixed-price contract, option contract, and portfolio contract. Additionally, an illustrative example should be provided to show the practical applicability in a realistic situation.

Iterative optimization of railway delay management

Railway companies are often confronted with delayed trains that can cause a disarranged timetable. If the connecting train waits for a delayed feeder train, delays get transferred, else passenger miss their connection. Delay management models try to answer the question if connections should be maintained in case of delays. Dollevoet et al. 2014 present an iterative optimization model including macroscopic and microscopic points of view. How this model works should be explained in the thesis.

Robust timetable optimization for railways

Railways are often confronted with disturbances that cause delays which make it impossible to keep the original timetable. Therefore more robust timetables need to be planned to cope with several delays. In the literature exist some approaches to create robust timetables by using stochastic respectively dynamic optimization models. These approaches should be explained and compared in the thesis.

Models for passenger’s choice of railway services

For service companies such as Deutsche Bahn it is important to find out what passengers’ needs are. With the information obtained it is possible to create more passenger oriented timetables. Therefore exist so called choice models to demonstrate passenger’s behavior for e.g. service type, run and class. The goal of the thesis is to describe these choice models and to compare them.

Topics in FSS16 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

In der klassischen Optimierung wird davon ausgegangen, dass Daten, die zum Lösen eines Problems benötigt werden, vollständig vorliegen. Aufbauend auf diesem vollständigen Wissen wird dann die optimale (oder approximative) Lösung berechnet. Durch diese Art der Optimierung werden Situationen aus der Praxis oft jedoch die nur ungenügend modelliert. Zahlreiche Problemstellungen erfordern Entscheidungen, die unmittelbar und ohne Wissen zukünftiger Ereignisse getroffen werden müssen. Die Daten zum Lösen eines Problems liegen also nicht vollständig vor. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit soll das  Railway Delay Management Problem  diesbezüglich untersucht werden. Beispielsweise wird die Entscheidung ob ein verspäteter Zug warten soll (oder nicht) häufig unmittelbar getroffen. Die Frage, unter welchen Annahmen das Problem in der Literatur gelöst wird, ist in Form eines Literaturüberblicks zu beantworten. Bestehende Literatur soll basierend auf den Annahmen zur Datenverfügbarkeit ( online  vs.  offline nature ) untersucht und klassifiziert werden.

Agent-based modelling as a tool for behavioral operations

At the beginning of the 21 st  century a new stream called  behavioral operations  has emerged from classic operations management. Instead of assuming rational behavior among all participants in a system, it integrates more realistic actions among all. Due to its broad perspective areas of interest are widespread. To get enable a detailed analysis this thesis should focus on one specific area – the simulation of (service) processes. While classical forms like discrete-event simulation neglect the distinctiveness of any individual,  agent-based modelling  is challenging this perspective since its development ten years ago.

The following bachelor thesis should evaluate to what extend  agent-based modelling  can be seen as a tool for  behavioral operations . Besides performing a profound literature review in both fields of interest, the application of agent-based modelling to a simplified service process might offer additional insights for this thesis.   

Macroscopic vs. microscopic dispatching analysis for railways

Railways are often confronted with delay problems. In the literature, many different approaches to deal with delays are known. They can be divided into macroscopic and microscopic models. Some models compute solutions for the whole railway network, other models decide what to do just for the current station. The thesis should explain the difference between macroscopic and microscopic dispatching. Furthermore, examples for both approaches should be illustrated.

Service design for railways

One challenge for railway companies is the design of services that fit customer needs. Different methods exist in order to find out which preferences customers have. One method is the so called conjoint analysis. Attributes can be defined and ranked for services or customers can choose a service with a certain bundle of attributes. The thesis should describe the conjoint analysis and how it has been used in the literature with focus on railways.

Topics in FSS15 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Quality Function Deployment for Customer-Oriented Service Design – Method and Case Study

The challenge of service design begins with design. It must effectively meet the needs and desires of the targeted customer groups. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a systematic planning methodology for product and service development that translates customer needs into technical specifications and business process activities. In this thesis, the general method should be presented and applied to a real-world case study, in particular to the development of ideas for the potential redesign of an MBA program.

