Master’s Degree Dissertation
Code: 42231 ECTS Credits: 10| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 4313148 Marketing | OB | 0 |
Contact
- Name:
- Jordi Lopez Sintas
- Email:
- jordi.lopez@uab.cat
Teachers
- Maria Pilar Lopez Belbeze
- Jordi Lopez Sintas
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
Students must form a work team consisting of 2 or 3 students and make a research proposal related to any topic developed in the master program. The module coordinator, once the proposal has been received and approved, assigns a tutor to the Master's thesis project.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The objectives that are intended to achieve in this module are:
- Integrate and apply the acquired marketing knowledge to a specific marketing problem.
- Design innovative marketing plans according to professional criteria of effectiveness and efficiency.
- Develop a new marketing topic.
- Correctly formulate a research problem, design the project and execute it in a professional or academic way.
- Elaborate coherently the different elements that make up a project.
- Develop communication skills in oral presentations to critical audiences
Competences
- Be able to evaluate inequalities for reasons of sex and gender to design solutions.
- Design and carry out market research.
- Design and implement marketing plans, applying criteria of effectiveness and efficiency.
- Develop communicative skills in oral presentations before critical audiences.
- Draft clear, precise reports on commercial problems.
- Generate innovative, competitive ideas and solutions.
- Integrate and apply the new trends in marketing within the business, profitably and effectively.
- Lead processes of innovation in marketing.
- Work in interdisciplinary teams.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse market data, design, plan and manage marketing actions that take gender differences into account.
- Apply the acquired knowledge professionally to a particular business situation.
- Develop communicative skills in oral presentations before critical audiences.
- Draft clear, precise reports on commercial problems.
- Efficiently use the appropriate methodology to meet the research objectives of the master's dissertation.
- Exploit knowledge of new trends in marketing in the master's dissertation.
- Generate innovative, competitive ideas and solutions.
- Influence and motivate people involved in a work team.
- Work in interdisciplinary teams.
Content
This module aims to advance the integration of the curricular knowledge of students with the development of a master thesis project in the professional or academic modality of the marketing field. It is based primarily on tutorial action and teamwork for its development of it.
However, we can program a few sessions to show the use of instrumental tools, the bibliographic reference managers, and the integration of the reference managers with the text editors. The search for appropriate biblical references, the search for data sources, and the organization of academic or professional research work.
Each project is assigned a tutor, and under his/her supervision, the team involved will agree on a work schedule and tutorials to carry out this work rigorously and professionally. The interaction between students/supervisors will be coordinated through the application tfe.uab.cat.
The student must demonstrate their knowledge and participation in the process of carrying out the work, as well as actively participate in their defense or public oral presentation before a committee. Demonstrating that they have acquired the set of competencies of the Master and their ability to relate and integrate them, and that they are ready to start professional practice.
To increase the quality of all the works that are presented in the master's degree, we indicate some lines to be considered for its development:
- It must be original, developed entirely by the students, and address a current topic and interest in marketing.
- It must present a state of a current marketing topic that is addressed according to a review of reliable and/or prestigious bibliographic sources.
- A rigorous investigation of markets must be carried out.
- The development of the master thesis must respect the rules of the American Psychological Association, APA, rules for writing the thesis and presenting the bibliographical references
- The master thesis must have a length between 30 and 50 pages, double space, and be written in Times New Roman 12 points.
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Workshops | 12 | 0.48 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Oral presentation | 3 | 0.12 | |
| Tutorial sessions | 15 | 0.6 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Autonomous work | 166 | 6.64 | |
| Working sessions | 50 | 2 |
The teaching methodology and assessment proposed in the guide may undergo some modification depending on the restrictions on attendance imposed by the health authorities.
The characteristics of this module imply the use of certain methodologies.
1. Tutorials: The student has a few hours with his tutor where he can solve the doubts and problems that arise in the realization of the project.
2. Team work sessions: The students during these work sessions will submit common ideas and solutions for the development of the project.
3. Autonomous work: the student will independently perform various activities, such as reading articles, consulting books, or interviews, that can help illustrate, clarify relevant aspects of the content of the project.
