Hi, I'm stumped for a topic and I'm in need for suggestions. Graduated from Australia, currently I'm studying a PhD in Business in Thailand. I have a rough idea about doing research on bringing/introducing retirement village business to Thailand using Australian retirement village business as a model. Since there is no such thing as retirement village business in Thailand, there's possibility/opportunity for the business to grow here. However, the more I think about it, the more it appears as business plan in my mind, not a dissertation. Is there any dissertation doing similar idea/angel I can take as an example? Could anyone suggest me a topic and guide me into the right direction? Please advise. :/

I think it can be a dissertation. You need to look at other countries that may have done this and the social, economic, ethical impacts etc and compare this to research in similar areas in Thailand.

Also try searching for UK theses on your topic: http://ethos.bl.uk/

And look at theses in your university library.

Thank for your reply. Are there any more websites that are good for searching for topic ideas? More advices would be highly appreciated.

Not really, the only way you can find topic ideas is by reviewing the literature in your area or asking your supervisor.

Thanks again. I do not have a supervisor yet. In Thailand, or maybe it is just this university I am studying, as a PhD student we have to take course work for a year and pass the course exam first before being qualified for a supervisor. I guess I could start approaching supervisors now but I think it is a good idea to at least have a topic and an idea quite ready before talking to them.

Funny is I actually wrote a long reply but then by doing that I started to get an idea which, I guess, enough to discuss with the supervisors further, so I removed those long rambling of mine and left just this lol. Any advice will always be appreciated though, especially similar dissertation that I can study as guideline. Thanks again.

Yes, sometimes by just talking to people, or even writing on here, we get the best ideas! Just keeping thinking and reading, and you will find a gap in the literature to address. This process can take a lot of time, but that's the fun of research...

I'll propose an alternative method, which is the one I used, as it suits me better. I had a "conceptual conversation" with myself and my conceptual partner (my mom lol)..should be your supervisor, but can be anyone with any kind of academic inclination and I asked myself key questions like:

What are my major interests in this field?

What personal experiences had an impact on me related to this field?

What was my most exciting coursework?
Which theories and concepts do I find most interesting?

What ideas am I curious about and would like to expand on?

What bodies of literature have I read that really lit a spark?

Are there theories I wish to avoid?
What is my favorite kind of data I enjoy using?

Is there any specific data, texts, or artifacts I would like to study?

Do I have access to resources I could draw on (volunteer activities, current job, upcoming event in community etc.)

What are my favorite kinds of research?

What are my career goals? applied research or academia?

As you pose and answer these questions, your conceptual partner should be helping you refine your answers by listening intently and asking questions like "what do you mean by.." or "can you elaborate" or "what connections do you think there are, if any, between these theories?"

From there the beginnings of a research question will begin to appear.

Personally, I prefer this method because when you sit down in a coffee shop and begin sifting through academic articles looking for gaps, chances are you will find some "further research" you could embark on in most of them. You will risk being overloaded with possibilities and begin to feel kinda lost. Sure you can check out what some of the biggest gaps are in your field, but even having formulated my own research question first, I have come across many gaps along the way in my literature review, which I intend to address to a larger or smaller extent. Continued...

Continued ...Also I know most people recommend a book, but the method I described above, and most of the others I intend to follow come from a book called "Destination Dissertation" by Foss and Waters. I cannot recommend this book enough. With it I have already caught up to candidates who started an entire semester before me, and we will be beginning our field study at the same time. It really is that good.

Thanks a lot for the tips, Fled. I don't have any one that can be my conceptual partner, except my supervisor which I haven't got one yet lol. All 3 masters I have were from coursework, so I have little to none research background, I can't even have a conceptual conversation with myself lol. Feeling lost here :(

Stop saying you cant. If you just keep giving me your limitations, that's all you will have! Yes you can talk to yourself. I talk to myself everyday! its healthy LOL trust me. Listen you have more than you think you have, your key words are

1. Retirement in Australia - that's a whole lot of data like what about it? age? quality? percentage of retirees? demographics etc....explore the sector

2. Retirement in Thailand - same as above, from there you can compare the sectors and highlight similarities and differences....another huge sector to explore

3. Retirement villages in Australia - what about them? why do they work? are they working? are they desirable? are they profitable? why? what do people think about them? mountains of data!!!

4. The question/need - Lack retirement villages in Thailand - why do you think it would work in Thailand? is there a need? what is the current state of retirement in Thailand? is there a difference in quality in retirement between rich and poor retirees? what are the current or emerging or new trends in retirement businesses in Thailand? you can get most of this data from #2

Cummon now, I cant hold your hand through this, you've got to turn on your brain and get to thinking. This is not even my field and i've got plenty questions....which means you SHOULD have more / better questions than me! If you cannot come up with more questions than me (a social science researcher)....forget the business PhD. Its not for you. So get thinking, or find something else to do.

P.S. I also gave you a great book to read to get you un-lost. You have to want it for yourself more than I want it for you.

Thanks Fled. I got a lot from you, I really appreciated your help ^^

My background is in IT, so this is a twist for me converting to social science lol. I'm not giving up, though I might crawl back to my comfort corner and whine a bit too often, that's all lol.

Since you've already helped me get a good start, I will take this opportunity to hear your thought a little further lol. Hope you don't mind *_*

This is embarrassing but here's my explanation of what I've planned to do; I've planned to study the retirement village businesses in Australia, see how they are done, how it works, etc. My target clients would be foreigners because Thai people wouldn't except the idea of staying in the village or sending parents to one; it's culture thing. Then I would study the retirees in the villages, as my samples, to see what they think how a Thai retirement village should be for them to be interested in leasing and moving into one. This is to expand real estate industry in Thailand by introducing new venture, and gain more foreign buyers.

My research would be on elderly preferences of what they think is an ideal village in thailand, then such village prototype could be made. My dissertation would be practical. Property developers could use my research as guideline to build this village business. For example, the research might find that most elderly want a village that close to a beach or shopping mall. They want to have clubhouse as well. And, they want a doctor to visit once a week and have nurses on site. Etc.

The title would be "A study of new business venture for Thailand's real estate sector targeting foreign clients: Case study of retirement village business in Australia and Australian senior citizen preferences".

...

What do you think? *_*
How's the idea and the title? *_*
Anyone? *_*

Thanks Ian. I've tried searching on Google Scholar, but haven't come across anything close yet. Got some articles that useful though. I will look around searching for more.

Ok I see where you would like to go with this. It sounds like it has some promise, certainly worth looking into more.

As someone who is from a small country heavily dependent on tourism, you may want to look into literature on elderly tourism (since you are proposing to attract that kind on client). Medical tourism as well may have some interesting theoretical contributions to make to your topic. You will also have to look into Thai tourism, how the government views it? what is the most popular types? what are the most profitable type? what kinds of tourism would the Government want to attract more of? the problems, and the promises, etc. (you may be even able to make a proposal to the Thai board of tourism for some kind of funding in exchange for research who knows)

Feel free to private message me, we can continue this conversation via email, I don't want to bore the rest of the forum :P My new semester is about to start off here, but I will try help you out as much as I can.