Robust Airline Fleet Composition

Recently, researchers have developed advanced decision support models to assist airlines in strategic airline fleet planning and dynamic capacity allocation. The approach explicitly accounts for the stochastic nature of passenger demand in the fleet composition problem, e.g. through scenario analysis. The thesis should give an overview of the recent literature and provide insights into the basic idea by presenting the underlying mathematical model and developing an academic example.

Price and shelf-space dependent demand models in decision modeling

The demand models use certain types of functional forms, such as linear, power/ iso-elastic, multinomial logit, and multiplicative competitive interaction. The aim of the thesis is to survey the functional forms of price and shelf-space dependent demand models and compare their advantages and disadvantages. The second objective is to investigate qualitatively the optimal shelf-space allocation problem in Martín-Herrán, Taboubi, and Zaccour (2006) with a more realistic space-dependent demand model that is sensitive to both space and price.

Pricing models in Revenue Management

Consider the problem faced by a seller who owns a fixed and perishable set of resources that are sold to a price sensitive population of buyers. In this framework, where capacity is fixed, the seller is mainly interested in finding an optimal pricing strategy that maximizes the revenue collected over the selling horizon. Price manipulation is an important variable to encourage or discourage demand. The objective of the thesis is to review the pricing models in RM and new potential directions of research.

Dynamic Pricing and Learning

Dynamic pricing is the study of determining optimal selling prices of products or services, in a setting where prices can easily and frequently be adjusted. This class of problem captures trade-off between learning and instant optimization. The aim of the thesis is to survey these literature streams and provide an in-depth overview of the available literature on dynamic pricing and learning and identify the gaps for future research.

Revenue Management in a dynamic network environment

In situations like sequential reservations for an airline network, hotel or car rental service; the allocation of scarce inventory to stochastic demand for multiple fare classes is an interesting problem from the researcher’s point of view. The aim of the thesis is to explore dynamic policies to allocate demand to customers and maximize revenue through an algorithmic approach based on approximate dynamic programming. The functionality of the algorithm should be depicted through a small example.

Dynamic Bid Prices in Revenue Management

Bid-price control policies are used by many airlines for decisions like when to open and close customer fare classes for sale. The aim of the thesis is to explore a tractable model for computing a time trajectory of bid prices and to compare the model with standard deterministic linear program for bid-price control. The second objective is to qualitatively analyze the relationship between bid prices in revenue management and dynamic programming.

Train Scheduling – delay resistant railway timetables

Train timetables are scheduled in a cyclic manner to be kept in mind easily, for example, every 60 minutes. On their route, passengers often have to change their trains. If their current train is late, it could be that passengers have to wait nearly one hour. But if the connecting train waits, delays are transferred. In this thesis, the concept of a delay resistant timetable should be presented. An example should additionally be developed to demonstrate how the approach can be applied in practice.

Delay management in railway syste m s

Delayed trains can disarrange the timetable. If a connecting train waits, the passengers who have to change trains will be glad. But then the delay is transferred to the next train. In the other case, passengers probably have to wait a long time for their connecting train. A so called wait-depart decision must be made. In the Literature, an integer program formulation is often used to model this problem. In this thesis, this classical solution should be analyzed. Additionally, a short example how the integer program works should be given.

Railway Scheduling – Optimization Models

In the last decades, a great variety of scheduling models for the dispatching of trains were published. The underlying paper for this thesis is a survey about optimization models in train scheduling and train routing. The goal of the thesis is to expand the existing survey in one of the given scheduling fields. A short insight into the new papers should be delivered.

Railway Scheduling – Minimizing the total travel time

One of the goals in Railway scheduling is to find an optimal distribution of the railroad line capacity. Especially on single line tracks, an exact meet and pass plan for trains is needed to avoid deviations from the timetable. In this thesis, the underlying algorithm for an effective travel advance strategy should be explained and compared to the previous algorithm. Furthermore, a short example how the algorithm works should be given.

Multi-market Newsvendor with Interval Demand Data

When the newsvendor setting is applied to manufacturing the objective is to determine production planning and procurement decisions. Lin and Ng (2011) provide a solution to the multimarket newsvendor problem where demands are only known to be bounded within some given interval. Besides finding the optimal order quantity the authors assume that the newsvendor has to decide on the market, i.e., the customers it will serve. In this thesis, the concept of hybrid objectives in the context of inventory management should be presented. Furthermore, an example should be developed to demonstrate how the approach can be applied to take optimal decisions.

