I was twenty‑four, working part‑time in a busy retail store, when my manager made a decision that seemed small at the time but would later shape my entire dissertation. She changed the way shifts were allocated—moving away from a fixed rota to a flexible, app‑based system where staff could swap and pick up hours. The change was supposed to make everyone happier, but within weeks, the team had split. Some employees loved the freedom; others felt lost, disconnected, and unsure when they’d be working next. I watched the fallout with growing fascination. This wasn’t just a scheduling issue—it was a case study in motivation, autonomy, and employee wellbeing. At the time, I had no idea it would become the foundation of my ABM dissertation.
When my final year began and I was asked to choose a research topic, I found myself returning to that store and the quiet chaos of the rota change. I wanted to understand why the same policy had produced such different reactions, and what that revealed about how employees respond to flexibility. I began by searching for related ABM dissertation topics (you can browse them here: https://premierdissertations.com/abm-dissertation-topics/) to see if this was something other students had explored. It was. I found topics about the impact of flexible working on job satisfaction, the role of motivation in shift‑based industries, and the challenges of managing multigenerational workforces. Seeing those real examples gave me the confidence to shape my own question: how does the shift from fixed rotas to flexible scheduling affect employee motivation and retention in UK retail?
Once I had my direction, the research became deeply personal. I interviewed former colleagues, surveyed retail workers across three different stores, and analysed the language managers used when explaining the change. The findings were complex. Flexibility was a double‑edged sword—it empowered some workers but left others feeling invisible. My dissertation argued that the success of flexible working policies depends not just on the policy itself, but on how it is communicated, supported, and adapted to individual needs. The work was challenging, but it never felt boring, because it was rooted in a world I had lived and breathed. For the first time, my ABM studies felt connected to something real.
If you’re looking for an ABM dissertation topic, I’d encourage you to look at your own work experiences, however ordinary they may seem. The part‑time jobs, the family businesses, the frustrating team projects—these are not distractions from your degree. They are raw material. Pay attention to the moments that made you ask “why does this happen?” and then browse real research topics to see how you can turn that question into a proper study. The best ABM topics are rarely found in textbooks; they’re found in the messy, everyday reality of work. And once you find yours, you’ll discover that research becomes a lot less daunting when it’s built on a question you already care about.