Phase 0: Finding a topic and application
- Topic selection
- Look at our available topics for Bachelor’s Thesis, Master’s Thesis, Project Studies, or IDP at the Chair for Strategy and Organization Final Theses, Project Studies, IDP
- Choose your own topic
- Application
- Application for a topic offered by the CSO
- Application with your own topic
- Acceptance / Rejection
In case you want to apply with your own topic, directly proceed to the application. However, make sure that the topic is aligned with our research.
Please send your complete application as described on the respective offer page to the contact person stated. Usually, this includes your CV and a current transcript of records. If required, also include a tentative research idea (exposé) including the research question, hypotheses, data, methods, and possible outcomes with a tentative outline.
Please send the application to a supervisor that fits your research idea. Include your CV and a current transcript of records as well as an exposé with the tentative research idea, including the research question, hypotheses, data, methods, possible outcomes, and a tentative outline. Please note that your proposed topic should be in line with one of the research topics of the CSO. Inform yourself and integrate a clear argument on why your topic fits with the CSO in your exposé.
Further information can be found in the guidelines on how to write a research proposal:
We will usually come back to you within 2 weeks. If you do not hear anything, please kindly remind us of your outstanding application by email.
Phase 1: Registration
- Once your application is approved, your supervisor will send you the link to the application form. We will then register you in the online portal of the TUM School of Management.
- The official thesis registration is approved by grade management - not by our chair - it will take up to four weeks. If you have not received a confirmation after two months, please briefly contact Mrs. Eva Pongracz (pongracz@tum.de). However, you can already start working on it!
- Optional: If your thesis requires the use of internal or non-public project data, your supervisor will provide a Confidentiality Agreement (NDA) to be signed before you begin. There are always topics available that do not require an NDA.
Phase 2: Writing the thesis
Thesis seminar
It is compulsory for all students to study the materials in the thesis seminar of our chair when writing your thesis here. If you have questions beyond the provided material, you can attend the monthly Q&A sessions.
No registration is necessary for the thesis seminar as you will not receive extra ECTS credits Furthermore, no attendance is required for the Q&A sessions and you do not need to present your thesis.
You can find all information about the thesis seminar here:
📃Thesis SeminarRegular updates to your supervisor
In our team and in collaborations, we highly value conscientiousness, autonomy, and proactivity. Please send regular (about once per month) updates per email which concisely and shortly summarize the following points:
- what are you working on right now
- are you within your predefined timeline
- what challenges do you face at the moment
- what will you be working on until the next update
- questions that only your supervisor can answer
As a format we suggest attaching a PowerPoint presentation or Notion page so that we can effectively make comments.
Important milestones for updates are typically the following:
- Topic definition (if not specified through predefined topics)
- After you have read and know the literature:
- summary of what we already know about this topic
- what we don’t know about this topic and why it would be important to know
- your research question
- Your research model and empirical approach (that is: how do you want to answer your research question). If you work (quantitative) empirical, your research model, hypotheses, and empirical approach.
- Your results and conclusions
For all other questions, please ask them in the Q&A sessions of our thesis seminar.
Formatting guidelines
Being able to format your thesis according to the given specifications is an important skill. Therefore, we will not provide you with a word template or similar. Here are our guidelines:
For everything not specified, please refer to the APA Manual:
The cover page should look like this:
Template for declaration of authorship:
Optionally, a template for LaTeX incorporating some of the guidelines of our chair is available here: Thesis Template Chair for Strategy and Organization (APA7). To create a project, you have to log in with your TUM-ID (e.g. "ab12asdf") and your password. Documentation is available under https://sharelatex.tum.de/learn.
Phase 3: Submission
On the day of the submission deadline, your need to submit your thesis by 23:59 pm at the latest. You are allowed to hand in your thesis on the following working day (Monday-Friday), in case the official submission date falls on a weekend (Saturday and Sunday) or a public holiday valid in Bavaria (for students in Munich) or Baden-Württemberg (for students in Heilbronn). You can submit your thesis at any time before the official submission deadline.
