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Team

Team

 

Head of MCEI


Prof. Dr. Michael Woywode
Room 106
(+49) 621 181 2894
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Michael Woywode
Michael Woywode

Michael Woywode is a full professor of entrepreneurship at Mannheim University and academic director of the Center for small and medium sized business at Mannheim University. His research interests focus on entrepreneurship, the life cycle of firms and industries. His work has been published in journals like American Journal of Sociology, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies and Journal of Industrial Economics. Michael has studied business administration at Mannheim University, Hochschule St. Gallen (HSG) and École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP). He received a doctorate in economics and a habilitation in business administration both from Mannheim University. He spent two years as visiting researcher at Stanford University at the Graduate School of Business and the Department for Economics. Before joining the Mannheim Faculty Michael held professorship positions at the RWTH Aachen and Karlsruhe University. 

 

MCEI Team


Nora Zybura
Room 101
(+49) 621 181 2889
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Nora Zybura
Nora Zybura

Nora Block holds a Bachelor degree in social sciences and history, which she obtained at the University of Erfurt and the University of Gent, Belgium. After that, she continued with her master studies in sociology at the University of Mannheim with focus on empirical social research as well as migration and integration. In the context of her studies, she spent a semester abroad at the East Carolina University, USA. Since spring 2014, Nora is part of the ifm Team. Next to several migrant entrepreneurship projects, Nora significantly worked on a technology transfer project with the Family Business Team and on the jumpp project on migrant female entrepreneurship with the ifm team Neue Selbständigkeit. Since summer 2016, Nora is part of the MCEI team and has significantly advanced our practically-oriented approach by co-creating and teaching our new courses MAN 453 and MAN 633 and developing our MCEI Startup Mentoring Program. If you choose one of our practical MCEI classes, Nora will most likely be your mentor. 


Thomas Hipp
Room 109
(+49) 621 181 2893
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Thomas Hipp
Thomas Hipp

Thomas Hipp studied business in Munich, Mannheim, and Kingston and holds an M.Sc. from the University of Mannheim and an MIB from Queen's University, ON, Canada. During his studies, he has gained experience in start-ups, audit, and consulting as well as corporates in Germany and abroad. He was an active member in several student initiatives including INFINITY Mannheim e.V. and INFINITY Deutschland e.V. Currently he is a doctoral candidate at the Chair of SME Research and Entrepreneurship conducting research in entrepreneurship education, scaleups, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence. In 2016 Thomas joined the MCEI team and helped advance the iniative. Since 2018 he is actively involved in teaching MAN 453, MAN 631 and MAN 633.


Dr. Bettina Müller
Room 104
(+49) 621 181 2765
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Bettina Müller studied economics, Italian and German literature at the University of Konstanz. After her studies she was a researcher at ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Mannheim in the research area "Digital Economy". During this time, she did her doctoral thesis at the University of Konstanz on the influence of the founding teams' composition in terms of educational background and skills on the success of young companies. Afterwards she moved to ZEW's research department "Innovation Economics and Business Dynamics" where she worked as a researcher and senior researcher in different projects in the field of entrepreneurship and creative industries. In addition, she worked as a lecturer for entrepreneurship at the University of Birmingham and as a lecturer for quantitative methods at the University of Applied Sciences Pforzheim. After almost a year with the Technopolis Group, she has been a researcher at ifm since June 2018 and joined the MCEI team in spring 2020.


Robert Dehghan
Room 107
(+49) 621 181 2890
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Robert Dehghan studied during his Bachelor in Business Administration at the University of Mannheim and at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He also holds a M.Sc. from the University of Mannheim with a focus on entrepreneurship and management and completed an exchange semester at the Graduate School of Management in St. Petersburg. During his studies, he was chairman of the Student Council (Fachschaft BWL) and also co-founded the Q-Summit, a conference for entrepreneurship and innovation held annually at the University of Mannheim. After his bachelor's degree, he gained experience in startups and consulting companies and also founded his own startup Pacific Straws, where he is still responsible for business development. Currently he is a doctoral candidate at the Chair of SME Research and Entrepreneurship.


