Your BSBA group has a title the panel liked at consultation, a Chapter 1 draft, and a title defense on Friday. What you do not have is a set of hypotheses that a statistician on the panel will accept, because nobody in the group can say, in one sentence, what the independent variable is, what the dependent variable is, and which test will decide between them. That gap is the most common reason a business administration title is sent back for “refinement of the problem” — a polite phrase for one more semester.
This guide fixes it with four worked examples from the majors BSBA students actually take — marketing management, human resource management, financial management and operations management — each carried from title to variables, to statement of the problem, to numbered null hypotheses, to the test that will answer them. Use the one nearest your study as a template tonight.
Need the statement of the problem and hypotheses drafted before Friday?
Tesify turns your title and variables into a numbered statement of the problem and matching null hypotheses in the Chapter 1 structure Philippine business programs require, and keeps the wording consistent through Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. Over 9,000 students have used it to write more than 15,000 chapters, and every word is still written by you.
What the panel is checking when it asks for your hypotheses
A business panel reads hypotheses backwards from the statistics. It wants to see that each hypothesis names two measurable variables, that the relationship or difference claimed between them matches a sub-problem in the statement of the problem, and that the design can produce the data to test it. Philippine research manuals ask for the hypotheses in null form and numbered; the generic rule and the position of the section inside Chapter 1 are set out in the guide to writing Chapter 1 section by section. What that guide cannot do is tell you what the variables of a marketing or HR study are, which is the whole difficulty.
Three rules decide whether the set survives the defense. Every variable in a hypothesis must appear in the conceptual framework. Every hypothesis must map to exactly one sub-problem that begins “Is there a significant…”. And a descriptive sub-problem — what is the profile, what is the level — carries no hypothesis, because there is nothing to test.
Worked example 1: marketing management
Title: Social media marketing activities and purchase intention among Generation Z consumers of local coffee shops in Davao City.
Variables. Independent variable: social media marketing activities, measured on five dimensions — entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customisation and word of mouth. Dependent variable: purchase intention. Profile variables: sex, monthly allowance, platform most used. The profile variables are not moderators unless you state a hypothesis about them; here they are used for the difference question only.
Statement of the problem. 1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of sex, monthly allowance and platform most used? 2. What is the level of social media marketing activities of local coffee shops as perceived by the respondents, in terms of the five dimensions? 3. What is the level of purchase intention of the respondents? 4. Is there a significant relationship between social media marketing activities and purchase intention? 5. Is there a significant difference in purchase intention when respondents are grouped according to profile?
Hypotheses. H0₁: There is no significant relationship between social media marketing activities and the purchase intention of the respondents. H0₂: There is no significant difference in the purchase intention of the respondents when grouped according to profile.
Tests implied. Pearson r or Spearman rho for H0₁, depending on normality; independent samples t-test for sex and one-way ANOVA for allowance and platform under H0₂. Numbering the hypotheses to match sub-problems 4 and 5 is what lets Chapter 4 be written table by table.
Worked example 2: human resource management
Title: Work arrangement and employee productivity among administrative staff of business process outsourcing firms in Cebu City.
Variables. Independent variable: work arrangement, a categorical variable with three groups — on-site, hybrid, fully remote. Dependent variable: employee productivity, measured with a self-rated productivity scale. Because the independent variable is categorical, the main question is a difference question, not a relationship question, and that changes the hypothesis wording and the test.
Statement of the problem. 1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of age, years in the company and work arrangement? 2. What is the level of employee productivity of the respondents? 3. Is there a significant difference in employee productivity among respondents under on-site, hybrid and fully remote arrangements?
Hypothesis. H0₁: There is no significant difference in employee productivity among respondents under on-site, hybrid and fully remote work arrangements.
Test implied. One-way ANOVA with a post-hoc test, or Kruskal-Wallis if the productivity scores are not normal. A group that writes “relationship between work arrangement and productivity” here has already lost the statistician, because a three-category variable is not correlated with a score.
Worked example 3: financial management
Title: Financial literacy and savings behaviour of micro-enterprise owners in a public market in Iloilo City.
Why this population is citable. The Department of Trade and Industry’s summary of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2023 List of Establishments counts 1,241,733 micro, small and medium enterprises, 99.6 per cent of all establishments, with micro enterprises alone at 90.4 per cent. That figure in your background of the study turns a market-stall survey into a study of the largest enterprise class in the country.
Variables. Independent variable: financial literacy, measured on three dimensions — knowledge, attitude and behaviour. Dependent variable: savings behaviour, measured as a scaled score. Profile: years in business, type of goods, access to formal credit.
Statement of the problem. 1. What is the profile of the respondents? 2. What is the level of financial literacy of the respondents in terms of knowledge, attitude and behaviour? 3. What is the level of savings behaviour of the respondents? 4. Is there a significant relationship between financial literacy and savings behaviour? 5. Which dimension of financial literacy best predicts savings behaviour?
