CAPSTONE / DISSERTATION TOPIC SELECTION.

A STUDY OF MANAGEMENT DISCIPLINE

"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall."
Stephen R. Covey

INRODUCTION

WHAT IS MANAGEMENT The process as it is made by one or more persons, and consists in coordinating the activities of other persons in order to achieve the results that one person could not achieve alone.

The term management may be recently defined, but it existed at a time when men started learning the art of organizing, strategizing (during wars) and/or simply planning. At the core of it, management was quintessentially considered as an art of managing men and hence the term management

And much later, management scholar, Peter Drucker (1993) defined management as Supplying knowledge to find out how existing knowledge can best be applied to produce results is, in effect, what we mean by management. But knowledge is now also being applied systematically and purposefully to determine what new knowledge is needed, whether it is feasible, and what has to be done to make knowledge effective. It is being applied, in other word to systematic innovation

From the above two definitions, it is clear that management is a creative as well as a systematic flow of knowledge that can be applied to produce results by using human as well as other resources in an effective way. Management has not been limited to managing human resource; management today has been segregated into various branches like financial management, strategic management, operations management, time management, crisis management, marketing management Today the importance of management from an organizations point of view has increased multifold. It is only through effective management that companies are developing and executing their businesss policies and strategies to maximize their profits and provide with the best of product and services. Management today combines creative, business, organizational, analytical and other skills to produce effective goal-oriented results! Some of the key functions in management includes learning to delegate, planning and organizing, communicating clearly, controlling situations, motivating employees, adapting to change, constantly innovating and thinking of new ideas, building a good team and delivering results which are not just figure -bound but results that also focus on overall growth and development.

WHAT IS AN MBA A Master of Business Administration degree also known as an MBA degree is the most sought after degree these days. It is the most suited pot graduation degree for the students who would have finished their graduation and can be taken by one and all irrespective of which field they are from. This degree is for everyone and is generally taken by a student who is interested in knowing about managing people, various projects or funds. It can be taken by students having a commerce or a technical background. It can also be taken by a student who would have completed his or her graduation in the arts or science field. Students increasingly want to pursue the MBA degree program because they strongly feel that an MBA degree can change their lives.

These days, infact doctors and MBBS graduates are also found taking up an MBA course.The MBA degree is capable of transforming students and working professionals into competent managers who are responsible and capable enough to handle and sort out any problems which hamper or affect the working of their company. There are several MBA programs which are offered all across the world. These programs are offered by the B schools or the Business schools. The Wharton School of Pennsylvania was the first business school to set up in the entire world that offered a management course. It was initiated in the year 1981. After that, till date there have been thousands of management schools that would have been started all across the World. The craze of doing an MBA is equally prevalent in India as well. Students from each and every field want to do an MBA. Although, in India MBA is synonymous with the IIM's (Indian Institutes of Management). There are 7 IIM's in India and all six of them are located in different states namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkatta, Indore, Lucknow, Kozhikode and now Shillong. Other than the IIM's there are several other Institutes in different parts of the country which offer a degree in management. A few of the topmost management colleges in India apart from the IIM's are Indian institute of foreign trade, New Delhi, Symbiosis Institute of Business management, Pune, Faculty of Management studies, Delhi and Xavier Labour Relations institute, Jamshedpur There are several advantages of a MBA degree. One of them is that it equips you to be a good and a competent manager. Every company needs a manager in order to manage resources, people, projects and funds. The pay packages offered to MBA's are much more than the ones offered to graduates. Capstone Project A Capstone Project is a highly focused and specialised, extensive research project. Some universities require students to submit a Capstone Project in their area of study as one of the requirements for graduation or post-graduation , while others require a Capstone Project for the completion of a course. Capstone Projects are particular to both undergraduate and graduate

studies. With Capstone Projects, students are generally required to focus on a particular theory and then assess its application or its practical outcomes. A typical thesis (or dissertation) has a title page, an Abstract, a table of contents, a body, comprising the various chapters (introduction, literature review, findings, etc.), and a bibliography or (more usually) a references section. They vary in their structure in line with the many different areas of study (management,arts, humanities, social sciences, technology, sciences, etc.) ,but we doing study on how management student select the topic of their dissertation . Dissertations normally report on a research project or an extended analysis of a topic. The structure of the thesis or dissertation explains the purpose, the methods used and the findings of the project by including a series of chapters: a) an introduction, which introduces the research topic, with an explanation of why the subject was chosen for study; b) a literature review, reviewing relevant literature and showing how this has informed the research issue; c) a methodology chapter, explaining how the research has been designed and why the research methods being used have been chosen; d) a findings chapter, outlining the findings of the research itself; e) an analysis and discussion chapter, analysing the findings and discussing them in the context of the literature review (this chapter is often divided into twoanalysis and discussion); f) a conclusion.

OBJECTIVES OF STUDY 1. To study about management students criteria for selecting their capstone projects. 2. To study the influence of faculty in selecting the capstone project topic. 3. Critical analysis of existing and emergent factors for selecting the capstone project.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE A hybrid Fuzzy MCDM Approach to Thesis Subject Selection- Mohammad Hasan Aghdaie
The Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science Vol .1 No.4 (2010)

Abstract

One of the most significant decisions that a doctoral student may make in the beginning of his/her research career is the selection of a thesis subject. There are also a number of conflicting criteria, including supervisor reputation, convergence of interest, students interest and motivation, etc, which should be considered as a part of the appropriate thesis subject selection process. For this purpose, multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods have been found to be useful approaches to solve this kind of problem .This paper devises a fuzzy hybrid analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach to the problem of thesis subject selection. Fuzzy AHP is used to calculate the weight of each criterion, and fuzzy TOPSIS is proposed to prioritize thesis subjects from the best to the worst ones. The application of fuzzy set theory allows incorporating the vague and imprecise linguistic terms into the decision process

A review of doctoral thesis research in tourism management in China- Ruijuan Hu

Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education

Abstract

This article aims to examine the topic of Chinas recent doctoral thesis research in the disciplinary fields of management and tourism management. A content analysis was conducted on abstracts and title information of tourism management doctoral theses. The study revealed that doctoral theses in standalone tourism management doctoral programmes frequently adopt destination studies as a topic. However, doctoral studies affiliated to other management disciplines/study fields often have competitiveness in different tourism-related aspects as a research topic.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
Type of Study : The study will be single cross-section descriptive in nature because one sample of respondents is drawn from the target population and information will be obtained from that sample once. The sample size would be 200 and the sampling technique will be simple random sampling.Research done upon 200 individuals or 50 groups. Research Design: It is a single cross-sectional descriptive type of research because one sample of respondents is drawn from the target population and information will be obtained from that sample once. Instruments : As questionnaire will be developed to collect the data from the respondent and it will be tested by the software stastical package for social science (SPSS) because it is a descriptive research and the software will provide me the reliability of the data. Population: The management student and faculty of lovely professional university.

Limitations of the study:

It is extremely important to evaluate and consider the limitations of the study in advance in order to assess the reliability of the findings. In our study the following limitation would be encountered. Time and money are big constraints in the course of the research process.

REFRENCES:
A hybrid Fuzzy MCDM Approach to Thesis Subject Selection, Mohammad Hasan AghdaieThe Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science Vol .1 No.4
(2010)

A review of doctoral thesis research in tourism management in ChinaRuijuan Hu Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, DOI.10/3794