4. Workshops: the teacher develops the fundamental concepts in the realization of a project of these characteristics. Specifically, 4 sessions will be programmed to show the use of instrumental tools. The use of bibliographic reference managers, the integration of reference managers with text editors, the search for appropriate bibliographic references, the search for data sources, and the organization of an academic or professional research work.
5. Public defense: the student makes an oral and public presentation before a committee of two people, where he or she must present and defend his master's thesis.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral and public defence | 70 | 2 | 0.08 | 3, 7 |
| Supervised work | 30 | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 |
The evaluation and accreditation of the apprenticeships will be carried out through the public defense of the Final Master's Project before a two-member tribunal.
The system of evaluation of the acquisition of the competencies of the Master Thesis is structured as follows:
- Report of the tutor/director responsible for the end of master's work: 30%
Management of the process of preparing the master's thesis
The management of the evidence of interaction with tutors will be carried out with the application tfe.uab.cat
Student-Tutors Engagement Sheet: It must be delivered through the tfe.uab.cat application before 31 January.
The deadline for the delivery of the master's thesis is the May 31
Procedure for the delivery of the master's thesis: with the tfe.uab.cat
Format of the master's thesis: Citations and bibliography in APA format.
- Report of two evaluators (court) of work and public defense: 70%
The defence of the Master thesis will be carried out, normally during the month of June once the classes are finished. Those Master Thesis that are not considered suitable by the court will have two weeks to present a new version of the Master Thesis. That is why the period of presentation of the Master thesis ends during the month of July.
Valuation criteria will be used, such as the following:
- Interest and current topic.
- Consistency, clarity and precision of the objectives.
- Methodological rigor.
- Adequacy, justification and legitimation of the design and development of the master thesis.
- Opportunity, relevance and reality of the marketing problem.
- Other criteria related to the formal, expository clarity and overall coherence of the presented project.
General rules of the Master Thesis (final written report)
The written report of the Master Thesis will have a maximum length of 50 pages(approx.) -without including bibliography and annexes- that must follow the standard rules of the structure of written reports. The American Psychological Association, APA, will be followed for the preparation of the academic papers. See: http://www.apastyle.org/
General rules of the Master Thesis (oral presentation)
The oral presentation of the Master Thesis will have a maximum length of 30 minutes where all the members of the team participate actively. The exhibition must follow the standard guidelines of a professional oral communication
Bibliography
- Jardiel, E. G. (2019). Manual práctico para escribir una tesis.
- COROMINA, E. CASACUBERTA, X. Y QUINTANA, D. (2002). El trabajo de investigación. Barcelona: Octaedro.
- PUIG, I. (2001). Cómo hacer un trabajo escrito. Barcelona: Octaedro.
- RIGO, A. Y GENESCA, G. (2002). Cómo presentar una tesis y trabajos de investigación. Barcelona: Octaedro.
- RIBERO, L.E (2008). Guía práctica para la presentación de documentos escritos según normas APA. Medellín: Corporación universitaria.
- COMCOMUNICAR: 50 Consells pràctics per fer exposicions orals eficaces. Servei de Llengüas de UAB idiomas.
- Association, A. P. (2013). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition (6th edition). American Psychological Association.
- Center for History and New Media. (2016). Zotero Quick Start Guide. Retrieved from http://zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide
- Tips&Tricks. (2016). Retrieved from https://blog.mendeley.com/category/tipstricks/
- Links | Reproducible Research. (2016). Retrieved from http://reproducibleresearch.net/links/
- Gandrud, C. (2013). Reproducible research with R and RStudio. London: Chapman & Hall/CRC.
- Vissoci, J. R. N., Rodrigues, C. G., de Andrade, L., Santana, J. E., Zaveri, A., & Pietrobon, R. (2013). A Framework for Reproducible, Interactive Research: Application to health and social sciences. arXiv:1304.5688 [cs, Stat]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.5688
Software
To carry out the final master's thesis, students have at their disposal the software:
-Google suite
-Zotero (bibliographic reference manager)
-R Language and Environment for Data Analysis (open source)
-Rstudio (an open-source GUI for using R)
-Rstudio.cloud
-Exploratory.io
Language list
Information on the teaching languages can be checked on the CONTENTS section of the guide.