Guidelines for a doctoral thesis dissertation proposal
Guidelines for a doctoral thesis dissertation proposal
Department of Management
University of Lausanne
Faculty of Business and Economics
Note that this thesis proposal is not totally binding. We offer courses in the first two year of the
PhD program, and we expect these courses to have an impact on what you will ultimately study.
So, this thesis proposal is not a full-blown commitment to a certain topic. However, what interests us is to know whether you have done sufficient work, have the necessary background and knowledge, and whether what you plan to study is feasible. We see this as an essential part of our recruiting process to enter the PhD program.
Please ensure that the substantive area in which you wish to research is closely linked to the areas of expertise of one of the professors (see: http://www.hec.unil.ch/hec/enseignement/professeurs), and please indicate the professors who, you think, might be interested.
Note that students who have not had enough training in the discipline they apply for might be considered, but they will have to play "catch up".
Doctoral theses that we intend to supervise must make substantive and original contributions to theory and to the existing literature. Essentially, a theory refers to a framework of constructs (and their manifest indicators), how they are interrelated, their units of analysis, their boundaries (i.e., moderating conditions), and how they are causally related to some dependent measures at the same or a different level of analysis. Theories must make predictions and must explain why and when these predictions should hold. Making a substantive contribution will mean extending previous theoretical work into an area where there is a gap, that is, an area that is not well understood (i.e., puzzling), where previous models have not predicted an outcome well, and so forth. Extensions can include additional explanatory (or possibly dependent variables) and moderating conditions of the theory
Department of Management
University of Lausanne
Faculty of Business and Economics
Note that this thesis proposal is not totally binding. We offer courses in the first two year of the
PhD program, and we expect these courses to have an impact on what you will ultimately study.
So, this thesis proposal is not a full-blown commitment to a certain topic. However, what interests us is to know whether you have done sufficient work, have the necessary background and knowledge, and whether what you plan to study is feasible. We see this as an essential part of our recruiting process to enter the PhD program.
Please ensure that the substantive area in which you wish to research is closely linked to the areas of expertise of one of the professors (see: http://www.hec.unil.ch/hec/enseignement/professeurs), and please indicate the professors who, you think, might be interested.
Note that students who have not had enough training in the discipline they apply for might be considered, but they will have to play "catch up".
Doctoral theses that we intend to supervise must make substantive and original contributions to theory and to the existing literature. Essentially, a theory refers to a framework of constructs (and their manifest indicators), how they are interrelated, their units of analysis, their boundaries (i.e., moderating conditions), and how they are causally related to some dependent measures at the same or a different level of analysis. Theories must make predictions and must explain why and when these predictions should hold. Making a substantive contribution will mean extending previous theoretical work into an area where there is a gap, that is, an area that is not well understood (i.e., puzzling), where previous models have not predicted an outcome well, and so forth. Extensions can include additional explanatory (or possibly dependent variables) and moderating conditions of the theory