What Follows Is an Example of How an Empirical Msc Master Thesis May Be Structured

What follows is an example of how an Empirical MSc Master Thesis may be structured.

In this template you will find the sections and subsections that expert readers (those who will assess your work) expect to find in this kind of dissertation, that is, one that presents the conclusions that can be derived from the analysis and interpretation of the data obtained in an empirical study. An example would be a study focusing on the perceptions of a sample of consumers (e.g. adolescents living in the city of Barcelona) regarding a specific brand or product (e.g. Apple/iPad) with the objective of knowing whether the messages the brand was sending have been adequately integrated by the target customers.

Following this template closely will ensure your work will meet the minimum quality requirements.  

In each of the sections, you will find indications designed to serve as guidelines (you will find them marked in grey) and examples of the text that an imaginary student may have written to explain his/her work (these have been marked in italics and blue font). The example has taken the field of Operations as the focus of the example but you may apply this to any field (CSR, OB…).

Please note that, despite the highly conventional^[1] nature of the Conceptual or Literature Review MSc Master Thesis, there may be room for changes depending on each paper. So please take the following as a model for you to start thinking about how your paper should look like if you choose this kind of dissertation.

Any doubts you may have, please check them with your tutor and/or the coordinator of this dissertation modality.

In the following table you will find an orientation regarding the ‘weight’ that each of the sections should have in the paper:

Proposed Template for the Empirical MSc Master Thesis

1. Acknowledgements (optional)

If you want to thank someone or a/several company/ies for their contribution to your paper, this is where you need to do it

1. Preface (optional)

This is a space you may use to explain anything which may provide a context to your paper, be it some personal experience, or other.

1. Introduction (requirement)

The Introduction in empirical papers uses the conclusions drawn from the synthetic literature review to provide the reader with the necessary context that allows him/her to understand the conclusions of the empirical work. The literature review in the empirical paper does not need to be as exhaustive as that which is included in the conceptual paper.

Contrary to what is the case in applied papers (where the relevance of the analyzed topic/issue from a practitioners’ perspective is prioritized), in empirical papers the analyzed topic/issue should be proved relevant from a research perspective. That is, reading your paper should be of interest to researchers working on the same research area as the one you will be focusing on in your study.  

Please check with your tutor the number of papers that should be reviewed, most of which should be research papers.

The Introduction should be organized in 3 separate parts^[3].

• Part 1. General introduction to the topic under study
• Part 2. Literature review of the topic.
• Part 3. Presenting the research gap^[4]

In the following lines you can find some detailed information regarding what should be included in each of these.

Part 1. General introduction to the topic under study

The objective of this first part is to ensure the reader’s interest in your paper. In order to do that, you should begin by answering the following questions:

Why is the field of operations important? 

Why is supply chain management (SCM) important?

Why is risk management relevant in SCM?

As you can see, these questions move from more general (‘operations’) to more specific topics (‘supply chain management’) until they reach the final topic the research will focus on (risk management in SCM). This ‘movement’ of increasing specificity is key when we organize our Introduction, otherwise it will ‘sound’ disorganized.

If possible use figures, numbers, % to illustrate the impact of operations, supply change management and risk management within SCM on companies’ performance.

It is also a good idea to begin the Introduction with a ‘punch’ sentence that awakens the reader’s interest.

XXX million US$ were spent in the year 2011 on risk management policies. This amount is the This paper presents a literature review of the field of operations and, more specifically on the topic of risk management in supply chain management. Our aim is to identify the ways in which the topic of risk in supply chain management has been dealt with so far in order to identify the possible research gaps (things that have not been explored so far) that may make a difference in companies’ performance.