Thesis Topics

Research and education at the chair of Strategic Management and Innovation is mainly focused on competitive strategy, innovation, and knowledge management. The following list of subjects and questions is meant to provide students with a feeling for focal topics. The students are welcome to define and propose their own theses topics within these areas. If you have ideas for a topic, feel free to contact any of the team members. The diploma theses can be conceptual/theoretical, focused on a particular industry, or oriented to solving a practical problem in a company. We are looking forward to working with you!

New topics

The image of industries in the media: content analysis of news articles

Please contact Nina Geilinger for more information on this master thesis topic.

Analysis and introduction of a new automatized tender tool together with interactive teams

Schindler offers MTEC students a topic for Master thesis. For a detailed description of the project see here pdf. If you are interested contact directly Stefan Isler (see pdf) or Fotini Pachidou. Attached CV and motivation letter are recommended.

Implementing project management tools in new product development

Innovation is key for firms to gain and sustain competitive advantage. However, the process of bringing new products to the market is utmost challenging and highly complex. Therefore, the new product development process has turned into a highly popular research area. Various scholars have elaborated on distinct ideas, principles, and models on how to manage the process of new product development in the ideal way.

This Master Thesis aims at implementing a set of project management tools in new product development following the principles of quasi-experiments (Campbell & Stanley, 1963). The student should gain an in-depth theoretical understanding on the literature on new product development processes and quasi-experiments to manage the implementation process in a knowledge-intense global company (details available on request). The student will manage the relations with stakeholders, design the quasi-experiment, and synthesize the lessons learned. If you are interested in conducting your Master Thesis on this topic, please feel free to contact Andreas Schneider at any time.

Knowledge networks and knowledge transfer in water supply sector

SMI together with AGUASAN and RWSN invites MTEC students to investigate knowledge sharing practices in water supply sector. There are three topics available. For more information please see the thesis proposals. If you are interested in one of the topics contact Zeynep Erden for further information.

Knowledge creation and transfer between public and private institutes in Switzerland

SMI together with CSEM invites MTEC Master students to shed more light on the topic of knowledge creation and transfer between public and private sector in Switzerland (see pdf). If you are interested, feel free to contact Fotini Pachidou for further information and details.

Gamers evolving into drug scientists
Describing proteins' three-dimensional structure is key for developing new drug compounds. Recently, foldit (for further information click here), a multiplayer online game that enlists players worldwide to solve difficult protein-structure prediction problems, received significant interest in the scientific community. There have been several success stories, among them one reported in Nature.
We would like to shed more light on this phenomenon from an open innovation and crowd sourcing perspective. If you are interested in conducting your Master Thesis on this topic, please feel free to contact Fotini Pachidou or Andreas Schneider at any time!

Developing quality criteria and a testing concept for peer groups of indexing operating performance (at Obermatt)
For indexing operating performance, peer groups are selected that have high similarity in the business model and the business cycle of the indexed company under observation. The theses develops a quality test for the peer groups that takes into account that the similarity of the cycle is more important than the distribution of the variable. Operating variables such as Sales and EBIT and market variable such as total shareholder return are used for assessing de degree of correlation. Other factors that are important in the peer group definition are similarity of products and competitors. This semantical aspect should also be part of the quality test. Experience in statistical analysis with tools such as Stata or equivalents is required. (contact: Zeynep Erden)

Empirical testing of peer groups for indexing operating performance (at Obermatt)
Once a quality test for peer groups for indexing operating performance is established, the quality test should be executed and verified with real Obermatt peer groups. The peer groups to be tested are those for around two dozen Obermatt customers, those for the SMI/SPI, the DAX and the FTSE100 index and a selection of manually reviewed peer groups. There is a total of about 400 peer groups to be tested. After testing, the result should be assessed and verified with expert opinions on the peer groups. Experience in statistical analysis with tools such as Stata or equivalents is required.(contact: Zeynep Erden)

