Please note that all proposals for Bachelor’s and Master’s theses must be submitted by June 11, 2025. For details on the submission process and requirements, visit the International Business website: 

https://www.wu.ac.at/en/iib/iib/studies/theses

Sports has become a high-demand topic, and we only accept excellent proposals from highly motivated students.

Bachelor’s Thesis Topics

Talent Mobility: Quantifying the cost of talent migration in football

Supervisor: Jakob Müllner
Examiner: Jakob Müllner

Students review rules and regulations governing players representing national teams. They use data from Transfermarkt.de to assess talent mobility across Europe.

Ownership in Football: Mapping ownership in football and assessing the effects of ownership (changes) on sporting and financial success

Supervisor: Jakob Müllner
Examiner: Jakob Müllner

Students collect data on ownership models, ownership changes, and multi-club ownership from UEFA Football Landscape Reports. They merge this data with information from Transfermarkt.de to analyze how different ownership structures affect sporting and/or financial performance.

Gender distance and the effect of cross-gender coaching in football

Supervisor: Jakob Müllner
Examiner: Jakob Müllner

Students collect data on coaches in women's football and compare the sporting performance of teams coached by male versus female coaches.

Master’s Thesis Topics

Open Topic: How Sports can learn from Management Research – Applying Management Knowledge and Research to the context of Sports

Co-Supervisors: Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck
Examiners: Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck

Students can submit their own ideas for applying management concepts to sports (e.g., applying organizational theories in clubs and associations; creating frameworks for ESG in clubs; social media marketing in clubs; club internationalization; stakeholder engagement strategies in clubs, etc.). The Research Initiative RISM can provide some data.

Open Topic: How Management Research can learn from Sports – Using the context of Sports to study interesting managerial questions

Co-Supervisors: Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck
Examiners: Jakob Müllner & Jonas Puck

Students can submit their own ideas for studying interesting managerial questions in the empirical context of sports, using sports-related data (e.g., player contracts & performance, crowd & performance, diversity & performance, the psychology of penalty shootouts, etc.). The Research Initiative RISM can provide some data.

Talent Mobility: Quantifying the cost of talent migration in football

Supervisor: Jakob Müllner
Examiner: Jakob Müllner

Students review rules and regulations on players playing for national teams. They use Transfermarkt.de data to assess talent mobility in Europe. Students try to assess magnitude of migration, direction of migration and possible consequences for associations. Students collect data and conduct an empirical analysis of ownership effects. Students are provided with preliminary datasets.

Ownership in Football: Mapping ownership in football and assessing the effects of ownership (changes) on sporting and financial success

Supervisor: Jakob Müllner
Examiner: Jakob Müllner

Students collect data on ownership models, ownership changes and multi-club ownership from UEFA Football Landscape Reports. They merge this data with data from Transfermarkt.de and assess differences in ownership structures and their effect on sporting and/or financial success. Students conduct an empirical analysis and are provided with preliminary datasets.

Gender distance and the effect of cross-gender coaching in football

Supervisor: Jakob Müllner
Examiner: Jakob Müllner

Students collect data on coaches in women's football and develop an empirical model to compare sporting performance of male and female coaches.