bachelor’s thesis 2015-2016 info session 3 joan lofgren, program director with material by jaana...
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BACHELOR’S THESIS 2015-2016
INFO SESSION 3
Joan Lofgren, Program DirectorWith material by
Jaana Santala, Information Specialist
Tomi Heimonen, former Development Manager
AALTO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESSMikkeli Campus
BScBA Degree Program21 October 2015
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Agenda
Part A: General discussion1. Choosing a topic
2. Methodology
3. Company projects
4. Information retrieval
5. Other issues
Part B: Open-ended Q&A
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1. Choosing a topic
• In which field are you most interested, for personal or professional reasons?• Consider a topic or topics you think about in your free time (!)• Has something appeared on the news that has caught your eye? • Why is it interesting?• Is it something you are good at doing – or want to become good at?
• Where is the question, the controversy, the puzzle in what you are researching? (We are rooted in a positivist tradition, explaining things).• Is something surprising?• Is there something you wonder about?• What has changed?• How do views on this vary across age/gender/national groups?
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More ideas for topic development
• Can you make a link that is might be unexpected but in any case interesting?
• Example: luxury consumption in the Democratic Republic of Congo• Sapeurs (La Sape) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66HuFrMZWMo• Research by one of our professors (Shukla) in cooperation with the Frankfurt
School of Finance & Management.
• Dig a bit into the literature to familiarize yourself with the topic.
• Broad topic area is enough for now; but think ahead to what you can do with it – is it “productive”?
• Is it academic enough? Almost everything in business/economics has been studied before, at least to some extent.
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Asking questions
• Look for patterns, but keep in mind – establishing causality is difficult!• Did X cause Y? versus• To what extent has X shaped Y?• Which factors have shaped Y the most?
• Understanding patterns/trends in light of IB theories. • Deep description, conceptualizing, interpretation• Cannot speak to causality or prediction, but helps inform our
present understanding and future research. • Exploratory research?
• In any case: Avoid either/or questions – if you can answer the question yes or no, try to rephrase it!
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Keeping it manageable
• As you continue to work on the topic, you will need to become increasingly pragmatic. Consider:
• Who: stakeholders or key players/actors– Who besides yourself and your supervisor would play a major role in
making your research a success?• What do you need to know?• Where will you need to look for the information?
– Where are the interviewees/survey respondents located?– Are all the library resources you need here/online, or will you need
to order books via interlibrary loan?• When will you conduct the “field” or other research?• How will you get the information overall?
– Do you need to do some interviews or conduct a survey?– Do you have sufficient contacts in businesses in your target industry
– or are you bold enough to create them?
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The hourglass once morehttp://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/strucres.php
For other descriptions, Google: hourglass in research
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Research Question Activity
• Focus on the topic you will most likely choose by Monday.
• Brainstorm 3 research questions on the topic you are most likely to select for the Monday deadline.
• Share them with the person next to you.
• We will discuss them as a large group as well.
• [See your handout.]
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3. Methodology
• The choice of method is directed by the nature of the research problem, event or phenomenon at hand
• Even if you don’t decide the methods to be used now, think ahead to what might be needed to deal with your topic.
• Traditionally research methods have been classified under two main categories:• Quantitative research methods• Qualitative research methods
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• The systematic empirical investigation of economic/business/social phenomena via statistical, mathematical, numeric data or computational techniques
• The objective of quantitative research is to test theories and hypotheses.
• Explaining and predicting what, where, why, how and when phenomena occurred
• The quantitative method provides a connection between • empirical observation• mathematical expression of quantitative relationships and • generalization of the results
• Correlation versus causality
Quantitative research methods
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• Aim to gather an in-depth understanding of Economic/Business/Social/Human behavior and the reasons that
govern such behavior
• The qualitative method investigates the why and how decision making
• Objective of qualitative research is to discover meanings and patterns of relationships, including
classifications of types of phenomena and entities, in a manner that does not involve mathematical models
• Refers to the examination, analysis and interpretation of observations.
• Difficult to generalize on the basis of qualitative methods.
• Qualitative methods are often combined with quantitative methods, eg semi-structured interviews help to
formulate survey questions.
Qualitative research methods
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• Starting points: Own motivation to do empirical thesis study Company/Organization offers thesis topic
• Need to contact and negotiate with the company/organization Will the topic & research fulfil the program requirements for the thesis and
the company’s needs for the research?
Example of the company/organization case study plan:• Collect background information
• Context and perspectives• Why should this study be undertaken?• What needs to be studied?• Is there any theory that can inform you about the task?
• Procedures - resources and time plan?• What are your central research questions?• Who is the target company/organization or target group?• How to select cases and informants?• How to analyze the data?• What are the criteria for quality?• How is the data going to be presented?
3. Thesis research for companies or organizations
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• Confidentiality – the thesis is public
• Remove confidential parts to a separate document
• Or make it anonymous. . .
• Language – thesis is in English, but you can prepare an executive summary in Finnish or other language.
• Academic parts – many companies appreciate the lit review part, but some may ask for just a practitioner point of view, so you would produce a separate report for them.
Working with companies or organizations (cont.)
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4. Information retrieval (Jaana Santala)
Good information retrieval skills
•improve your performance in your academic life•save your time and effort•lead to better results
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Information resources
• Books and journals• Reference works• Theses• Reports and conference publications• Archive materials• Internet
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How to find the resources?Printed books:•Kaakkuri•Alli•Melinda
Digital materials:•LibGuideInternet•Google Scholar
You can find links to these databases from Mikkeli Campus library webpage in Into
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Evaluate!
Information has to be•reliable•relevant•current
Information should never be accepted without a critical approach!
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Need help?
• Self-study guide to information retrieval• Individual information retrieval sessions in the library – book
time with information specialist• See list that will be circulated in this session.
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Brainstorming activity on key words or terms
• Based on the interest area and research questions developed in the previous brainstorming activity, list as many key words or terms you could use in your literature search for the thesis. If you wish, create a mind map.
• Discuss your list or mind map with your pair work partner and be ready to share with the whole group.
• [See other side of your handout.]
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