Please submit your thesis to the Grade management using the koinon portal. The koinon portal can be found at https://portal.mgt.tum.de/. On the portal, make sure to upload your thesis, incl. the signed Declaration of Authorship, and make sure to check the right box regarding the blocking note. You can find more information in the information sheet in the download center on the website of TUM School of Management (https://www.mgt.tum.de/download-center).
Please also submit your thesis and all required supplementary documents (codes, excel lists, power point slides, etc.) to your supervisor. The subject of the email should be Thesis Submission Name/Your Name/Matriculation Number: xxxxxx. You may choose the file names for the thesis and all the other documents. Discuss with your supervisor how these files should be submitted.
Here is a list of all documents required to submit for your thesis:
- Final Thesis: Thesis (as word and pdf)
- Appendix:
- All data, articles/chapters, statistics, literature, etc. – thus the whole input and all sources and references you used
- References of scientific literature compiled in an Excel-File
- Your project file from the literature management software, such as Citavi, Endnote, Mendeley, etc.
- Executive summary*: a short summary of your thesis (3-5 pages) (as word and pdf)
- Presentation on your thesis topic (as ppt)
- Infographic on your thesis topic* (as ppt and PDF/JPEG)
- Create an One Pager according to this template:
Optional: Prepare your executive summary as an article on medium (https://medium.com/, or any other free publication medium) and include a word document with the link to the article in the shared folder.
- Pain Point Analysis and Pitch Document (optional tbd with your supervisor)
- Pain Point Analysis: Identify a significant problem (pain point) and analyze potential users, TAM/SAM/SOM, MVP concept, and first customers.
- Pitch Deck: Create a professional Pitch Deck (using e.g., Figma, PowerPoint, Lovable tools) that outlines your thesis idea from a market-oriented perspective.
Note: The scope and expectations for the Pain Point Analysis and Pitch Deck must be clarified at the beginning of your project with your supervisor.
Templates for your pitch deck:
https://pitch.com/templates/collections/Pitch-deck
Or checkout Airbnb’s famous pitchdeck:
- GenAI Usage Declaration, see below (as pdf)
For more details about submissions 2 to 5, please refer to the thesis seminar.
Designation of documents:
- All non-literature documents (Word, Excel, PPT, etc): YYYYMMDD_name (e.g. 20200301_Mustermann_Report.ppt)
- Literature: Author(s)_(Year)_Journal abbreviation_Title keyword (more than 2 Authors: 1. Author and et al.: e.g. Mustermann et al..pdf)
In case some files are too large, you can send them via Dropbox, LRZ Sync&Share, Wetransfer or similar.
Submit the files marked with a star (*) in addition to this form: https://forms.gle/qJBv4adescNZfEQn9
Please make sure to adhere to the formatting guidelines.
Phase 4: Assessment and next steps
Once you have submitted your thesis, we will grade it as soon as possible. The supervisor / examiner has 2 months to grade your thesis. We will enter your grade in the online portal of the TUM School of Management. Once your examiner has confirmed the grade in the portal, you are informed of the grade by the portal. After that, grade management will be publish you grade in TUMonline within 3-5 working days. The grade management will contact you regarding all further actions.
Congratulations!
What’s next?
If you wrote an excellent thesis, please consider publishing your thesis in Junior Management Science in consultation with your supervisor. You can find more information at https://jums.academy/.
Please also consider the following resources that reward prices for excellent theses:
- GfHf-Nachwuchspreis (Gesellschaft für Hochschulforschung)
- Preise der GI (Gesellschaft für Informatik), z.B. der Fachgruppe Bildungstechnologien
- Nachwuchspreis GP (Gesellschaft für Prozessmanagement)
- Diploma Thesis Award der SERES Unit (Area: Enterprise Systems)
- Stiftung Industrieforschung (Scholarship for theses)
- Schmalenbach Gesellschaft
- Global Student Innovation Challenge by PDMA
- MLP Nachwuchspreis VHB (Verband der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft)
- Additional TUM Information on prices and awards
FAQs
No.