Prof. Dr. Dominika Wruk
Room 103
(+49) 621 181 2887
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Dominika Wruk
dominika wruk

Dr. Dominika Wruk has been appointed to the Junior Professorship for Sustainable Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Mannheim. The graduate in business administration has been head of the six-member interdisciplinary BMBF junior research group platforms2share since June 2017. The junior research group is researching the potential offered by cooperative models and new technologies for the sharing economy. Currently, Dr. Wruk also leads the research project i-share, which identifies the economic, social and ecological effects of the sharing economy in Germany. Another research area of Dr. Wruk is the emergence and diffusion of modern management concepts and practices. The junior research group deals both theoretically and empirically with how new ideas and concepts emerge, find their way into organizations as they are taken up and combined there and in the organizational field.


Dr. Robert Strohmeyer
Room 109
(+49) 621 181 2895
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Robert Strohmeyer
Robert Strohmeyer

Robert Strohmeyer studied sociology, social-psychology and statistics at the University of Mannheim. He is currently a research fellow at the Chair for SME research & Entrepreneurship. He (co-)authored several research reports and book chapters and published in refereed journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice,International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research and International Journal of Sociology. He has been awarded the Academy of Management’s Best Paper Award (Entrepreneurship Division). He has been involved in numerous entrepreneurship and SME related research projects, funded by German ministries (BMBF, BMWI), and national research foundations (such as Fritz-Thyssen foundation, Rat für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsdaten). In 2011/12 he spent four months as visiting researcher at Stevens Institute for Technology, Hoboken. He has been involved in teaching lectures on entrepreneurship at the master level (such as Advanced Entrepreneurship, Theories of Entrepreneurship, Applied Econometrics in Entrepreneurship and Management Research).

Before going to college, he finished apprenticeship training in the craft sector and worked several years in start-ups and small businesses.

Robert facilitates MCEI Master Theses and Theses Inside the Venture projects and is involved in the MAN 770 Seminar.  


Magnus Schückes
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Magnus Schückes is a PhD student at the Chair of SME Research and Entrepreneurship at the University of Mannheim. He is also affiliated with the Center for Doctoral Studies in Business (CDSB) at the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS). He obtained his master’s degree from Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and his bachelor's degree from Maastricht University (Netherlands) spending an exchange semester at Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan (Italy). His research interests focus on corporate-startup partnerships, corporate venturing, and entrepreneurial finance. He also studies non-market strategies and institutional entrepreneurship.


Stefan Bornecke
Room 107
(+49) 621 181 2890
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Stefan Bornecke studied Law at the Universities of Heidelberg, Freiburg and Bonn and graduated with the First State Exam. In preparation for the Second State Exam he spent time at the Federal Ministry of Economics, the Council of Europe and the Max Planck Institute for International Public Law and specialized in German and European Competion and Antitrust Law. At the University of Heidelberg he was part of the interdisciplinary graduate school "reforming taxation and labour system" of the current director of the Walter-Eucken-Institute and counselor to the federal goverment Prof. Lars Feld. His PhD-thesis "external influence on legislation" was dealing with the influence of private knowledge and lobbying on national capital market and tax legisaltion. Research stays abroad concerning European State Aid Law were done at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the University Panthéon-Assas (Paris II).


Megan Heeger
Room 107
(+49) 621 181 2890
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Megan Heeger is currently studying Business Law in the University of Mannheim. Before that, she moved all the way from the Philippines to Germany by herself in 2015 to look for a brighter future. She learned the German language from scratch, received her Abitur, and got accepted to the University of Mannheim for business law. She is currently on her 5th semester with a focus on International Business law. During her studies, she has gained not only theoretical knowledge in business, economics and law but also practical experience through working with big companies such as DRRT international law firm in Miami, Florida. She has joined the MCEI Team in September 2021 as a student assistant.

