This course accompanies MSc Marketing students as they develop and conduct their Master’s thesis research projects. Students engage in critical discussions about their research with peers and faculty throughout the research process: identifying and refining research questions, designing empirical approaches, selecting appropriate analytical methods for qualitative and quantitative data, and translating findings into managerial value.

The course provides a collaborative learning environment where students integrate and apply theoretical and methodological knowledge from across the MSc curriculum. By discussing their own projects as well as their peers’ projects, students develop a comprehensive understanding of the research process and learn how to conduct rigorous and practically relevant marketing research.

The emphasis of this course is to enable students to translate their conceptual marketing know-how into an academic project of practical relevance.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Successfully integrate their marketing and methodological knowledge into a marketing research project.
• Plan and conduct a marketing research project of practical and theoretical relevance and importance.
• Provide constructive feedback on their peers’ projects, to defend their own project against critical comments, and to integrate these comments in their current research work.
• Further improve their skills in teamwork, giving and receiving feedback, and designing effective pitches and presentations.

Part of the course consists of small group break-out sessions. During the online phases, you only need to attend your own assigned session.

We strongly recommend full attendance in all sessions. Minimum attendance requirement to pass the course: 80%

While some parts of the seminar are held in a colloquium-style teaching format, the course will also utilize a mix of interactive faculty lectures, class discussions, and student presentations. The instructors will provide students with additional advice, individual and / or group coaching sessions, and feedback. Active participation is crucial for a positive outcome of this course. Thus, students are recommended to attend all sessions. 

The logic underlying this course is as follows:

 (1) The objective of this course is not to evaluate your final thesis but to create a constructive environment to critically reflect, discuss, and review central aspects of the research questions underlying your thesis project and the approach you develop to adress these questions.

 (2) Oftentimes there is no one best approach fitting to resolve certain research problems, but there are a multitude of methods available to marketing researchers and practitioners, each with its specific merits and drawbacks. This is why we teach different methods through the course of the MSc program. Against this background, a substantial part of the course focuses on students' capabilities to develop, justify, defend, and, if necessary, revise and improve their research question(s) and empirical approach(es). This includes dealing with criticism (every empirical approach can be criticized for various reasons), and integrating the concerns raised by peers and faculty members in their ongoing project work.

 (3) Students are advised to share the feedback from peers and faculty with their direct supervisor and try to integrate it into their project. Overall, we aim to contribute to improving the quality of your research by engaging you in an ongoing discussion.

 (4) The course structure aims to mimic real-world settings, which include review processes of academic papers, business consulting projects with discussion rounds involving clients (who, by experience, most of the time also have different opinions than the consultants), or company projects involving different stakeholders, positions, and opinions.

(5) Overall, we aim to train your capabilities in dealing with criticism constructively, to define and convincingly argue your position throughout the course, as well as to respect and integrate different positions into your research project.

Grading of this course is based on the following components:

• Proposal defense – 10%
• Poster conference day (presentation and discussion) – 20%
• Progress coachings – 10%
• Final presentation - 50%
• Peer feedback quality - 10 %

To pass the course, your weighted final grade needs to exceed 60% (marks are assigned in equal percentage increments).

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