Bachelor and Mastertheses

At the Insitute of Retail Management, students of the University of St. Gallen have the opportunity to write their Bachelor or Master Thesis under supervision of Prof. Thomas Rudolph and his research team.

*Please double check with the dates on StudentWeb

Prerequisites: Applicants who attended at least one course offered by the Institute of Retail Management (Prof. Dr. Thomas Rudolph) will be selected preferably. In addition, we expect all applicants to be familiar with the basic rules of academic writing (e.g. citation rules). Finally, we expect that all students complete their final thesis within two semesters after the kick-off meeting.
Topics: We only accept applications on topics listed below on this website. We do not accept applica-tions with self-developed topics. Please apply for up to three topics.
Timing: We will supervise about 10 theses every semester. Every semester, you can apply for one of these topics during our application periods. For the spring semester, the applications period opens mid-January and closes mid-February. For the fall semester, that period commences from the start of September and ends at the end of September. We will notify all applicants af-ter the application period has ended. After a successful application, we invite you to discuss your topic together with Prof. Rudolph and a PhD-student during a 20 min Kick-off meeting.

Familiarize yourself with our application process and the important information described above.
Carefully choose up to three topics from our list below that interest you.
Please consider the application deadlines (see Timing).
Send your application (including CV, grades, thesis application form) to abschlussarbeiten-irm<at>unisg.ch. Please note that we only accept applications sent to this email address. Ap-plications sent to Prof. Rudolph directly or to the administration office can unfortunately not be considered.
After getting notified about your acceptance (one week after the application deadline), you will be contacted to schedule the Kick-off meeting with Prof. Rudolph and your assigned advi-sor (PhD student). We will offer you time slots for this meeting (see above). The 20 min slots will be assigned on a first-come first-served basis.
During the kick-off meeting, you will discuss and focus your topic together with Prof. Ru-dolph and an advisor (PhD student) from the IRM. You will officially start your thesis after this meeting. Please bring the filled-out official application form and our publication permis-sion to this meeting.
Please note: Our internal process does not replace the University’s official thesis process. You still have to officially register your topic at the student administration

Familiarize yourself with the IRM fact sheet. The fact sheet provides you with detailed infor-mation on the writing process and our requirements for excellent theses.
After the first meeting with Prof. Rudolph and your advisor (PhD student), you will start with your literature review.
As soon as you have gained a good overview over the literature, you will start writing the dis-position (structure), the problem definition (two pages), and the approach (one page) of your thesis. Send this document at least 2 working days prior the meeting to your advisor and schedule a meeting with her/him. She/he will give you feedback in a 30 min meeting.
The second meeting should take place not later than six months after you have started with your thesis. Here again, send the required documents (introduction/disposition of the main part/theoretical framework/methodological approach) at least 2 working days prior the meet-ing to your advisor via email.
Finalize and submit your thesis.
In case you conducted qualitative interviews for your thesis, please enter all your interviewees in this form after you submitted your thesis: https://forms.office.com/r/T5YfRDBZkf