 

MCEI Affiliated Entrepreneurship Team Members


Prof. Robert Allen Isaak, PhD
Room 109
(+49) 621 181 2895
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Robert Isaak
Robert Isaak

Prof. Dr. Robert Isaak is the author or coauthor of eleven books including Brave New World Economy (German edition: Geldherrschaft) with German economist Wilhelm Hankel, The Globalization GapManaging World Economic ChangeGreen Logic: Ecopreneurship, Theory and Ethics, and Modern Inflation (with Wilhelm Hankel). Included in Who's Who in Finance and Business, he has taught as Henry George Professor of International Management at Pace University in New York (courses in international management, comparative management, creativity and entrepreneurship across cultures, and venture initiation). He has consulted for global enterprises including Siemens, Technicon, Prudential Intercultural and Global Intercultural and has taught many places in the world including at the University of Heidelberg, The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Groupe École Superieure de Commerce deGrenoble, SKEMA European Graduate School of Management in Sophia Antipolis, and Franklin College in Lugano. He holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from New York University. He continues to teach at Pace University and Franklin College as well as at University of Mannheim. Robert teaches the electives MAN 635 Social Entrepreneurship and MAN 636 International Entrepreneurship


Dr. Jan-Philipp Ahrens
Room 102
(+49) 621 181 3559
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Jan-Philipp Ahrens is currently Assistant Professor (Habilitand) of the Area Management and Junior Faculty Member at the Faculty of Business Studies at University of Mannheim. With a focus on sustainability, digitalization and social impact of businesses, he teaches Strategic and International Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Family Business Management, and Applied Econometrics at the chair of SME Research and Entrepreneurship.


Baris Istipliler
Room 108
(+49) 621 181 2766
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baris Istiplier
baris Istiplier

After spending a year abroad at J.L. University of Giessen during his bachelor studies at Ege University (Turkey), Baris decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Germany upon completion of his bachelor degree. In 2017, he completed the Master in Management program offered by the University of Mannheim and since the beginning of 2018, Baris is a PhD candidate and a research associate at the Institute for SME Research and Entrepreneurship at the University of Mannheim. Apart from his individual research and the projects he conducts for the Family Business Research team, he supports the Bachelor and Master level teaching activities of the Chair of SME Research and Entrepreneurship.

Baris was born to an entrepreneurial family, observed birth and death of variety of family ventures and he himself made some experiences in venture creation. In 2016, he and his team of founders managed to win a seed investment of 8,000 Euros in an international start-up competition. Although not actively involved in the venture any more due to his focus on academics, he is still an advisor to Treye Tech. He supports MCEI by offering coaching for the students taking MCEI courses, supervising Inside the Venture Master Thesis as well as helping with other organizational activities if necessary.


Prof. Dr. Karin Hoisl
Karin Hoisl
Karin Hoisl

Karin Hoisl is Full Professor of Organization and Innovation at the University of Mannheim. She is part-time Professor in the Economics and Management of Inventive Processes at the Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics at Copenhagen Business School and a research affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich. Karin Hoisl holds a PhD in Management from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Karin Hoisl is Associate Editor of the Strategic Management Journal. She is Associate Editor of ICC Industrial and Corporate Change, Member of the Editorial Review Board of Academy of Management Discoveries, and Advisory Editor of Research Policy. Her main research interests are knowledge management, labor mobility, organizational and individual creativity, as well as Intellectual Property Strategy. Her research has been published in Management Science, Organization Science, the Strategic Management Journal, and Research Policy.


Prof. Dr. Marc Lerchenmüller
Marc Lerchenmüller
Marc Lerchenmüller

Marc Lerchenmüller is Assistant Professor for Technological Innovation and Management Science at the University of Mannheim. His primary stream of research pertains to the economics of innovation. In particular, he examines how individuals' and organizations' strategic adaptation to competitive conditions influences the pathway to innovation and entrepreneurial outcomes. His second stream of research is concerned with science policy and the translation of scientific discoveries. Prof. Lerchenmüller is also a Research Fellow at the Yale School of Management, USA.

 

Prior to his academic career, Prof. Lerchenmüller worked for the Boston Consulting Group in New York and was a co-founder of a biotechnology start-up that was successfully exited and entered into a development alliance with Bristol-Myers Squibb. Prof. Lerchenmüller holds degrees from Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, Yale University, and WHU.

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Sponsors

  • University of Mannheim
  • Institut für Mittelstandsforschung
  • Gründerverbund
  • ESF
  • Europäische Union
  • Baden-Württemberg - Ministerium für Finanzen und Wirtschaft
  • Absolventum