Final thesis

Duration

Number of credits

Lecturer

Coordinator

Thierry Pironet

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

All year long

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

As part of the Master in Sales Management work-study programme MSMA, students must complete a final piece of work known as the "Master Thesis", MT. This written document is a personal piece of work prepared at the end of the Master degree for a maximum of 15 credits.
The objective is to allow the student to demonstrate that, at the end of their course, they are able to use the knowledge they have acquired to adopt a personal, methodological, reflective and rigorous approach to a research question in Sales Management or its related fields.
More precisely, the MT must correspond to the dual requirement of being a dissertation (a scientific piece work) and a project (a practical piece of work). Students must also be critical and demonstrate the ability to structure their thoughts, support a critical position, analyse their way of working, and communicate the results of their research in a reasoned manner.
Students are free to choose the issue to be analysed in the MT, provided that this issue is relevant to the professional world in which the student has performed the work placement and is directly linked to the Sales Management curriculum. In addition, the subject of the MT must be original, wide-ranging and focused on the analysis of a Sales Management issue.
The choice of the subject of the MT is presented and defended in the work placement report for Block 1 of the Masters. The objectives of the study, methodological steps and theoretical foundations of the MT will be discussed and approved by the management team during the oral defence of the work placement.
The subject of the MT is then validated by the Dissertation Management Committee, chaired by the Program Leader of the MSMA. This Committee appoints the promoter of the MT and the readers on the basis of a proposal from the lecturer responsible for the MT of the MSMA.
The student's work in preparing the MT is mainly supervised by
1.    A promoter of the MT: a member of the teaching staff of HEC Liège chosen for their specific competence in relation to the subject matter. Their role is to provide assistance to the student in terms of theoretical foundations, methodology and advice.
2.    The company tutor: the manager or senior executive within the company appointed to supervise the work placement. They are involved in the issue being studied and are sufficiently available. They assist and guide the student: facilitating access to information and acting as an intermediary in terms of internal contacts within the company.
3.    A reader: the academic supervisor who has followed the student throughout the two years of the work placement. This is the contact person for the project.
The student arranges for the MT promoter and company tutor to meet to evaluate and supervise the work, particularly at the intermediate deadlines to assess progress of the work. Students should be careful to schedule the dates and places of these appointments with sufficient notice.
Students should also ensure that they meet the reader of the MT according to the procedures agreed with them at the beginning of the work.
For any general questions, they should refer to the lecturer responsible for the MT.
The teaching staff consists of a program leader: Thierry Pironet (HEC-ULiège), a MT coordinator, Sandrine Wouters (HEC-ULiège) and a team of promoters and readers.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

In accordance with work placements, students must address all or part of the following points in their report if they are relevant to the subject of the MT.

• Be able to describe the products and services offered by a company and define its value proposition in a competitive context. Be able to describe the competition and the position of the company, the segments aimed at and the target market. Be able to give a critical opinion on these elements.
• Be able to explain the pricing policy used and be able to calculate the cost of the products and services provided by the company. Be able to constructively criticise the company's pricing and cost policy.
• Be able to describe and quantify the distribution networks used by the company and be able to explain why these are used and others are not. Be able to describe the order taking process from prospecting through to taking orders in the different networks. Be able to give a critical opinion of the distribution strategy.
• Be able to describe all the regulatory and legal constraints that the company faces. Be able to explain all documents related to the products and services offered. Have a critical opinion on the documentation.
• Be able to analyse international, multicultural, societal, ethical and environmental issues and the risks associated with them.
• Be able to describe the company's information system and in particular the use of social networks. Be able to define a digital strategy for business relations.
• Be able to describe and define the performance indicators of the company and the sales department in particular. Be able to connect the strategy to these indicators.
• Be able to identify one or more areas for improvement in the operating processes of the company's sales department.
• Be able to present their work in writing and orally using professional presentation materials.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

- Prerequisites Work Placement 1 (M1) and Thesis Preparation Course (M1)
- Co-requisite Work Placement 2 (M2)

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Two activities take place in M1 during Work Placement 1 to prepare the MT These activities are therefore prerequisites for the MT. As a reminder,

• In February (M1), an interview (possibly by phone or Skype) between the academic supervisor and the student is organised. The objective is, on the one hand, to identify what the work placement achieved and areas in which there is room for improvement (on the basis of continuous formative evaluation grids) and, on the other hand, to approve the subject of the final dissertation. The company tutor may be invited to this meeting.

• in May (M1), a final report on the first-year work placement will be submitted for defence in June to a jury composed of the company tutor and the academic supervisor and possibly the internship coordinator. It will include the finalised audit, the topic of the dissertation, the literature review on the dissertation topic and the methodology that will be followed to carry out this work. Partial results may be presented.

• Students are required to prepare a development plan for their MT which should be sent by e-mail to the academic supervisor no later than the last Friday of November of M2. The development plan, which should be no longer than 3 to 5 pages, includes any reformulation of the subject to be addressed, specification of the objectives and methodology followed, an update on documentary research, as well as a detailed action plan for the main stages of the project in order to guide the work within the company.

• For January of M2, the student organises a presentation to which the tutor in the company, the academic supervisor and the promoter of the MT are invited. Rem. If it does not take place in January, a meeting will be scheduled in February with the promoter of the MT and the student to finalise the objectives of the deliverable, i.e. the final dissertation. The company may be invited to this meeting.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

- Meetings

Organisational adjustments related to the current health context

Yellow: Classroom
Orange: Remote on-line

Recommended or required readings

- Thesis preparation course

Assessment methods and criteria

Below you will find information on the evaluation methods planned for in-person and remote exams as well as those planned for hybrid sessions. Depending on how the health crisis evolves, the chosen method will be communicated to you no later than one month before the start of the exam session.