Identifying and quantifying of distorting and diluting factors when using financial research databases like Thomson Reuters for indexing operating performance (at Obermatt)
For indexing operating performance, profit and sales growth data of peer companies are used from commercial databases such as Thomson Reuters. The data typically includes non-operating effects such as mergers & acquisitions, restructuring and amortization. The theses should name the relevant distorting effects and establish processes and methods to identify and eliminate these effects. These processes are then applied to a SMI/SPI Obermatt Bonus Index data set to quantify the effect and calculate the difference to an untreated data set. Experience in statistical analysis with tools such as Stata or equivalents is required. (contact: Zeynep Erden)

Analysis of programmer specialization in an big Open Source Project. Empirical data on source code changes has already been gathered and is awaiting statistical analysis. If you are good with statistics and are interested in open source, this might be an opportunity for you
(contact: Sebastian Späth)

Value Networks in TV production
The media business is a fast-paced industry. Mergers and acquisitions characterize this market as has been seen in the past jears. Production companies of different size deliver their products to TV stations. What are the key success factors of an outstanding company within this rapidly changing marekt? To what extend does a company need to be interwoven in production networks to sustain their market share?

Outperforming national economics - what fertilizes the success of Second Life?
Second Life is currently the fastest growing economy even before China. What is it that makes Second Life so interesting not only to hobby gamers but to real companies earning money in this virtual world? How is Second Life to be distinguished from its incumbent competitors like Blaxxun? Is the Intellectual Property Rights Regime (IP) of Second Life the key factor to this uniqueness?

Doing real business virtually - opportunities and threats in Second Life
Business journals worldwide dedicate articles to Second Life, the currently fastest growing economy appraising the benefits of doing virtual business. What are the actual threats and opportunities companys have to face within the world of Second Life. How could appropriate business models look like? What do companies have to consider to be a) profitable and b) maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Internship or Master Thesis at HILTI

HILTI AG offers positions for master theses or internships in Schaan (ETH departments: MTEC, MAVT, or similar; starting date and duration negotiable). If you are interested, please contact HILTI directly.

Internship at Geberit

Topic "Globale Wasserindustrie"

1. Competitive strategy:

New distribution channels in electronic media
The impact of internet services on the music industry.

Internationalization of Financial Services Firms
The key success factors of entry into the Chinese market

Sources of competitive advantage in investment banking
The case of foreign exchange transactions

Building competitive advantage for Swiss firms in the Global software industry
In search of new market opportunities

R&D alliances in the semiconductor industry
Selecting the right partners

2. Innovation

Area of Free Revealing

• Corporate R&D communities
  Performing a community analysis of e-mail archives, identifying clusters of users, identify behavior patterns, interprete patterns
• Adobe PDF vs. Microsoft XPS: Why do these two companies invest so much to give away a standard and even software for free? Based on what assumptions is it possible to predict the diffusion of these formats?
• AJAX and other programming frameworks: Why do firms like Google, Adobe and IBM invest in programming tools made available for free at very low licensing restrictions?
• Eclipse/.NET: In what way are these software development platforms similar, in what way do they differ? Why do the firms behind them, IBM resp. Microsoft, invest somuch into their projects?
• other cases where companies freely or explicitly don't reveal knowledge

3. Knowledge Management

Area of Knowledge Sharing

• Wikipedia: Why do people contribute voluntarely and often in a high quality to this free encyclopedia? What organizational properties make this open project so successful compared to predecessors?
• One laptop per child: What strategic advantages draw the involved companies out of the project? How is knowledge sharing of poor people supported?
• How to improve knowledge sharing in professional services firms: The role of information and communication technology
• How to improve efficiency of knowledge sharing in technology alliances between companies

Area of Knowledge Creation

• Increasing the speed of knowledge creation in companies
• Improving knowledge creation in professional services firms: Integrating clients in innovation
• The strategic use of Intellectual Property: When to keep, trade, or discard