Hypotheses. H0₁: There is no significant relationship between financial literacy and the savings behaviour of the respondents. H0₂: None of the dimensions of financial literacy significantly predicts savings behaviour.
Tests implied. Correlation for H0₁; multiple linear regression for H0₂, which needs roughly ten to fifteen respondents per predictor, so three predictors means a sample of at least 45 and preferably 100. Say that sample requirement in Chapter 3 before the panel asks.
Worked example 4: operations management
Title: Inventory management practices and profitability of sari-sari stores in a barangay in Quezon City.
Variables. Independent variable: inventory management practices — stock monitoring, reordering, supplier selection, spoilage control. Dependent variable: profitability, which is where this study lives or dies. Store owners will not open their books, so profitability has to be operationalised as a self-reported indicator — a scaled rating, or a categorical band of monthly net income — and the limitation stated in Chapter 1. A dependent variable you cannot measure is not a variable; it is a wish.
Statement of the problem. 1. What is the profile of the stores in terms of years in operation, capital and number of product lines? 2. What is the extent of inventory management practices in terms of the four dimensions? 3. What is the level of profitability as self-reported by the owners? 4. Is there a significant relationship between the extent of inventory management practices and profitability?
Hypothesis. H0₁: There is no significant relationship between the extent of inventory management practices and the profitability of the stores.
Test implied. Spearman rho, because self-reported profitability in bands is ordinal. The guide on which statistical test an accountancy thesis needs covers the same business designs from the accountancy side, including the regression variants.
The five faults that send a BSBA title back
A variable that is a topic. “Marketing strategies” is a topic; “social media marketing activities in five dimensions” is a variable. If you cannot say how it will be scored, it is not a variable yet.
A relationship hypothesis on a categorical variable. Work arrangement, business type and sex are groups, and groups are compared, not correlated. The word is “difference”.
A hypothesis with no sub-problem, or a sub-problem with no hypothesis. Count them. Every “Is there a significant…” sub-problem has one numbered null; every descriptive sub-problem has none.
Hypotheses that contradict the framework. If the conceptual framework diagram shows an arrow from A to B, the hypothesis must be about A and B. The diagram is built from these same variables; the procedure is in the guide to making a thesis conceptual framework.
A dependent variable the respondents will not disclose. Sales, profit, salary and credit balances are the classic BSBA dependent variables, and the classic reason a study collapses at data collection. Operationalise them as self-reported bands or scaled ratings and state the limitation, or choose a variable you can measure.
What to bring to the title defense
One page, in this order: the title; the independent and dependent variables with how each is measured; the numbered statement of the problem; the numbered null hypotheses; the test for each hypothesis; and the population with a sample size that supports the test. A panel that sees that page rarely asks the “what is your variable” question, because it has been answered. If the title itself is the problem — too broad, no locale, no population — the faults and their fixes are catalogued in the guide for groups whose thesis title was rejected again; the two guides together cover the whole title-defense agenda.
Get the page written tonight
Give Tesify your title, your variables and the population, and it drafts the statement of the problem, the numbered null hypotheses and the Chapter 3 statistical treatment paragraph that names the test for each one, in the wording a Philippine business panel expects. Revise it with your adviser tomorrow; defend it on Friday.
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Frequently asked questions
How many hypotheses should a BSBA thesis have?
One for every inferential sub-problem — every question that begins “Is there a significant relationship” or “Is there a significant difference” — and none for descriptive sub-problems. Most undergraduate business theses carry one to three.
Should hypotheses be in null or alternative form?
Philippine research manuals generally require the null form, numbered H0₁, H0₂ and so on. Some schools ask for both; check your manual and follow the most recently approved thesis in your program.
What is the difference between a relationship and a difference hypothesis?
A relationship hypothesis connects two measured variables, such as financial literacy and savings behaviour, and is tested with a correlation or regression. A difference hypothesis compares groups on one variable, such as productivity across work arrangements, and is tested with a t-test or ANOVA.
Can profile variables be part of a hypothesis?
Yes, as the grouping variable in a difference hypothesis: “no significant difference when respondents are grouped according to profile”. They are not moderators unless you explicitly test moderation, which most undergraduate designs do not.
How much does Tesify cost for a BSBA thesis?
Current plans and prices in pesos are shown on the Tesify site at sign-up, and a group can share one account for a single manuscript. The draft, the revisions and the final text remain yours.
Is using an AI writing assistant allowed for a thesis in the Philippines?
Policies vary by school and are set in each research manual or academic integrity policy. Tesify supports honest writing — it drafts from your variables and your data and every word is reviewed and owned by you — and many programs now ask for a declaration of AI assistance, which you should provide.
Is my thesis data private on Tesify?
Your manuscript and data are stored on your account and are not shared with other users. Respondent data should be anonymised before it is uploaded anywhere, which is also what your ethics review will require.