I already have a research question and an outline. minor changed to both are ok. the thesis will mostly be non empirical but have a case study at the end to apply what is said prior. futhermore, it is important that the referenced material is evaluated critically. there is no specific number of referenced that need to be included but i would expect 80+ referenced. i have already found ca 20 papers that can be used for reference. any reference used should ideally be from renowned peer-reviewed journals.
the (preliminary) research question is the following: "Which evaluation interface design components help to derive the highest degree of novelty from new product innovation evaluation through online communities?"
the outline is the following:
- Introduction
- Theoretical framework
2.1 Socio-technical theory - Evaluation of creative ideas
3.1 Challenges
3.2 Evaluation approaches
3.3 Discussion of traditional evaluation approaches - Innovation evaluation through online communities
4.1 Online community design
4.2 Innovation in online communities
4.3 Evaluation of creative ideas
4.4 Discussion of evaluation approaches - Case studies on online evaluation
- Conclusion
6.1 Limitations
6.2 Future research
chapter 3 should also inclued proposed methods to increase evaluation performance
the theory the thesis should be based on is the socio-technical systems theory. the main reference paper should probably be: "Haller, J. B. A., Velamuri, V. K., Schneckenberg, D., & Möslein, K. M. (2017). Exploring the design elements of open evaluation. Journal of Strategy and Management, 10(1), 40–65. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-05-2015-0039" . to understand the research question you should look at the figure in this paper. interface design components is what i called the individual boxes in figure 1b in the paper, such as "evaluation tool", "evaluation task" etc. the thesis paper should explain the socio-technical systems theory and how online communities can be applied to it at first. so basically, what the author of that paper already did by creatin figure 1b. you just need to do it in more detail. then the content about figure 1b should be critizied as too general and the focus should probably be in more depth on one of the aforementioned boxes, e.g. "evaluation task". but which one is most appropriate you should decide. whichever changes you suggest about that box you chose should be applied to one or ideally 2 case studies at the end of the paper (see outline above).
it also needs to be explined why the focus of the research question is "degree of novelty" and not somthing like "cost reduction".
another important paper is also "Velamuri, V., Schneckenberg, D., Haller, J., & Moeslein, K. (2017). Open evaluation of new product concepts at the front end of innovation: objectives and contingency factors. R&D Management, 47(4), 501-521. doi: 10.1111/radm.12155".
in addition to these 2 papers (the first 2 files in the uploaded materials) i will also upload other papers that might be useful reference material. if you have any questions, iwould prefer contact via email.
the paper should be written in 12pt times new roman. also the text should be "justified", thus evenly spaced between the margins.