Optimal Capacity Allocation under Interval Uncertainty

The field of revenue management originates in the airline industry as a way to efficiently allocate fixed capacity to different classes of customers. Traditional models assume that future demand is unknown but can be described by a stochastic process or a probability distribution. Contrary, Perakis and Roels (2010) characterize demand only with three points, namely average-case, worst-case, and best-case scenarios, which naturally leads to an interval representation of demand uncertainty. In this thesis, the concept of interval uncertainty in the context of airline revenue management should be presented. Furthermore, an example should be developed to demonstrate how the approach can be used to solve the capacity allocation problem.

Newsvendors Models under Biased Demand Information

Commonly, newsvendor models under limited information assume that the demand structure is known a-priori with certainty. Zhang and Xu (2009) analyze the newsvendor problem under the assumption that the information on the demand structure might be bound to errors. In this thesis, the concept of uncertain or biased demand information in the context of inventory management should be presented. Furthermore, an example should be developed to demonstrate how the quality of information affects optimal decisions.

Service Blueprints, BPMN or PCN-analysis are just three of many tools for visualizing and analyzing service processes. During the last decades researchers and practitioners have developed new tools or advanced existing ones. The aim of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing visualization techniques with a focus on service processes. Nevertheless, further concepts or ideas from other disciplines could strongly enhance the value of this thesis.

Service Blueprints – Current state of the art of an established tool for service design

The concept of service blueprinting has been introduced by Lynn G. Shostack back in 1982. Since then it has been recognized as one of the most suitable and powerful tools to visualize and analyze service processes. Besides this tremendous success in the business world, the tool has also been in focus of the scientific community. The objective of this bachelor thesis is to bring research on this topic up to date by providing an overview of the most relevant articles published during the last three decades. Based on this analysis ideas for future research on this topic should be gathered.

Petri nets as a tool for service process design?

The concept of petri nets has been developed by Carl Adam Petri during his dissertation in the field of mathematics in the early 1960s. While it started as a tool in information systems to model and analyze computer systems and processes it has also been applied to business processes later on. The idea of this bachelor thesis is to present to original concept of petri nets, to highlight its development during the last decades and to provide insights on how to use petri nets in a business setting, especcially with regard to the service industry.

PCN-Analysis – Potentials and limitations of a new technique

PNC-Analysis has been introduced by Scott Sampson in 2012. As a new tool for visualizing processes especially in the field of services, this technique tries to overcome different pitfalls of previous tools. The purpose of this thesis is to present the idea and concept of PCN-analysis, to review the literature on this new technique and to present its benefits and challenges as well as potentials and limitations. Concluding from the main findings, a plan for future research in this field should be developed.

Topics in FSS15 for students “B.Sc. Wirtschaftspädagogik”

Design von Kundenerfahrungen mit Hilfe der PCN Analyse am Beispiel des Schienenpersonenfernverkehrs

Anders als beim Design physischer Produkte fehlt es bei der Gestaltung von prozessorientierten Dienstleistungen leider noch immer an systematischen Design Tools. Die PCN (Process Chain Network) Analyse ist ein einfaches aber mächtiges Instrument zur Visualisierung, Bewertung und wertorientierten Verbesserung von Dienstleistungen und den zugrundliegenden Prozessen der Leistungserbringung. Mit Hilfe der PCN Analyse lässt sich systematisch untersuchen, an welchen Stellen im Prozess Wert durch eine strategische Repositionierung einzelner Prozesselemente generiert werden kann. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, eine kurze Einführung in die Methodik der PCN-Analyse zugeben und sie auf ein Beispiel im Schienenpersonenfernverkehr anzuwenden und zu diskutieren. Genauer betrachtet werden soll hierbei der Prozess von der Online Reservierung eines Zuges durch den Kunden bis hin zu seiner Ankunft am Zielort.

