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“Another skill comes into play here: independent study skills. Students need to select their topic, their area of focus, the resources that will be useful. Even if they will be getting support from their supervisor, there are so many things to do on their own which develop their independent study skills. That will be a lifelong asset for everyone who goes through this process—not only to complete their thesis, but to pick up skills that will be useful in any field, wherever they go. Even if they do not pursue research degrees or further education.” (Madhu Neupane-Bastola)

— Madhu Neupane Bastola

“A thesis is an opportunity to do an original piece of research, more so than any other course during one’s studies. Under the guidance and supervision this involves asking the right set of questions and figuring out what a good research question actually is. This is half of the work of decent supervisory work. For the student, it is to define a good research question and then go on to address and answer the question in the best way possible.” (Ansgar Richter)

— Ansgar Richter

“In a particular case, you might lean more one way or the other. You might be more incremental or leapfrogging, more aggressive or less aggressive in terms of how far you stretch the wisdom.” (Steven Floyd)

— Steven Floyd

“As we are looking for the research question, one key recommendation is that the more specific you can make your research question, the easier you will make your life for your thesis process. If your question is “What is the meaning of life?”, your research will take a while. If you can frame the question very specifically, it will be much more motivating and easier to complete.” (Timo Korkeamäki)

— Timo Korkeamäki

“One aspect of a thesis is to inspire somebody to want to continue on a research journey, or to at the very least understand the significance of research and the time and energy that goes into it. Also, let’s not forget the significance of those epiphanies that happen within research, allowing the student both to discover the experience for themselves but also to have some empathy and appreciation for those epiphanies of others. So, inspiration is something that can be achieved by a thesis. Unfortunately, we know that that isn’t always the case. Quite the opposite, in fact. Writing a thesis can feel as if you’re a slave to the thesis and a slave to the ideas of others. This ideal achievement that some theses manage to realize can be lost. At the very least, the thesis should serve as some kind of ticket to somewhere else. But it remains true that a thesis can be a beacon of inspiration around the beautiful world of research. Here, it is important not to forget that it is an amazing privilege to actually have the opportunity to engage in deep thinking and research, whatever the discipline.” (Kim Beasy)

— Kim Beasy

“A thesis might accomplish many things. First among those, a thesis is intended to help graduate students develop their research skills. We call master’s theses “capstone projects”, others call them “highly critical components” which synthesize everything that the student has learned during that programme. The thesis offers the opportunity to the student to work on their own to materialize and translate what they learned from a course at university into the reality of their research project. It is a major opportunity not only for learning, but for making big decisions and sustaining focus for a long time on one project.” (Madhu Neupane-Bastola)

— Madhu Neupane Bastola

“Progressive research is built on previous thinking, on what we already know, and we want to make progress. Don’t always reinvent the wheel. We intend to speak to a real problem. We don’t want to deal with research questions which are not critical. And one of the big challenges in the academy has been to address big problems that we face as a society in the world. So if you do really good research, good defined as theoretical but also relevant, rigorous but also interesting, you have to recognize that research must combine the qualities that are embedded in these paradoxes.” (Steven Floyd)

— Steven Floyd

“The first encounter with thesis work is to ask oneself what knowledge actually is. What does the student think is meant by knowledge and knowledge generation? Usually, this is the first discussion that I have with students who show interest in writing a thesis and ask me to supervise it. In this context, I detect various perspectives. The dominant perspective is that knowledge is objective and is represented by science. It determines methodology. Professors are the carriers of knowledge, and can convey to the student how knowledge generation takes place. The student has to demonstrate to the professor that (s)he can learn these methods and that the professor can give the student a good grade for it. The second perspective is predominantly driven by a career motive. Students say that the MA thesis is the last component that they need to accomplish their studies. The student needs a good grade, but is trying to reduce the time needed for completing the thesis. Hence, the motivation is to get done with the thesis as quickly as possible, with minimal resources invested in it. The expectation of the student towards the supervisor is: Make my life easy! The third perspective is that a student comes and confesses that he doesn’t yet quite understand what knowledge means. The student is searching, and the thesis helps to explore the question of what knowledge means for him/her. These are the students who enter the thesis process with a predominantly open mind.” (Urs Jäger)

— Urs Jäger

“You have parts of the work that have to be focused and parts that have to be broad. For example, research questions have to be highly focused. The theoretical background of those questions needs to be broad enough to support them. One of the problems I had as an editor of Journal of Management Studies was that I would see papers coming from North America that ignored research papers from Europe. That is of course much less of a problem nowadays, when you have to be broad to support a research question. You can’t answer a research question in North America any more that’s already been answered in Europe.” (Steven Floyd)

— Steven Floyd

“As a finance professor, I could be teaching in class how an IPO is structured, how the leading investment banks do it, and the factors that shape the outcome. But rather than just doing that, I’d like to have my students explore and understand why we have IPOs and why we have investment banks, and the theories behind the shape and structures of the deals that we see. I think that will make their education more future-proof. Corona is a great example of an unexpected situation that makes you think harder about the Why instead of the How. We are living in a world where things happen pretty quickly and unexpectedly, so it increases the value of knowing the theories behind it a little better.” (Timo Korkeamäki)

— Timo Korkeamäki

“You may get very critical comments from your supervisor or during your defence. Those who have a positive, growth mindset and motivation for learning will take these comments as learning opportunities, and will be less impacted by them. If we as supervisors can enhance that kind of mindset, I feel that adopting this type of motivational insulating would be a life-long achievement.” (Madhu Neupane Bastola)

— Madhu Neupane Bastola

“You should have an open mind and question the world around you and the surrounding decisions, but you should also sort of focus that inward as well. This means that our project, our work or thesis or our decisions can be improved. Our own project, work, thesis, and decisions should receive the scrutiny that help them grow and evolve, too. If we take that open curiosity mindset seriously, then we also need to recognize that other people who have that same mindset stay directed towards us. That is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing.” (Matt Farmer)

— Matt Farmer

“Supervisors are part of this invisible debate by being part of academia. We have a thesis defence and I try to challenge my students and hope they challenge me as well. It is a matter of convincing each other. This is to be regarded a privilege. As a supervisor, I am as much a student as my student. This is the definition of good research because it involves people who are trying to learn together and from each other. I can only learn from them if they defend their work and put things in context and seeing the limitations of it. To be open to this kind of debate, to subject oneself to it, is crucial as one embarks on the thesis. I see too many students who ask the supervisor as to what they are writing is right. This is the wrong question to ask. They should write something that they are convinced about, based on the research they have done. And that must be so strong, that they can defend it.” (Ansgar Richter)

— Ansgar Richter