During the third year in the program each PhD student is required to select a supervisor and to constitute a thesis committee consisting of the supervisor and two other members of the graduate faculty. The student is required to meet with the committee at least once a year, more often if the committee so requires.
At the end of the third year of their program students are required to submit a thesis proposal document to a committee composed of the student’s thesis advisor, the Ph.D. coordinator, and one other Marketing Area faculty member for approval. The proposal should be in the form of a journal style paper that includes:
1) An introduction outlining the key contributions of the paper and positioning the research against the backdrop of appropriate literature
2) A literature review and theoretical development
3) Details of data collection / analysis / modeling already conducted
4) Specific details of what remains to be done to complete the thesis.
The student must be specific with respect to what needs to be done to complete the dissertation and how it will be done. For example, a student in the behavioural track must provide a detailed explanation of the studies and data analyses remaining to be conducted. A student in the quantitative track must explain how data will be collected and estimated.
As an input into preparing the thesis proposal, each student is encouraged to complete the template provided in Appendix 1 and discuss it with their supervisory committee. This will provide the student with an additional point of feedback prior to starting work on the proposal document.
In assessing the proposal, the thesis committee will consider (among other things) the academic rigour of the proposed research, the assessed likelihood that the research will make a significant academic contribution to the relevant literature and the likelihood that it will get published in a high-quality marketing journal.
Students are also required to present their thesis proposal to the faculty in a marketing workshop. The written thesis proposal document should be submitted to the thesis committee and Ph.D. coordinator at least one month before the presentation.
Final Thesis Exam
Based on the feedback received during the thesis proposal and in ongoing discussions with the supervisory committee, the student should proceed with research needed to complete the thesis. It is expected that students will have their thesis completed by the end of the fourth year in the program.
Once approved the student must then meet SGS requirements in terms of successful completion of the thesis. These include the completion and submission of the thesis document, an evaluation by an external examiner (a relevant expert from outside the University of Toronto), and a successful oral thesis examination.