Is your thesis ready for submission?

The research question (p. 8) asks how remote work affects “motivation, job satisfaction, productivity and team culture in Swiss companies”. That is really four questions in one. The scope also does not match your data: all 12 interviews come from SMEs in the Zurich area (p. 41). Sub-question 3 (team culture, p. 9) is not answered in the conclusion (p. 78). Consider narrowing the question to “How does remote work affect employee motivation in Zurich-based SMEs?” and answering each sub-question in one sentence in Section 6.1.

The line of argument (remote work → autonomy → motivation) is clear and consistent. However, Section 5.2 (p. 58) states: “The results clearly show that autonomy increases motivation.” Twelve interviews can only suggest this, so use cautious wording (“suggest”, “indicate”). Two participants describe isolation (p. 55), but this is not discussed further, and engaging with it would make your argument more convincing. Section 5.3 mostly repeats the findings of 5.1. For each key finding, add what it means, how it relates to the literature, and where its limits are.

Several claims have no source, for example “Studies consistently show that remote workers are more productive” (p. 15). Chapter 2 relies heavily on Müller (2019), cited 11 times, and six of the nine sources in Section 2.2 date from before 2018, which is dated for a thesis on post-pandemic work. The statistic on p. 31 (“68% of Swiss employees…”) comes from a company blog. Consider replacing it with an official statistical source. The single interview quote on p. 52 is used as if it represented a general trend, so mark it as one participant’s view.

The tone is mostly academic, but many sentences are dense and noun-heavy. For example, p. 12: “The implementation of the introduction of remote work policies led to a reduction of the motivation of employees.” Simpler: “Introducing remote work policies reduced employee motivation.” The phrase “in the context of” appears 14 times in Chapter 2 alone. Tense switches within paragraphs (p. 45: “participants said… and report”). Informal wording such as “a lot of” (p. 3) should be “many” or “a considerable number of”. A full language edit would clearly improve readability.

Weber (2020) is cited on p. 19 but missing from the bibliography, while Keller et al. (2018) is listed but never cited. Author names are formatted two ways (“Meier & Huber (2021)”, p. 22, and “(Meier and Huber 2021)”, p. 27). The direct quote on p. 33 has no page number. Figure captions sit above the figure and table captions below, and Table 2 (p. 49) is never referenced in the text. Heading levels also vary (3.2.1 is bold, 4.2.1 is italic). Please check everything against one citation style before submission.