Yes.
You can download a suggested cover page and the Declaration of Authorship form from our website on http://www.wi.tum.de/programs/downloads/.
If the title of your thesis changes significantly while you are writing it, agree with you supervisor on a new title and get his/her agreement to the change. Once you got your supervisor’s agreement, write an e-mail to Grade Management (CCing you supervisor) where you inform them about the change of the title. If the change in title is only minor, you do not have to write to the Grade Management. Remember that the title of your thesis as per your original registration document will otherwise be printed on your final certificate.
- Fill in the registration form (Anmeldung_Fakultät_Formular.pdf)
- Send the registration form for final approval to your adviser at the Chair for
Strategy and Organization
- Hand in the signed registration form to the office management the Chair for
Strategy and Organization.
- After the successful registration you receive a registration mail by the TUM
School of Management (this process may take up to 4 weeks).
Our chair’s general rule is that it is not forbidden to use AI within your thesis – but: AI is an aid you are using and therefore you have to label for what you used AI. Please cite the AI in your text and clarify in the Appendix of your work, how you got that result from the AI (e.g., by sharing the link to your chat with ChatGPT or by sharing the prompts you used and the outcome the AI generated). But when you plan to use AI, please talk to your supervisor, if he/she allows that and if he/she wants a different documentation of your AI usage than stated here - your supervisors specifications are deciding if and how you can use AI.
Formal Requirements:
We would like to point out that in the background of the general internationalization of science and the economy, we highly recommend you write your thesis in English. Check with your supervisor if a German thesis is possible in your case.
Yes.
No.
- Most important information regarding the format and layout is included in the official guidelines of our chair and the thesis guidelines.
- Use the font style Times New Roman (font size 12) for the text. Write with a line spacing of 2.0. All margins should be 1 inch.
You should use the citation guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA) in your thesis. You can access the APA Publication Manual in the library.
- Bachelor thesis 30 (+/- 10%) pages of written text (not including tables, cover sheet, references, graphs, pictures, and appendix).
- Master thesis 40 (+/- 10%) pages of written text (not including tables, cover sheet, references, graphs, pictures, and appendix).
Following APA, a table of content is not necessary. However, we ask you to include a table of contents in your final thesis.
The thesis begins with a cover sheet, followed by an abstract, which is followed by your actual text. After the text follow the references, figures and tables and then possibly the appendix. At the very end you should attach your declaration of authorship. Current samples for the cover page and declaration of authorship can be found in the download
area of the faculty homepage (Guidelines_ScientificManuscripts.pdf).
Submission:
You can submit your thesis digitally to the Grade Management Team. A printed version is not required.
No. A scanned signature is not valid.
Yes, you are allowed to submit your thesis before the deadline.
If the submission date falls on a public holiday or a weekend, you may submit your thesis on the next working day (Monday to Friday) at the latest.
- Please check the respective mail address of the Grades and Examinations Office
- Printed copies may be handed in: At the Service Point of the TUM School of Management (room 1554). Mon - Fri from 9 am – 12:30 pm & 1:30 – 4 pm. On no account should you hand your thesis in to your supervisor, office management or the Examination Office. The Grade Management Team will pass on copies to your supervisor.
Please put it in a suitable envelope and hand it in at the main gate on Arcisstrasse 21, Munich. Use the address label which you can obtain on request from the Service Point or via mail from the relevant person in the Grade Management Team. In advance, get a “Permission to view this thesis" declaration form from the relevant person at the Service Point or in the Grades and Examinations Office, fill it in, and put it in the envelope together with your thesis.
Yes. A special authorization is not required.
Yes, but we advise you to hand it in digitally. If you do submit by post, you should send your thesis to the following address:
Technische Universität MünchenTUM School of Management Grade Management Bachelor or Master Arcisstrasse 2180333 Munich
Further FAQs from the TUM: