PhD Dissertation Proposal Defense

The entire MU Community and interested members of the public are cordially invited to attend MU’s very first PhD-level dissertation proposal defense. Lidija Lalicic, student in the PhD in Business and Socioeconomic Sciences, will be defending her proposal entitled ‘’Innovation Opportunities for the Tourism Industry Enhanced by Social Media’’

The reviewing committee of Dr. Iis Tussyadiah of Washington State University Vancouver, and MU’s Dr. Josef Mazanec, Dr. Arno Scharl, and Dr. Astrid Dickinger will hear her proposal for her dissertation which ‘’aims to understand how tourism businesses can effectively exploit social media spaces to enhance their innovation strategies’’.

 ‘’I feel honored to be first to defend my PhD proposal in front of an outstanding committee with MU and international scholars’’ says Lidija.

If approved, she will write her dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Dickinger of the Department of Tourism and Service Management.

The defense is public; all staff, students, and faculty as well as members of the public are invited to attend.

It will take place at 4pm on February 27th at Modul University in Room 4.05.

Good luck Lidija!

Excerpt from Lidija Lalicic’s Dissertation Proposal Abstract

‘’This PhD dissertation aims to understand how tourism businesses can effectively exploit social media spaces to enhance their innovation strategies. Currently, tourism companies do not know how to integrate social media spaces into their marketing and innovation strategies and, if they do, it occurs in a sporadical and unsystematical way (Sundbo et al., 2011). In addition, research remains limited on how to use social media spaces enhancing tourism firms’ innovation strategies. By the use of a three-paper design, this dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach with multiple methods.’’