List of Master theses topics at the Strategy Subject Area

Master theses at the Strategic Management subject area are supervised by Professor Reitzig or Professor Keck, depending on the topic.

However, most Master thesis candidates closely co-ordinate with other members of the subject area as well.

Find the updated list of topics here. You can apply for topics listed under 'Available Topics', although topics marked as "allocated" are currently under consideration for a specific supervision applicant. (They may become freely available again, if applicants decide on different topics.) Those listed separately as previous topics/completed theses are no longer available.

As it often happens that many students apply for the same topic, you may, however, be offered a topic different from the one you applied for, if necessary.

Please note: We generally update the list once a semester.

Available Topics

Topic	Track	Contact partners at Dept.	Brief Description	Supplementary Information & Pre-requisites
Costly information inefficiencies due to dissatisfied employees	Science	Markus Reitzig & Robert Janjic, M.Sc.	It’s a well-known fact that when people are unhappy in their workplace, productivity can suffer. Apart from this obvious decrease in work-related effort, however, dissatisfied employees can also create other costs for the organization, such as overlooked business opportunities due to a lack of communication between members. Compared to effort-related reductions in productivity, these information-based inefficiencies have received less scholarly attention so far. This master thesis is therefore devoted to examining the underlying psychological mechanisms of such phenomena and providing further insights through the use of computational simulations. All relevant literature will be synthesized and a change diffusion model, written in Python, will be used as a basis for further analysis.	Successful completion of at least one class on experimental methods and classes on statistical analysis at Master level at the Strategy Subject Area (or passing of equivalent classes elsewhere leading to familiarity with the design of experimental studies and handling of statistical analysis pertaining to experimental results using software - e.g., Stata, SPSS, R etc.). Excellency in all required prerequisites. * Willingness and ability to complete the Master thesis in due course
Effects of sticky reputation in organizational learning	Science	Markus Reitzig & Robert Janjic, M.Sc.	Having a reputation of being an expert in a certain field can lead to individuals’ opinions being valued and considered even in areas that lie outside of their expertise or after their knowledge becomes outdated. Examining how such “sticky” reputations can affect organizational learning processes is the aim of this master thesis. Building on and extending March’s (1991) model on exploration and exploitation, the thesis will attempt to answer the question of how organizational learning can suffer when alleged experts can preserve their reputation even after the basis for it, namely, their superior knowledge, becomes obsolete. All relevant literature will be synthesized and the extension to March’s (1991) original model will be written in Python.	Successful completion of at least one class on experimental methods and classes on statistical analysis at Master level at the Strategy Subject Area (or passing of equivalent classes elsewhere leading to familiarity with the design of experimental studies and handling of statistical analysis pertaining to experimental results using software - e.g., Stata, SPSS, R etc.). Excellency in all required prerequisites. * Willingness and ability to complete the Master thesis in due course
NEW. Long-shot bias in betting odds	Science	Prof. Steffen Keck	Betting markets provide a natural laboratory for studying decision making under uncertainty. A commonly observed anomaly in this context is that bets that offer the largest potential payoffs (the “longest” odds) tend to have the lowest expected values. This is referred to as the long-shot bias. The goal of the thesis will be to compile and analyze a large dataset of betting odds and analyze the strength of the longshot bias across different contexts. Based on these results the thesis will then discuss the validity of different explanations for the long-shot bias that have been suggested in the literature.	The thesis requires very good knowledge of statistics and probability as well as high proficiency in a statistic software such as Stata, R or Pandas. Willingness and ability to complete the Master thesis in due course (at most 9 month). This involves regular work progress and meeting of milestones throughout the work on the thesis. Please note that this will be strictly enforced.
NEW. Voting vs. averaging in crowd judgments	Science	Prof. Steffen Keck	Crowd wisdom relies on the aggregation of independent judgments. The accuracy of a group’s aggregate prediction generally rises with the number, ability, and diversity of its members. However, prior work based on simulation studies has repeatedly discussed differences in the importance of these dimension for continuous estimation tasks (averaging) compared to discrete choice tasks (voting). The goal of this thesis is to replicate some of the prior simulation results and test their robustness when the details of the aggregation schemes are changed (e.g. mean vs. median-based aggregation in continuous estimation tasks).	* The thesis requires very good knowledge of statistics and probability as well as high proficiency in a simulation software such as R or Python. * Willingness and ability to complete the Master thesis in due course (at most 9 month). This involves regular work progress and meeting of milestones throughout the work on the thesis. Please note that this will be strictly enforced.
NEW. Making probability judgments more extreme	Science	Prof. Steffen Keck	When aggregating the probability estimates of many individuals to form a consensus probability estimate of an uncertain future event, it is common to combine them using a simple weighted average. Prior research further suggests, that such aggregated probabilities correspond more closely to the real world if they are transformed by pushing them closer to 0 or 1. This is somewhat puzzling given the well-known results on individual overconfidence. The goal of the thesis is to design an experimental probabilistic forecasting task and explore when and why making aggregated probability judgments is beneficial.	* The thesis requires very good knowledge of experimental design, statistics and probability as well as proficiency in a statistics software such as R, Stata or Python. * Willingness and ability to complete the Master thesis in due course (at most 9 month). This involves regular work progress and meeting of milestones throughout the work on the thesis. Please note that this will be strictly enforced.