Verteilungsfreie Verfahren zum Bestandsmanagement

Wie wird der Bestellzeitpunkt anhand der Merkmale eines Artikels ausgewählt und die optimale Bestellmenge ermittelt? Im Rahmen dieser Thesis soll ein Literaturüberblick zum sogenannten “Online Inventory Management Problem” erstellt werden. Im Gegensatz zu klassischen Modellen ist dieser Ansatz zum Bestandsmanagement verteilungsfrei. Existierende Verfahren zur Bestands- und Beschaffungsplanung sollen untersucht werden. Hierbei stellt sich beispielsweise die Frage nach dem optimalen Sicherheitsbestand oder der optimalen Bestellpolitik vor dem Hintergrund ungewisser Nachfrage- und/ oder Preisprozesse.

Verteilungsfreie Revenue Management Verfahren

Wer zuerst kommt, bekommt den billigsten noch verfügbaren Tarif – nach außen sieht es so aus, als würden die Preise für Flugtickets mit der Zeit steigen. Im Rahmen dieser Thesis soll ein Literaturüberblick zum sogenannten “Online Revenue Management Problem” erstellt werden. Im Gegensatz zu klassischen Modellen ist dieser Ansatz zur Preis- und Kapazitätssteuerung verteilungsfrei. Existierende Verfahren zur Preisdifferenzierung und Kontingentierung sollen untersucht werden. Hierbei stellt sich beispielsweise die Frage nach optimalen Ticketkontingenten, denn ist ein Kontingent aufgebraucht, ist der zugehörige Tarif nicht mehr verfügbar.

Planungsprobleme von Eisenbahnunternehmen mit verschiedenen Zeithorizonten

Das Betreiben eines Eisenbahnunternehmens erfordert komplexe Planungsentscheidungen hinsichtlich Liniennetz, Fahrplan, Zügen, etc. Dabei lassen sich die unterschiedlichen Planungsprobleme in kurz-, mittel-und langfristige Probleme kategorisieren. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, eine Klassifizierung der verschiedenen Planungsprobleme nach Zeithorizonten auszuarbeiten. Außerdem soll ein Überblick diverser Methoden, die zur Entscheidungsfindung in den einzelnen Kategorien dienen, erstellt werden.

Service design – gegenwärtige und zukünftige Forschungsfelder

In der heutigen Wirtschaft spielen Dienstleistungen eine bedeutende Rolle und machen einen Großteil der wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten aus. Nur die Unternehmen mit den besten Dienstleistungen werden den Wettstreit um Kunden und Abschlüsse für sich entscheiden können. Zum Erreichen dieses Ziels nutzen Unternehmen Service Design, um neue Dienstleistungen zu entwickeln oder bestehende zu verbessern. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, einen umfassenden Überblick über die verschiedenen Schritte von und Perspektiven auf Service Design zu erarbeiten, aktuelle Literatur zu diesem Thema zu sichten und vielversprechende Ansätze für zukünftige Forschungsarbeiten abzuleiten.

Topics in FSS14 for students “B.Sc. Betriebswirtschaftslehre”

Innovations in Quality Management for Service Firms

Innovation is a necessary process in an enterprise´s life. Especially quality management offers a great variety of possible innovations. The aim of this thesis is to point out how innovations in quality management support and promote service firms. Three studies from the literature with reference to service enterprises should be given as an example.

DMAIC method  –  an improvement procedure of Six Sigma

Six Sigma helps to improve the strategic process of organizations and its services. DMAIC  –  Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control  –  is a procedure to improve the Six Sigma method by showing strengths and weaknesses in companies’ transactions. This thesis should give an introduction to Six Sigma with focus on DMAIC. Furthermore, the limitations of Six Sigma in services should be presented.

New JIT  –  a novel approach of Toyota's management strategy

Toyota is known for its lean management process. A new approach  –  New JIT  –  consists of three core elements of Toyota`s management principles (TMS, TDS and TPS) in connection with a software system (TQM-S). The goals of New JIT are a revised global production and to ensure a high quality level. This thesis should describe the implementation of this approach, especially in the service area (TMS).

Revenue Management  –  The Adwords Problem

How do search engine companies, such as Google, Yahoo or MSN, decide what ads to display with each query so as to maximize their revenue? The key problem is to find the correct trade-off between the bid and unspent budget of the advertiser. In this thesis, three algorithms solving the adwords problem should be presented. In addition, examples should be given to demonstrate the algorithms’ functionality and practical relevance.

