You can approach us with a proposal for a project that will be done in a company or other external organization. In this case, please keep the following requirements in mind:

1. There should be a supervisor in the organization who will support you and will have time and resources to work with you. You and the supervisor should formulate a clear topic for the project.
2. We will only accept projects that are at least somewhat related to our research interests.
3. The project should have some involvement of departments outside finance. In other words, it needs to be cross-functional. In fact, the external supervisor does not have to be a controller or even work in a financial function.
4. Not every topic that you might work on in a controlling department is necessarily suitable. Controllers are often also involved in responsibilities beyond management accounting, such as financial accounting (der Jahresabschluss), auditing, and taxation that are not within the scope of the chair of management accounting. 
5. This type of external project can be done for a Bachelor thesis or a Master thesis. The difference lies in the required level of innovation. For a Master thesis, the work developed for the organization has to be quite innovative relative to the literature. Techniques could be quite new, or the study could provide new and empirically founded insights into the process of developing or applying management accounting techniques. The work should have potential for publication, and the organization should be generally open to agree on possible publication of research results, except, of course, for confidential company data.