Bachelor/Master Theses

Please note that the Chair of Marketing & Customer Insight can only supervise theses from students of the Faculty of Business Administration.

Bachelorthesis

Applications for Bachelor's theses are only made centrally via STiNE. You can specify a preference order with regard to the professorships at the Institute of Marketing. If possible, these preferences will be taken into account when allocating you to one of the professorships. You can find more information on this in the following document: Bachelor theses [PDF].

If you have any further questions about the allocation process for the marketing specialisation, please contact Dr Leonard Rackowitz (leonard.rackowitz@uni-hamburg.de). For questions regarding examination law
questions, e.g. about individual registration deadlines, legal requirements for registering for a Bachelor's thesis or a second attempt, please contact the study office of your degree programme.

Masterthesis

There are two ways to write a master thesis at our chair:

Direct application at our chair or
Central master thesis assignment of the marketing focus.

Information on both procedures can be found below.

1. Direct Application

Direct application to our chair

You can apply either to a topic we have announced or with your topic proposal.

Please note: It is not a requirement that you have taken a seminar at our chair.

Topic announcement:

We regularly advertise master thesis topics. You can find a list of current topics here.

Your own topic proposals:

Send a proposal for your topic to Julia Rosada( julia.rosada"AT"uni-hamburg.de). In this proposal, you should explain in about one page your research questions and how you would like to solve them. This should also include your review of the scientific literature on the topic. Please note: Your topic should fit the focus of our department.

More information about the direct master thesis assignment

Prerequisites: Please refer to the current requirements of the Office of Student Affairs [PDF].

Having successfully completed a seminar at the Chair of Marketing and Customer Insight is not a necessary prerequisite for writing a master thesis, but it is strongly recommended.

Application documents: Please send the following documents in one PDF document to Julia Rosada( julia.rosada"AT"uni-hamburg.de):

Application form [PDF] including topic preferences (we will try to consider them as much as possible).
Tabular curriculum vitae (including high school diploma and bachelor's degree),
Bachelor's degree certificate (copy),
Overview of previous examination results (available from the respective person in charge of the study office),
Topic requests in case of self-proposed topic: proposal, 1 page of text (What is the problem and how do you want to solve it?) and central literature references.

Start Date: You will determine the exact start date jointly with us. Please bear in mind potential central deadlines from the Office of Student Affairs. You will need to fill out an application for admission to the master's thesis. You can get the form here [PDF].

Processing time: The processing time for all theses (empirical and literature work) is 6 months.

Content of the thesis: Our chair offers literature papers (What do you know from the literature on a certain topic) and empirical papers (market research project).

Length of Thesis:

For literature papers, a maximum of 50 pages (including tables and figures, excluding indexes).

For empirical papers, there is the possibility of writing a maximum of 30 pages in the style of a scientific working paper. Given the difficulty of presenting a 6-month Master's thesis topic in 30 pages, we offer to read an initial version of the thesis. This must be received at least 6 weeks before the official deadline. The reading of the first version does not represent a final correction, but serves to show potential for improvement in the points of argumentation, red thread and comprehensibility.

Supervision: We offer intensive supervision, as we want your work to be as good as possible. Please note our instructions for the preparation of seminar papers and theses [PDF].

2. Central allocation

Central application for a master's thesis in marketing with a professorial preference list.

Participating chairs:

Chair of Marketing & Branding (Prof. Sattler)
Chair of Marketing & Consumer Insight (Prof. Heitmann)
Chair of Marketing & Media (Prof. Clement)
Professorship for Marketing & Pricing (Prof. Gedenk)
SVI Endowed Professorship for Dialog Marketing (Prof. Peters)

Application deadlines: 30.01., 30.04., 30.07., 30.10.

Application documents: Please send the following documents in a signle PDF-file to mkt-ma.bwl"AT"uni-hamburg.de:

Resume
Current transcript of grades
Preference list for professorships
Desired start date of the master thesis

Incomplete applications will not be considered for distribution.

Allocation: The allocation to professorships is based on preferences and free capacities. You will most likely be assigned a master's thesis position if

you study the main subject Marketing and
your preference list includes all 5 chairs of the concentration.

Further applications will be considered if free capacities are available.

It is not possible to switch between professorships once you have been assigned.

Topic: Following the central assignment, you agree on a topic with the professorship to which you have been assigned. During the central Master's thesis assignment, it may happen that the supervising professorship assigns you a topic. If you have concrete ideas for a topic, please contact the professors directly and do not apply via the central assignment.

Here you can find information on direct topic assignment via the chairs in the Marketing and Media concentration:

Professorship for Marketing & Branding (Prof Dr. Henrik Sattler)
Chair of Marketing & Customer Insight (Prof. Dr. Mark Heitmann)
Chair of Marketing & Media (Prof. Dr. Michel Clement)
Professorship for Marketing & Pricing (Prof. Dr. Karen Gedenk)
Endowed Chair of Dialog Marketing (Prof. Dr. Kay Peters)

Registration: Your work must be registered at the latest by the next deadline of the central assignment.

Notes on scientific work

Instructions for the preparation of scientific papers at the Institute of Marketing can be found here [PDF]. In addition, you have the option of using a template [DOCX] which helps you to implement the formal guidelines.