Two best students (Valedictorians) at both graduate programs in Graduate School of International Management in 2007 graduating class, the MBA program and E-Business Management Program, were supervised by Prof. Rajasekera for their theses. Also, the students supervised by Prof. Rajasekera had won opportunities to present their research at international forums quite often (the past students had presented at forums held in China, Egypt, Japan, India, Philippines, USA, and other places) and some converted the thesis ideas to publications as refereed journal articles.

This page has information for the MBA and E-Biz students in IUJ who would be interested in doing their theses under Professor Rajasekera's supervision. In this page you see his current research interests, guidelines for students to follow when they do their thesis report under his supervision, some help (see Research Methodology Guide, below) to identify a good thesis topic, and some tips on writing a thesis (see Research Methodology Guide, below). Professor Rajasekera sometimes makes the students' theses available in pdf format on the Internet and hence students must agree to follow the giudelines described here, to assure quality and presentability. Of course thesis material which may contain confidential information will not be released to outside.

Professor Rajasekera's own research have so far produced 3 books, 30 plus academic publications, cases, various news articles, patents, and projects with industry. More detail about his own research publications can be found via Publications link in his homepage.

Professor Rajasekera would be pleased to welcome students who may have research interestes similar to his own, listed below. Also, the guidelines listed below are his own guidelines, to be followed by students who would have him as an advisor. There are seperate guidelines and milestones regarding MBA and E-Biz thesis, which you can obtain from the Graduate School office.

Professor Rajasekera's research interests are currently in the following areas:

1. Government or Corporate IT Strategies and Strategy Maps
2. Strategic IT Applications, including Government IT Plans, Cloud Computing
3. National IT Policies, Strategies and IT Project and Portpolio Management
4. IT for Development (offers this course for JICA or Government students, on request)
5. Structural Reform and State Enterprises Reform Strategies
6. Kansei Engineering Applications in Product and Process Designs
7. Business/Government/Public Applications Using Mobile Technologies)
8. Database and Data Mining Applications (in Environment, Finance, Services, Manufacturing, Logistics)
9. VBA and Macro Modeling for Finance Applications (in Option Pricing, Risk Modeling)
10. Globalization and Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) opportunites in Emerging and Developed Economies
11. Neural Network Applications ( in Finance and Marketing)
12. Optimization Modeling (in Environment, Energy, Finance, and Manufacturing)
13. Social Network Models and their Applications

The general guidelines for Professor Rajasekera's thesis students are as follows:

1. Research must cover the chosen topic comprehensively. If you do not have a good topic, one way to research for a topic is explained in Research Methodology Guide (Copyrighted pdf file). You can also talk to a professor, but, its better to do some research and get at least some ballpark idea, before talking to a professor. The process is further explained in the following graphic:
   
   
2. Your thesis work with Professor Rajasekera starts after you and he agrees to the thesis topic and your overall thesis idea. The initial meeting with Professor Rajasekera is important, because you need to clearly explain your idea(s) so that it(they) can be discussed in that meeting. So, please think properly, do some research, as explained in item 1 and the above graphic. It may be important to explain to the professor little bit about yourself and your goals as well. In order to make it easy for you to plan, you can use this (initial meeting prep form ). Please fill it out properly and bring when you have the initial meeting to discuss the thesis topic(s). This is further explained in item 7, below.
   
   After the initial meeting, you may revise that "initial meeting prep form" and keep it as a record. Please e-mail a copy to Prof. Rajasekera as well.
   
   After that, you would gradually make progress in writing the thesis. For students who would do thesis research with Professor Rajasekera, at least 95% of the contents of the finished thesis must be the student's own writing.
3. Any kind of direct copying of previous work and pasting is absolutely prohibited. Any material from outside sources must be properly referenced, with author names, dates, and URL's etc..
4. Any referenced material (i.e. ones referred to in the thesis) must be able to be produced to the professor within short time (i.e. within a day) upon notification.
5. The length of the thesis must not exceed 30 or so pages (Specs to be used: Times Roman Font, Size 12, Double Space, A4 size paper). Thesis could have limited amount of index material. If the thesis exceeds 30 or so pages the issue must be discussed with the professor at least two weeks prior to the 1st thesis draft submission deadline.
6. In order to complete the thesis, the student must go through the steps shown in the following graphic (both Platform students and Advanced Seminar Students follow the same process):


7. Initial meeting must be arranged by contacting the professor. When you come to the meeting, please bring a 1 page write-up, the format of which is found here (initial meeting prep form ).
8. The outline of the thesis, including chapter headings, must be submitted within 2 to 3 weeks after the initial meeting (see a sample here ).

9. At end of each term, students doing Platform or Advanced Seminar option must submit a progress report (see a sample templet here also see end of Fall Term E-Biz Progress Report here ) and (see a somewhat developed sample progress report, perhaps after 2nd term, here ). This report must be in the same format specifications as the Item 5, above (Time Roman Font, Size 12...) and be at least 3 pages long. The 1st page can be a) The Thesis Title, b) Your name Student ID, and c) the Table of Contents (TOC). One way to make this progress report is to refer to the TOC and expand one or two topics from the TOC (like the introduction, literature review, etc.)
   
   For each term, starting from Fall or Winter (depending on Platform program or Advance Seminar), you should expand what was done at the previous term. It may be good practice to roughly complete a 1/3 portion of the intended thesis at the end of each term. The grade depends on the amount added and the quality of the effort.
   
   For MBA 1st year students who had signed up for a Platform in their Fall term, please finalize the TOC and exapand one or two topics from the TOC (like the introduction, literature review, etc.). The TOC will be the guide for completing a thesis on the selected topic.