For the sake of our previous clients in academia, we've kept this page of the website to hold the information that used to be on the now defunct website of the Library of the International University of Monaco. We hope it continues to be useful to students and faculty.

Student help

If you're studying for a business degree and need some personal tuition or advice, please contact us. We can help you with the following:

• Constructing, editing and proofreading bibliographies and lists of references
• Identifying reliable and trustworthy sources of information for your research projects and assignments
• Proofreading your reports and assignments
• Personal tuition in research and report writing

Thesis help

For several years, we taught and advised many undergraduate students how to successfully research and write a thesis. We've tried to distill here the steps you need to take when embarking on a large, academic research project.

The process starts with choosing an interesting topic and developing it into a practical and answerable research question. You then need to decide on the best research designs and data collection methods, before actually carrying out the research itself. After analysing your data, discussing your results and drawing your conlcusions, you'll have to write about it all in a report that could be anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 words. This may seem to be a daunting task for many students, so to get you started, here are some of the most frequently asked questions about the undergraduate thesis from my class.

Q. What should I write about?

First, choose a topic. Some examples of topics from previous student projects have been:

• Music and marketing
• Marketing luxury goods
• Starting a business in China
• The hotel industry
• Poverty in Africa
• The company LVMH

Ideally, you should be passionate about your topic, or it should be of relevance to your future career. But the topic is just your starting point - you need to investigate the current issues, problems or opportunities, and all this is preliminary to the real questions that your thesis will discuss.

Q. How do I start?

About 20% to 25% of the time you spend on your thesis should be dedicated to the preliminary investigation of your topic. This means that you need to spend 2 to 3 months doing a lot of reading, and talking to a lot of people about it. Here’s a list of things that you should do.

1. Find newspaper and magazine articles about your topic. Make a list of the issues that are mentioned in the articles and that seem to be important.
2. Talk to people. Speak to as many professors as you can: you never know who might have experience or knowledge about your topic, and you also need to find someone who will be your advisor. Don’t forget too that family and friends might be able to put you in touch with experts.
3. Find research that's already been done on your topic. Make a list of the questions that were asked, and the ways in which the data was collected.

Q. What do you mean, “I need to focus”?

You won’t be able to find a research question until you’ve thoroughly investigated your topic and identified the real issues that are interesting. From your list of issues, you can start to think about specific situations that you can study.
Here are some examples of focused research questions for the topic “Poverty in Africa”:

• How can we predict household poverty? A case study of Kenya.
• What is the impact of education policy on poverty and inequality in South Africa?
• Homeless women in Johannesburg: how can we alleviate their poverty?

Here are some examples of focused research questions for the topic “Music and marketing”:

• How do classical musicians feel about the marketing of their “art”?
• How can music be used to promote travel to and tourism in South Louisiana?
• What is the relative effectiveness of instrumental and vocal versions of popular music in advertising?

Q. But how can I write 16000 words on such a small topic?

Many students worry that if their research question is too focused, they won’t be able to write enough about it. However, even if your question seems small, your topic is still broad, and first you'll need to write about the larger issues that you discovered in your initial investigation.

Reading list for writing and researching a thesis

The list below was created for a graduate research seminar, but can be used as a general resource for anyone interested in reading about how to do academic business or management research. It contains links to Amazon for some of the books. These are items that have been used in classes, and that both students and faculty have found useful. If you need to know more, please contact us.

General Books on Research

• Bell, J. (1999) Doing your research project: a guide for first-time researchers in education and social science. 3rd ed. Buckingham: Open University Press.
• Bryman A. and Bell, E. (2003) Business research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Collis, J. and Hussey, R. (2003) Business research: a practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fisher, C. (2004) Researching and writing a dissertation for business students. Harlow: Prentice Hall.
• Jankowicz, A.D. (2000) Business research projects. 3rd ed. London: Thomson Learning.
• Murray, R. (2006) How to write a thesis. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
• Saunders, M, Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2003) Research methods for business students. 3rd ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall.

Research Designs

Experimental Designs

• Shadish, W.R., Cook, T.D., and Campbell D.T. (2002) Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Walliman, N. (2004) ‘How can I create a mini world to manipulate? Experiments and models,’ in Your undergraduate dissertation: the essential guide for success. London: Sage, pp. 202-216.

Survey (Cross-Sectional) Designs

• Foddy, W. (1993) Constructing questions for interviews and questionnaires: theory and practice in social research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Case Study Designs

• Yin, R.K. (2003) Case study research: design and methods. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Qualitative Designs

• Esterberg, K.G. (2001) Qualitative methods in social research. Boston: McGraw Hill.

Mixed Designs

• Creswell, J.W. (2003) Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Research Methods

Focus Groups

• Krueger, R.A. and Casey M.A. (2000) Focus groups: a practical guide for applied research. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Interviews

• Rasiel, E.M. (1998) 'Chapter 8: Conducting interviews', in The McKinsey way: using the techniques of the world's top strategic consultants to help you and your business. New York: McGraw Hill, pp. 77-92.

Questionnaires

• Bradburn, N.M., Sudman, S., and Wansink, B. (2004) Asking questions: the definitive guide to questionnaire design for market research, political polls, and social and health questionnaires. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. (* Please note that the Amazon link is not the same edition)

Secondary Research

• Jenster, P. and Hussey, D. (2001) 'Chapter 10: Industry analysis', in Company analysis: determining strategic capability. Chichester: John Wiley, pp. 227-254.
• Porter, M.E. (1980) 'Appendix B: how to conduct an industry analysis', in Competitive strategy: techniques for analysing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press, pp. 368-382.
• Rasiel, E.M. (1998) 'Chapter 7: Doing research', in The McKinsey way: using the techniques of the world's top strategic consultants to help you and your business. New York: McGraw Hill, pp. 71-76.

Writing the Research Report

• Hart, C. (1998) Doing a literature review: releasing the social science research imagination. London: Sage.
• Pears, R. and Shields G. (2005) Cite them right: the essential guide to referencing and plagiarism. Newcastle upon Tyne: Pear Tree Books.
• Tufte, E.R. (1983) The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.

Faculty research

Education

The Umea University, Department of Educational Measurement, contains information, documents and conference proceedings relating to tertiary education in Europe.

Graduate research

Click on the links below to find research help for:

• Finance
• Luxury goods and services

Graduate finance students

Recent publications

Here are some recent publications of interest.

Special subject reading lists

Enron

Enron: the smartest guys in the room. (2005) Directed by Alex Gibney [dvd]. HDNet Films.

Fox, L. (2003) Enron: the rise and fall. John Wiley.

McLean, B. and Elkind, P. (2003) The smartest guys in the room: the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron. Portfolio.

Links

Hedge funds

FINTAG

This is a very entertaining website.