There are drafting criteria and evaluation procedures
Drafting criteria
The MT consists of a maximum of 70 pages excluding appendices. It must be written in English, or possibly in another language with the agreement of all members of the jury. It is presented in Times 12-point font, 1.5 line spacing, and printed on both sides.
A one-page Executive Summary in English and a list of Keywords are printed on the back of the dissertation. In addition, if the dissertation is written in a foreign language, a one-page Executive Summary in French will be printed on the back cover of the report.
The dissertation is written in the form of a "company report", the aim being to inform, explain and guide the company in the operational decision, but it must also meet the academic requirements specific to any final dissertation (scientific rigour, referencing of sources, qualified statements, etc.).
It is structured as follows:
1. Acknowledgements
2. Abstract
3. List of abbreviations/Glossary
4. Introduction
5. Developments
6. Conclusions
7 Appendices
8. List of contact persons
9. Bibliography and references
10. Paginated table of contents
The introduction includes, in a few words, the activity of the company and the context of the study requested, as well as the student's mission, objectives, methodology and overall plan of the dissertation. The student defines the subject and justifies their choice. The student explains in a dedicated chapter (about 5 pages), how this MT is part of a Sales Management approach. In the Developments chapter, the student sets out the structured process that led them to formulate the conclusions. They also develop the scientific aspects related to the theme studied. In the conclusions, the student formulates recommendations and operational suggestions with arguments to solve the problem.
Any form of plagiarism will be sanctioned by a grade of 0/20. Information about plagiarism (in French) can be found at: http://www.ulg.ac.be/cms/c_145216/fr/vos-travaux-sous-surveillance?hlText=vos+work+under+monitoring&hlMode=exact.
The current bibliographic standards are the APA standards (http://doclib.ulg.ac.be/apa/).
The student must obtain the standard "HEC Liège" cover from the Centrale des Cours (N1). The cover page of the dissertation must be presented in line with the model used on LOL@ in the "MT" course ("TFE").
Assessment methods (15 ECTS)
The overall assessment covers the oral defence and the MT on the basis of the following criteria:
- the ability to establish a critical analysis report with regard to the object under study and to make a link between theory and practice;
- knowledge of the object under study;
- mastery of the theoretical foundations and the ability to make the link and transpose the theoretical foundations to the reality of the company;
- the quality of the methodology, work linguistics and data collected;
- the relevance, coherence, originality and depth of the solutions envisaged or analyses proposed;
- the quality of the argumentation and critical reflection and oral defence (clarity of the presentation, originality and relevance of the answers given to the jury's questions).
If the work contains spelling errors (typos, spelling, syntax) and/or does not comply with the rules of form, the supreme jury will assess it.
The jury for the defence of the MT will determine in writing, as soon as the first session is announced which improvements to suggest to the student. The promoter will notify the student.

Work placement(s)

The MT is linked to the work-study course placements referred to as Work Placement 1 and Work Placement 2.

Organizational remarks

Two main steps: electronic and paper submission and the defence
Submission procedures
Submission of the MT filing consists of 2 steps:
*Electronic submission
The MT is submitted via the MatheO platform, an official dissertation submission tool developed by the University of Liège; the platform makes it possible to conclude a licencing agreement on line.
This electronic version must be submitted no later than 28 May (*) for MT presented in the first session or 13 August (*) for MT presented in the second session.
The text of the MT and the appendices must be in the same PDF file (maximum 12 MB).
This electronic version of the MT is the official authoritative version. The date of online submission is also decisive.
No changes to the PDF file and no addition of appendices to the MT are possible on MatheO after the submission date.
If a MT is prepared on behalf of a company or organisation subject to professional secrecy and which expressly informs the School and the student of this, the confidential data will be collected in a specific appendix which will not be subject to "plagiarism" checks and which will remain locked in the Mathéo Interface.
*Submission of the "paper" version
On the day of submission of the MT, either on 28 May (*) for MT submitted in the 1st session or on 13 August (*) for MT submitted in the 2nd session, students will submit, to the coordinator of the MSMA:
- 1 "paper" copy of their MT ("Abstract" printed on the back of the back cover). The other 3 "paper" copies (one for the promoter, one for the reader, one for the tutor in the company) will be given to the recipients by the student.
The "paper" copies must match the electronic version.
- a photocopy of the cover page of the MT, to be sent to the Commission for the Accreditation of Diplomas.
Failure to comply with these terms and conditions will result in the MT not being returned. The deadlines are strictly applicable for both electronic and paper submission. Failure to comply with them will be sanctioned.
As a reminder, the version that is submitted online and the date of online submission are decisive.
Defence of the MT
The oral defence takes place before a jury composed of the promoter, the reader and the tutor in the company. In the absence of one of the parties, the jury shall validly deliberate on the agreed date. Prior to the defence, the absent jury member will send their written assessment to the promoter. If two members are absent, the promoter of the MT will take the initiative to move the defence in consultation with the jury members, the student and the coordinator of the MSMA.
The defence is divided into two parts :

• The presentation in English (10 minutes) of a summary of the MT additional data or a specific aspect related to the issue under study. This will be supported by a PowerPoint presentation. In order to anticipate any technical problems, students are also required to bring along a printed version of their presentation.

• Answers to the questions asked by the members of the jury (+/- 25 minutes), in French or English.

Contacts

HEC-Liège Academic Manager
Lecturer Thierry Pironet
(Logistics - Production Management) e-mail: thierry.pironet@uliege.be HEC-Liège
Bâtiment N1 Rue Louvrex, 14, Bureau 328
B-4000 LIEGE
Master Thesis Coordinator
Sandrine Wouters
e-mail: sandrine.wouters@uliege.be