Dissertation Topic Please Help....

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by LadyExecutive, Sep 17, 2009.

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  1. LadyExecutive

    LadyExecutive Member

    I am speculating that this may not be the proper forum to make this request, as it does not directly apply to Distant Degrees. However, after noting that the traffic here is significantly higher and after perceiving that many of the contributors in this discussion group are graduate students, I feel like I’d get more hits and hence receive more feedback, if I posted here. Hopefully, given the disposition of my request, I’d get a pass this once.

    I am experiencing many problems in my attempt to come up with my dissertation topic, and I need your help. Even though I've been reading up on how to, I seem to still have issues. I have a great deal of interest in Corporate Social Responsibility from an ethical compliance perspective.

    Specifically, I am concerned about how US multinational corporations seem to have little problem adhering to rigid government marketing and manufacturing regulations while conducting business here in the United States, but when they conduct business abroad, from many indications, they appear to slacken their rules. Pharmaceutical companies and many other industry giants have had penalties exacted against them for reacting differently in foreign lands, than they do at home.

    Please help me come up with a dissertation topic, connected my opinions expressed above.

    Thanks!
     
  2. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Quite an interesting and important topic.

    I used Google Scholar and typed in ethics in foreign trade and received 275,000 responses – you could try tightening up your search. Reading through the responses may give you an idea for a dissertation.

    I also used ProQuest and typed in corporate ethics and up popped a bunch of dissertations. Again you could vary your search terms.

    Boeing has a strong ethics program in place – again search Google for Boeing Ethics. Here is one of their manuals:
    http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/ethics/ethics_booklet.pdf

    I searched Foreign Affairs Journal using the search term ethics and came up with 20 pages of results.

    I recall that President Jimmy Carter instituted regulations on the conduct of foreign trade and many companies thought this would put the USA at a disadvantage in many parts of the world. I started to research this but came up with zero results at the moment.

    Here are some GAO reports:
    http://www.gao.gov/products/GGD-93-38 (foreign tobaco advertising)
    http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-744 (global corporate social responsibility)

    Some potential research topics:
    Do US corporate ethics policies help or hinder international trade?
    Do corporate ethics protect or hurt the US consumer? (I'm thinking of all the bad products we have imported (from China for example - fish, drugs, perhaps baby formulae, toys, etc).
    Iraq – Did US Companies abandon ethics to maximize profits?
    Is it ethical for US companies to import products made by "slave" labor?

    Do you have a strategy on collecting your data – survey, interviews, historical research, other? This looks like the most difficult part of your research.
     
  3. okydd

    okydd New Member

    Has this statememt been proven? You may be correct or not after 100,000 words
     
  4. tomball

    tomball New Member

    Sex, lies & more of the same....

    Sound like a 100,000 words project
     
  5. LadyExecutive

    LadyExecutive Member

    Not sure i understand...

    Forgive me please, but I am not sure I understand your question. Are you asking if I think I can present a good enough argument, on a topic of this nature, in the amount of words required of a dissertation?
     
  6. LadyExecutive

    LadyExecutive Member

    Ian

    Thank you so much, Ian, for helping to point me in the right direction. To answer your question, right now based on what I hope to find out, I'm leaningg towards using historal research to collect the data I need to support my theory.
     
  7. okydd

    okydd New Member

    It looks like you have a good topic or maybe closer to a topic than you think. I am from a TWC and sure I got some of those experimental vaccines. However, and the other hand, I have seen where US companies were good corporate citizens.
    A topic like that will generate a fair amount of discussions, TV appearances, book deal etc
    I saying casually you can get your 100,000 words to complete your thesis on this topic and may even find out that on a whole US companies abide by the same level ethic around the world.
     
  8. Andy Borchers

    Andy Borchers New Member

    Most dissertations use statistical data to support hypothesis. In such cases one doesn't "prove" anything. You support (or fail to support) hypotheses.

    Second, as for dissertation topics I'd spend time reading current journals and attending relevant conferences. As you read look for topics with unfinished research agendas. Often, the conclusion section of an article will suggest "further areas for research".

    Regards - Andy


     
  9. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    Why do you make the assumption that it is only US companies that break the rules? Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Mitsubishi, are only some big non-US companies that have broken some government's rule. Perhaps that is your dissertation topic right there; comparing violations between US and non-US companies and indentifying any correlations.
     
  10. Dave C.

    Dave C. New Member

    Shay,

    I am currently writing an MBA dissertation on a similar topic, looking at the role of business in society and whether public energy companies are fulfilling their obligations to society. It's very interesting but you are faced with a lot of subjective literature and have to have a clear idea in your mind what your want to research. As Andy points out you are testing a proposition which you find in literature via whatever your research design is, in my case interviews.

    To tighten up your angle I would suggest you read around the topic for a while. Try and dig into some recent academic papers rather than just browsing the web. You will hit a eureka moment when a proposition made in a paper captures your imagination - make sure it is something you can research effectively, make sure you have access to whatever people you need to support your proposition. Also go back through the history of CSR and business ethics to see how we got to where we are today...many believe it is a simple lack of ethics that caused the current economic downturn, an area for potential research and very topical.

    There is also lot's of interesting info on NGO sites such as Amnesty International.

    I could go on and on, hopefully this has been of some use and happy to dialogue further.

    All the best,

    Dave C.
     
  11. LadyExecutive

    LadyExecutive Member

    Thank You!!

    Thanks to all of you! I've sprouted horns in the last month, trying to come up with what you have helped me with in one day. Thanks...and give yourselves a big hug, for me. I sincerely appreciate your help.
     
  12. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2009

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