Final theses

Prerequisites

We preferably accept students with a major in Finance and Accounting (seminars and/or lectures) as well as former project study participants.

Furthermore, the student has to make sure to fulfil all necessary requirements of TUM (e.g. enough credits) to commence the thesis.
If the number of applications exceeds the capacity of our chair, the selection of students will be based on grades (in total and grades in our lectures and seminars), the student’s field of interest and the current term of the student.

Application

The applications for a thesis under the supervision of our chair are collected four times a year. To sucessfuly apply, you need to hand-in your application exclusively via our official thesis application form that can be accessed two weeks before the respective application deadlines under the following link:

EF Thesis Application Form

The following documents that need to be included in your thesis application via our form should be named accordingly with "Lastname_Firstname_Documentname":

• Transcript of Records (ToR)
• Curriculum vitae (CV)
• Exposé (for students applying with their own topics)

Please note that the access to the form is restricted outside of the application window (of two weeks before the application deadlines). Also, note that we cannot accept applications that are not correctly submitted over our official thesis application form or that are incomplete.

The following table gives an overview of relevant deadlines:

Topics

Regarding the choice of your topic there are two options:

1. You apply for a specific research topic related to ongoing research projects at the chair that are listed on the following page: Research topics.

2. You apply with your own research topic that is related to our research interest in Entrepreneurial Finance. In this case, we ask you to provide a short exposé where you should present your topic and motivation. To be specific, the research proposal should address the following four areas on a two-page proposal:

(1) A concise formulation of your research question and subsequently derived hypothesis.

(2) A detailed description of the methodological approach (quantitative/qualitative) to answer the research question.

(3) A concrete data acquisition strategy that addresses the particularities of private market data. You have to specify the databases employed and planned data enrichment or merging steps.

(4) A brief synthesis of the line research your thesis builds upon.

Please note that submitting a proposal does not entitle you to write your thesis at the Chair of Entrepreneurial Finance. The submission will be reviewed and could be rejected at any time without cause. 

Duration

According to the examination regulations of the grade management office of our faculty, the process time (from the date of registration of your thesis) is as follows:

• Master thesis (TUM-BWL/TUM-WIN/TUM-NAWI/TUM-WITEC/MBA/EMBA): six months
• Bachelor thesis: three months

Procedure

After a notification of acceptance, the applicant needs to contact their respective supervisor. The topic might be modified, if necessary, in consultation with the supervisor; however, the thesis is to be registered at the examination office typically within four weeks.

For a Bachelor thesis, students should meet their supervisor no more than three times:

• Specification of the topic
• Meeting to discuss the structure of the paper
• Optional meeting for further questions

For a Master thesis, students should meet their supervisor appr. four times:

• Specification of the topic
• Two to three meetings to discuss the structure of the paper

Submission and Thesis defense

Please refer to the formal submission requirements of your faculty's grademanagement office. In general, theses are to be handed in digitally to your supervisor/ TUM MGT grade management office typically via email. One MS Word file and one PDF file must be submitted and named: “Thesis_StudentName_ThesisTitle_DateSubmitted”. Additional data on which the thesis is based on should be made available to your supervisor if requested.

For MBA master-theses, an oral thesis defense is required after submission. Please plan ahead of time (minimum 4 weeks before planned defense) to schedule an appointment with your supervisor.

For all other theses, an oral presentation is not mandatory but can be requested by the supervisor.

Contact Team

For further information regarding final theses, please exclusively contact our thesis administration team under the following email address: thesis.ef@mgt.tum.de

Hints for Scientific Writing

A final thesis has to adhere to certain scientific standards. Guidelines concerning the thesis itself (formal requirements, layout, etc.) can be found here.