Diploma Thesis Exchange

The KMU-HSG and the CFB-HSG invite applications for Bachelor's and Master's thesis topics that either correspond to the research interests of the institute or are brought to us by practice partners.

Teaching and research at the University of St.Gallen emphasises practical relevance. The KMU-HSG is also part of this tradition: Along our «Schwungrad», questions from the areas of executive education and consulting are addressed as part of research projects. At the same time, results and proposed solutions from SME research flow back into teaching and work with practice partners.

In this way, we also see ourselves as mediators between students and companies in dealing with business management issues in SMEs. Here you can see an overview of the current topics on offer:

Bachelor and Master thesis
Registration	Topic	Type of thesis
Immediately	Possible Positionings based on market und competitor analysis for a platform that is mediating expert knowledge	Bachelor thesis (Dr. Alexander Fust, for further details please contact manuel.fahrbach@unisg.ch)

In addition, please find below an overview of supervisors at our institute. In case of requests for thesis supervision, please contact directly the respective person and thereby take into consideration the instructions and requirements described in the overview.

**Prof. Dr. Heiko Bergmann**
contact heiko.bergmann@unisg.ch	Subject areas: (Nascent) Entrepreneurship Start-up process Methodological aspects of entrepreneurship research Further information on the Field of Expertise “Business Creation and Development” Methods: Quantitative and qualitative methods; no single case studies or practice projects. Thesis topic postings: Heiko Bergmann primarily supervises topics that are advertised on the corresponding platform (Diploma Thesis Exchange). Direct inquiries with own topic proposals are possible, but the available capacities are very limited.

**Prof. Dr. Urs Fueglistaller**
contact urs.fueglistaller@unisg.ch	Subject areas: SME Leadership Competence Service Excellence Aesthetic development Co-entrepreneurship through the social context of an organization Further information on the Field of Expertise “SME Management” Methods: Qualitative Thesis topic postings: None at the moment, thesis topic can be selected freely but should be located in one of the subject areas listed above

**Dr. Alexander Fust**
contact alexander.fust@unisg.ch	Subjects areas: Regulation of cognition and motivation in contexts of uncertainty (self-regulated learning of entrepreneurs): How can entrepreneurs regulate their motivation? How can entrepreneurs enhance their decision-making processes under uncertainty? Regulation of cognitive biases of entrepreneurs (e.g. overconfidence or overoptimism) Information search process of entrepreneurs to recognize business ideas SMEs and digitalization Agility in entrepreneurial organizations Further information on the Field of Expertise “Entrepreneurial Development” Methods: Quantitative and qualitative research methods depending on the research question. Thesis topic postings: -

**Prof. Dr. Jörg-Michael Gasda**
contact joerg-michael.gasda@unisg.ch	Subject areas: Entrepreneurial leadership Co-entrepreneurship Experimental entrepreneurship research Methods: Quantitative and qualitative research methods depending on the research question. Thesis topic postings: None. Priority will be given to thesis supervision requests by participants of Prof. Gasda’s courses. Note: Currently no additional thesis supervisions are accepted. Waiting list possible.

**Prof. Dr. Isabella Hatak**
For thesis supervision requests please get in touch with Mateja Andric.	Subject areas: (Corporate) Entrepreneurship, individual/psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs for entrepreneurial performance and well-being Further information on the Field of Expertise “Entrepreneurial Health, Wellbeing and Behavior”

**Mateja Andric**
contact mateja.andric@unisg.ch assistant to Prof. Dr. Isabella Hatak Main supervisor: Prof. Dr. Isabella Hatak	Subject areas: Family embeddedness, entrepreneurial life courses, and work-family interface in entrepreneurship: The embeddedness of firms in entrepreneurs’ and/or CEOs’ family systems, the impact of life courses and life events of entrepreneurs on their firms, and the interrelationship between entrepreneurs’ private life and work Power dynamics in entrepreneurship: The role of power inequality/concentration in the context of entrepreneurship such as power inequality in entrepreneurial teams or between founders and investors Gender and Entrepreneurship: The role of gender-stereotypes in entrepreneurship und family businesses Corporate Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship in established firms (with focus on SMEs) Methods: Quantitative and qualitative theses; no single case studies and no practice-oriented projects. Thesis topic postings: No specific topics; thesis topic can be selected freely but should be located in one of the subject areas listed above.

**Prof. Dr. Josh Hsueh**
contact josh.hsueh@unisg.ch Only theses written in English are supervised.	Subject areas: Entrepreneurial well-being and stress coping during the entrepreneurial process. Family businesses and corporate social responsibility, such as sustainability reporting and assurance, employee relationships, and reputation management Methods: Quantitative and qualitative methods, in particularly experimental method and survey research Thesis topic postings: Thesis topics are open for discussion but the topic should fit with one of the aforementioned topics

**Prof. Dr. Christine Scheef**
contact christine.scheef@unisg.ch	Subject areas: Family firms and owner-managed firms with a focus on corporate governance (e.g. board of directors, owner control) and firm strategy. Management and ownership successions in family and owner-managed firms: Pathways, processes and implications. Founder-led firms: The role of founders in established firms and their exit pathways. Careers of CEOs in family firms and of founders: Pathways and its implications for firm strategy and performance. Family firms in Southeast Asia: Ownerships structures, corporate governance, and succession. Methods: Quantitative and qualitative methods. No single case studies Thesis topic postings: No specific topics at the moment; thesis topic suggestions by students should be located in one of the subject areas listed above.

**Prof. Dr. Thomas Zellweger**
For thesis supervision requests please get in touch with Tobias Palm or Matthias Würsten.	Subject areas: Family business: Governance, strategy, succession, control, growth Entrepreneurship: Management of and under uncertainty, idea development, validation of business ideas, handling feedback in the validation of business ideas Strategy and growth of owner-managed firms Theory of ownership Further information on the Field of Expertise “Family Business and Succession”

**Tobias Palm**
contact tobias.palm@unisg.ch assistant to Prof. Dr. Thomas Zellweger Main supervisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas Zellweger	Subject areas: Management practices in owner-operated companies, i.e. for example Which management practices are applied in owner-managed companies such as start-ups, family businesses and SMEs, and have an impact on the success of the company (e.g. probability of survival, financial performance)? Examples are innovation practices (e.g. active management of technology-exchange with universities), financial practices (e.g. annual budget preparation), human capital practices (e.g. objectives & performance tracking) Which management practices of owner-managers (e.g. of start-ups, family businesses and SMEs) are used to optimize the success of the company (e.g. practices that allow dealing with feedback - which feedback is relevant? How can it be implemented?) What distinguishes management practices in owner-managed companies from management practices in non-owner-managed companies? Which factors have a particular impact on management practices in owner-managed companies, e.g. size of the company, authority of the owner-manager? Methods: Mainly qualitative, quantitative imaginable. Thesis topic postings: Topic can be freely chosen within the above mentioned topics. Please approach me with first concrete ideas (e.g., research question, method, topic)

**Matthias Würsten**
contact matthias.wuersten@unisg.ch assistant to Prof. Dr. Thomas Zellweger Main supervisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas Zellweger	Subject areas: Family Business, Entrepreneurship, Succession, Corporate Governance, Strategic Management Control in owner-managed companies Religion in owner-managed companies Methods: Qualitative theses; no single case studies and no practice-oriented projects. Thesis topic postings: No specific topics; thesis topic can be selected freely but should be located in one of the subject areas listed above.