Revenue Management  –  The On-line Booking Problem

Which booking policy guarantees the largest possible percentage of the optimum revenue, for any demands and request sequence? In this thesis, revenue management policies should be presented from the perspective of on-line algorithms. Furthermore, an example should be developed to demonstrate how the approach can be applied to find an optimal booking policy.

Inventory Management  –  The On-line Problem

What is the optimal point of time to replenish and how much raw materials to buy? The key problem is to find a strategy to fill the inventory to capacity at minimum cost without any knowledge of future prices, i.e., decisions must be taken in an on-line fashion. In this thesis, the concept of on-line algorithms in the context of inventory management should be presented. Furthermore, an example should be developed to demonstrate how the approach can be applied to take optimal decisions.

Green products: sustainable society and network design

The growing volume of transportation has consequences upon the environment. Countries and companies are faced with strict targets in order to reduce the level of pollution and emissions. Besides, scholars argue that to be a sustainable society developed countries need to consume less. The objective of this thesis is to give a review on the existing literature on green supply chain network design and servicizing (change of business focus from selling products to providing services): Which factors should be considered in order to optimize a network design and to reduce the level of pollution, emissions and consumption.

Queuing-theory: balking and reneging

Companies pay attention on positive customer experiences. Customers don't want to spend too much time waiting. If customers are faced with intolerable delays they will balk (leave without joining the queue) or renege (departs queue without being – fully – served). Why do customers balk or renerge? It is known that it is more costly to win a new customer than holding a loyal customer. What empirical evidence do we have regarding customer balking and reneging behaviour and what is the current state-of-the-art in analytical queuing models considering balking and reneging? Where do analytical models fall short of capturing the behavioral realities? How could future research close this gap?

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The Bachelor

More episodes, related clips, follow the bachelor:.

7 'Bachelor' and 'Bachelorette' leads who made franchise history with their casting

• Jenn Tran was recently announced as the first Asian American star of "The Bachelorette."
• Before that, Rachel Lindsay and Matt James made history as the first Black leads in the franchise.
• Clare Crawley became the oldest "Bachelorette" star in 2020.

Jenn Tran was a surprise pick to lead the new season of "The Bachelorette." But even though some had expected it to be Joey Graziadei's runner-up Daisy Kent or fan-favorite contestant Maria Georgas , Tran's casting was exciting for another, more profound reason.

Tran will be the first Asian-American lead in the show's 20-year history when her season premieres later this year. It's a milestone for the reality franchise, which has long struggled with diverse representation and race .

Here are seven Bachelor Nation leads who have made history with their casting.

Rachel Lindsay

Lindsay became the first Black star of "The Bachelorette" back in 2017. She's since distanced herself from the franchise after being vocally critical of its handling of race.

Clare Crawley

Crawley became the oldest star of "The Bachelorette" in 2020. She was 39 years old at the time her season was filmed.

Tayshia Adams

Also in 2020, Tayshia Adams, who competed on Colton Underwood's season of "The Bachelor," became the first midseason replacement "Bachelorette" star. Adams, who is biracial and half Mexican, was also the first Black and Latina lead .

She took over as the lead when Crawley left weeks into the season after falling in love with Dale Moss.

James was a surprising pick for the lead of "The Bachelor." The role would typically go to a popular contestant from a past season of "The Bachelorette." He was initially cast to compete on Crawley's season of "The Bachelorette," but due to the pandemic pushing back filming, he hadn't appeared in the franchise at all when he was instead chosen to be the franchise's first Black lead in 2020.

James rose to popularity as the best friend of fan-favorite "Bachelorette" runner-up Tyler Cameron, who'd competed on Hannah Brown's season.

Tran, a contestant on Joey Graziadei's season of "The Bachelor," made history as the first Asian American lead when she was announced as the new star of "The Bachelorette" in March 2024.

Brad Womack

Womack wasn't ground-breaking as a "Bachelor" lead for diversity reasons, but he did make history in another way. He became the first (and to date, only) two-time lead in the franchise's history when he returned to star on season 15 of "The Bachelor" four years after starring on season 11, where he didn't pick anyone at the end. (It didn't work out for him the second time, either.)

Emily Maynard

Maynard won Womack's second season, but the two split soon after, freeing her up to become the first single mom to star as "The Bachelorette."

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