Bachelor Thesis

Formal Application with the Responsible Examination Office

For the application and examination procedures your specific courses's study and examination regulations apply. On the Economics and Social Science examination offices' website you will find all further information. Additional information can be obtained from the staff of the faculty responsible for examinations.

Bachelor thesis - Procedure at the chair

The chair conducts an application procedure for Bachelor students every semester. If you would like to write your thesis at the Chair of Public & Nonprofit Management, you must have successfully completed the course Public Management 1 or Public Management 2. If you meet this requirement, you can apply until November 1st (for the summer semester) and May 1st (for the winter semester) respectively. The chair decides within three weeks after the end of the application deadline if a supervision is possible and will contact you thereafter. The formal registration process for your degree program remains unaffected. Please be aware of all deadlines and formal requirements (see faculty's homepage). Final thesis consultation hours are arranged by appointment and can be booked via Moodle. As part of the formal registration process, students generate an application for a topic assignment in consultation with the chair via PULS and submit it to the chair for forwarding to the SoWi/WiWi examination office.

Colloquium

Every semester the chair offers a colloquium for theses in the area of public management for students that write their theses with us. It is expected that all students, that write their theses (Bachelor's and Master's) at the chair, participate in our colloquium. During the colloquium students have to present their project and discuss it with their colleagues.

Formal Requirements for Bachelor's Theses

Please refer to the information sheet titled "Formal Requirements for Theses." You will find information on the formal requirements and criteria for a thesis at the Chair of Public and Nonprofit Management there. A bachelor's thesis is an initial academic qualification that must meet standards of content and form. Students may write either a literature review or an empirical paper. Bachelor's theses at the Chair of Public and Nonprofit Management are usually literature reviews. For literature-based papers, existing literature must be evaluated; that is, previous studies must be assessed according to specific quality parameters. Therefore, you have to provide an overview of your search strategy and key terms, and explain the criteria used to include or exclude certain results. Empirical papers, on the other hand, are those in which you collect and evaluate data independently. This occurs in ongoing research projects, which provide the opportunity to participate in field studies and/or experiments.

Topic suggestions

Generally, thesis topics should be clearly related to the teaching and research profile of the Chair of Public and Nonprofit Management. This includes in particular topics related to

• Administrative and management reforms in the public sector
• Application and implementation of management tools in the public and nonprofit sector
• Functional aspects of management in public administration and NPOs (e.g. personnel, financial, and change management).

Consequently, the potential range of topics is quite broad. Ultimately, you should define and work on an (empirical) question in consultation with us, which has a comprehensible practical relevance. Especially when choosing a topic, it is recommended to contact the chair team, whereby an at least approximate thematic orientation should already be considered in advance.