Dissertation topics as related to Financial Crisis - a brief note

Some students in Business Management and Accounting ask me whether they could choose the topic of Financial Crisis (e.g. 2007 global financial crisis) for their dissertation/ independent study report work. This topic area is, of course, appropriate for dissertation/ independent works. You need to formulate a more specific objective and question to address. Consider these two project objectives:

a. Assess the impacts of financial crisis on the financial management practices of companies in XXX sectors. [this objective is related to the subject of Financial Management]
b. Assess the crisis management capability of companies in XXX sec tors to cope with the financial crisis. [this objective is related to the subject of Crisis Management in Business Management]

When formulating your project proposal, you need to determine your standpoint, e.g. from the Financial Manager's perspective, or from the perspective for a broader range of stakeholders.

As you try to refine your project topic and objectives, you need to conduct a preliminary literature review. I note the following articles on Financial Crisis for your reference:

1. Bancel, F. and Mittoo, U.R. (2011) "Financial flexibility and the impact of the global financial crisis: Evidence from France", International Journal of Managerial Finance Vol. 7(2), pp. 179-216.
2. Marsden, C. (2010) "Economics, the financial crisis and corporate responsibility", Corporate Governance Vol. 10(4), pp. 360-364.
3. Suetin, A. (2011) "Post-crisis developments in international financial markets", International Journal of Law and Management Vol. 53(1), pp. 51-61.
4. Akinbami, F. (2011) "Financial services and consumer protection after the crisis", International Journal of Bank Marketing Vol. 29(2), pp. 134-147.

Besides the academic source mainly accessed via your university e-library, you should also conduct internet search to gather other relevant materals for your study. Moreover, you should try to relate your topic to specific subjects, e.g. Financial Management,  that are studied in your Degree programme. It is also useful to make use of 1 or 2 management theories or theoretical frameworks from the academic source to drive your research design. There are other issues to address when formulating project proposals, and they are examined in textbooks on Research Methods as well as in other blog articles in this blog of mine. These issues are not further discussed  here.

You could choose to study the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 instead of the more recent ones in US and Europe if you can explain how it can be related to your project objectives that have good practical and academic values. Learning from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis to tackle a legitimate concern is a good defense why the topic is not outdated.