Appendix 2

In accordance with the general rules and regulations of the Aarhus Graduate School of Business and Social Sciences, a PhD thesis based on a collection of scientific articles must include a summary accounting for the relation between the publications and their individual contribution to the complete PhD project. The Ministerial PhD Order says that a PhD thesis must include an abstract in English as well as in Danish.

The main function of the summary is to describe how each of the various research studies contribute to the particular PhD research project, and to provide further information about and discussion of background, methods and results which are of relevance to the PhD research project but omitted in the scientific articles. The thesis should aim to be coherent and meaningful in itself, i.e. independent of the individual articles, which will of course induce some overlap between the summary and the scientific articles.

 

The summary may follow the style of an academic paper or a monograph. The specific headings in the summary depend on the research project, but the order is usually the following:

1. Short introduction of the topic and reason for its relevance
2. Comprehensive review of the research project's theoretical and empirical background - with headings depending on the topic
3. Definition of problem(s)/purpose, research question(s) and hypotheses
4. Method - common features of underlying data and assessment methods used in the individual research studies. In case of no common features, instead of items 4 and 5, a resume can be given of the individual research studies
5. Results – maybe in the form of a resume of the individual research studies
6. Discussion and conclusion - the discussion must relate to both the theoretical and/or practical implications of the research studies as well as to the research methods-related issues, including those of importance to the durability of the results
7. List of references

The scope will normally be of 30-50 pages, excluding references, but there is no specific requirement as to number of pages.