Previous Topics

Please find some of our previous topics (i.e. completed and current theses) here (available in the library either now or upon completion of the thesis):

When High Earners Earn Less: Effects of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on the U.S. Labor Market. A Quantitative Study
An Experiment-Based Research on Creative Performance, Best Membership and Self-Perception
The influence of overconfidence on advice taking
Characteristics of Success for Research Projects
Experiments on flat collaboration architectures
Experiments on smart team architectures
Multiplex network formation in peer production communities – an empirical study within GitHub and StackOverflow
Skill-Based sorting in GitHub – a complementary survey study
Individual skills in group-based innovation
Knowledge transfers in groups
Functional Diversity in Teams
The Impact of CEO Cultural Intelligence on Beer Producers' Export Propensity
Shareholder Activism and Generalist CEOs: An Empirical Analysis
Effects of authority structures in small groups, solving exploration and exploitation tasks
Rational enough to know better, confident enough to ignore anyway
Striving for status: The influence of tenure on productivity within the Top 20 Business Schools in the U.S.
The Influence of the the Top Management on New Product Innovation
The Challenges of a Small Slovak Company within the confines of the European Union
When does functional diversity affect team performance?
Performance feedback and risk taking - the role of CEO loss aversion and confirmation bias
Managerial Representation and Decision-Making in Systemic Industries
Performance assessment in groups: Comparison of the expression of overplacement in groups and individuals
CEO Attention Before and During the Financial Crisis
A General Theory of Systemic Industries
The emergence of organisational design in new ventures: n ethnographic study in the online booking industry
Empirical evidence of the connection between the CEO's charisma and a firm performance in the context of the U.S. commercial banking sector
Viennese CEOs make great international business: cornerstones of their success
Generalist CEO vs. Specialist CEO: Risk-taking behavior in response to performance feedback
The Renaissance of Electromobility - The Case of Tesla
Effect of universities research groups' sizes and hierarchy on their performance: evidence from Austria and Germany
The influence of CEO social class background on risk taking, individualism and collectivism
Mutual Influences on the Exchange of Information during Group Decision-Making Processes
Narcissistic CEO's Impact on NPI Rates
What determines market reactions to CEO announcements?
The staging of start-up and its interference with motivational issues and the skill-task match of non-founding employees
Cooperation Patterns: A study in the area of management, strategy and organization in the top 40 business schools in the US
The emergence of organizational design in new ventures: an ethnographic study in the foodservice industry
Intuitive and Analytical Judgements in Management: The Effect of Expertise in Decision Making
The Effects of Geographic Dispersion on Startup Founding Teams
Shareholder Activism: Analysis of Implemented Shareholder Proposals
Group Decision-Making in Organisations
A Sequential Model of Strategic Information Exchange for Group Decisions in Organizations
Performance consequences of the top executive turnover in the wake of new CEO appointments