Business Dissertation Topic Ideas

Hi Everyone:

Just wanted to ask my fellow learners for ideas for a dissertation topic and/or research questions for my Ph.D. in Business Administration. I wanted to stay in the Marketing & Management area as its my focus. I appreciate your assistance.

 

All my experience is in the public service realm, but something that I found interesting is more and more police agencies contracting to MBA marketing teams to help polish and market their departments and services offered as well as in recruiting. Since this is a fairly recent thing, perhaps a study in how public services and government can gain from private marketing efforts would be worth while.

 

I think one of the biggest factors when deciding is access to data. What industry / company do you have access to? Also, what particular interest do you have? Leadership, motivation, rank and file, technical workforces, etc.

If you give some of these some thoughts and post them, we can help you with some direction.......... best of luck!!!

 

Hi Han, a few days ago I was wondering how your PhD was going. I hope you are doing fine. Regarding the data (which,, I agree, it often determines the success of a PhD proposal), do you have any tip as to how to obtain this type of data without your employer involvement in the studies (e.g. central banks, statistics bureaus, goverment publications, NGO´s etc...). I guess my question is as follows: In your view, is there a way to conduct doctoral research on a part time basis without the cooperation of an employer?

Regards, and my best wishes to you and your studies.

 

That is an interesting question. I know of one person who is doing a theoretical topic, and questioning different companies about his subject. In his case, it is not his employer, but he did need to seek out several companies and ask for access to information.

I would think that the topic would need to be something one could test out in industry - whichever industry that would be, but it could be in two ways.

1. Through the literature and existing theories come up with a new theory, then test it on a company (or companies).

or

2. Use a case study approach on a company, then dive into the literature, seek out the deltas, and come up with a new theory.

Either way, it seems that the company access is needed. I guess, if one was working in the government realm, then it would be possible all the data is already released, especially with a quantitative approach. I think this would be more rare then the company information approach.

I took a combination of 1 and 2. I took a case study approach (like 2), then came up with the deltas, then took a second group of data and tested the theories (like 1). It made the methodology longer, but in the end stronger results.

 

Han, thanks a lot, very interesting points.

 

Here are some other suggestions:

Attend professional association meetings in your area of study to make networking contacts with company employees and executives. Ask them what are some potential research areas their companies would be interested in and get some additional company contacts to get additional information in those research areas. Then contact the company to propose collaboration in your research.

Contact the Chief Learning Officer of major companies that would be impacted or affected by your proposed research area and see if you can attract some interest from them and thus allow you access to their data. Or just call these CLOs and ask them what research areas they are interested in and see if you can accomodate them in your dissertation. CLOs may appreciate the free research help as opposed to hiring a consulting company to do the research for them. CLOs never seem to have adequate staff to pursue company specific research. This approach also gives you contacts for additional consulting opportunities in the future.

 

Great idea!

Thanks Dr. Rene!

Ann