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 list of topics here. You can apply for topics listed under 'Available Topics'. Those listed separately as previous topics/completed theses are no longer available. If you are looking to apply for a master thesis with a specific supervisor, but they currently have no topics listed, check back at a later time, as topics will be added throughout the year.

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

Please note: Topics will be added throughout the year: Topics added after Oct 1 will be available for supervision in the following summer term, topics added after Apr 1 will be available for supervision in the following winter term. Please note that some topics may stay online for more than one semester, e.g. if they allow for more than one more specialised thesis written.

Available Topics

Topic Track Contact partners at Dept. Brief Description Supplementary Information &
Pre-requisites
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.
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.
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):

  • Costly information inefficiencies due to dissatisfied employees
  • Effects of sticky reputation in organizational learning
  • What drives AI adoption? A quantitative analysis of Form 10-K reports linked to business data of publicly listed US companies
  • Individual-level determinants of firm-level AI adoption
  • External representations and strategic decision making
  • 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
  • Non-monetary preference-based sorting across workplace organizations - an empirical analysis
  • Beyond the Paycheck: A Liveability Index-Based Analysis of Non-Monetary Incentives in the Workplace
  • The role of interpersonal attitudes and emotion in democratic decision-making
  • The influence of overconfidence on advice taking
  • Subgroup Formation in Start-Ups
  • Characteristics of Success for Research Projects
  • Determining personality through textual analysis based on self-description
  • Experiments on flat collaboration architectures
  • Experiments on smart team architectures
  • On the effects of organizational structures on employee health: Ann empirical analysis
  • Reciprocity in Voting behavior - an ESC study
  • Measuring Hierarchical Depth in Selected Industries
  • Flat Organizing - in depth case studies in the service sector
  • The Diffusion Of Organizational Theory in Politics
  • Decision making structures in the U.S. Senate
  • The potential of electric vehicle free-flooting carshering system covidering a weather-dependent supply
  • 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
  • Novel forms of organizing
  • Search on Rugged Landscapes and Limits to Exploitation
  • Search in turbulent environments
  • Search and Organization Structure
  • Differences in search behavior: Maximizing cumulative versus exploring individually-highest payoffs on rugged landscapes
  • Norms of Violence
  • Geographic-specific attention to fatal casualities
  • Group vs Individual Decision Making: A comparsion of search, allocation and selection tasks
  • Knowledge transfers in groups
  • When High Earners Earn Less: Effects of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on the U.S. Labor Market. A Quantitative Study
  • 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
  • Mutual Influences on Information Exchange in Grain deceiving material
  • Empirical evidence of the connection between the CEO's charisma and a firm performance in the context of the U.S. commercial banking sector
  • The effects of hierarchies on small group`s performance, when solving an exploitative or explorative task.
  • 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