Academic Positions 📚🏛️
- Since Oct 2025: Full Professor in Management and Entrepreneurship, Seeburg Castle University, Austria.
- Since Sept 2025: Senior Academic Councillor, TUM School of Management, Germany.
- Since Sept 2023: Senior lecturer (Privatdozentin / PD) for business administration, TUM School of Management, Germany.
- Feb 2018 – Jul 2018: Guest Professor in Entrepreneurship, University of St. Gallen,Switzerland.
- Mar 2017 - Sept 2025: Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship, Seeburg Castle University, Austria.
- Feb 2017 – Aug 2023: Postdoctoral Scholar (Habilitandin), Chair of Strategy and Organisation, TUM School of Management, Germany.
- Aug 2013 – Oct 2015: Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship; Innovation, Technology Entrepreneurship, & Marketing Group, Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.
- Nov 2011 – Jul 2013: Postdoctoral Scholar; Munich School of Management, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany, and Erasmus School of Economics, Netherlands.
Education 🎓📖
- April 2018 – April 2023: Habilitation (Postdoctoral Lecture Qualification), TUM School of Management, Germany
- September 2008 – November 2011: PhD in Business Administration (Dr. oec. publ., summa cum laude), Munich School of Management, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany
- April 2009 – March 2010: Master’s in Business Research, Munich School of Management, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany
- April 2003 – July 2008: Bachelor’s and Master’s in Business Administration (Diplom-Kauffrau), Munich School of Management, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany
- July 2005 – December 2005: Exchange Student, Business School of the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
Awards, Recognitions & Honors 🏆🎖️
- November 2024: Best Paper Award for the paper: Ettner, J., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2024): How do successful startup teams handle conflict? The impact of the four horseman on long-term team satisfaction and exit intentions, presented at the AKempor (Arbeitskreis Empirische Personal- und Organisationsforschung), Düsseldorf, Germany.
- June 2024: Selected as one of the Top 40 Papers to be published in Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, BCERC Proceedings (FER): Ettner, J., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2024): "Your sarcasm makes me want to quit!” – contemptuous behavior in entrepreneurial teams predicts co-founder exit intentions, presented at the 44th Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Munich, Germany.
- August 2023: Best Paper in TIM Division: Fiedler, M., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2023): The impact of institutional and individual determinants on academic patenting, presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.
- June 2023: Best Paper in Conference Award: Joas, R., Heidegger, L., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2023): Foregone potential? The effects of gender and ethnic diversity on new venture funding, presented at the 2023 Diana International Research Conference, Wellesley, USA.
- August 2021: Best Paper Proceedings: Ritter, A.-C., Treffers, T., Hein, A., Weking, J., Hermes, S., Böhm, M., Krcmar, H. (Aug 2021): Towards a strategy for resource mobilization to generate high funding during new venture creation, presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.
Key Publications 📄✨
Peer reviewed journal articles (selected)
- Wolf, A.-C., Treffers, T., Langerak, F. (2025). Emotional Expressions in Front-End Team Work Hamper the Originality of New Product Ideas, in: Creativity & Innovation Management, https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.70005
- Modliba, R., Treffers, T. (2024): The good, the bad, and the evil of negative leadership: A unified conceptualization of negative leadership behavior, in: International Journal of Management Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12384.
- Modliba, R., Fischer, S.†, Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2024): Leader-member exchange and innovative work behavior: The mediating role of creative self-efficacy and support for innovation, in: Creativity & Innovation Management, https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12613.
- Treffers, T., Ritter, A.-C., Born, N., Welpe, I.M. (2024): A systematic review of experimental evidence on interventions against bias and discrimination in organizations, in: Human Resource Management Review, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2024.101029.
- Bartholomeyczik, K., Gusenbauer, M., Treffers, T. (2022). The influence of incidental emotions on decision-making under risk and uncertainty: a systematic review and meta-analysis of experimental evidence, in: Cognition & Emotion, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2099349.
- Ivanova, S., Treffers, T., Langerak, F., Groth, M. (2022). Holding back or letting go? The effect of emotion suppression on relationship viability in new venture teams, in: Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587221093295.
- Treffers, T., Klarner, P., Huy, Q. (2020). Emotions, time, and strategy: The effects of happiness and sadness on strategic decision-making under time constraints, in: Long Range Planning, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2019.101954.
- Baillon, A., Koellinger, P.D., Treffers, T. (2016). Sadder but wiser: the effects of emotional states on ambiguity attitudes, in: Journal of Economic Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2015.12.008.
- Koellinger, P.D., Treffers, T. (2015). Joy leads to overconfidence, and a simple countermeasure, in: PLOS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143263.
Publications for practice (selected)
- Born, N., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M., Eichiner, B., Gifford, A., Kerschl, E., Nöll, F., Ott, A., Schilling, M. (2024): Diversity, Equity, Inclusion – Was denken Gründende deutscher Startups?
- Fiedler, M., Lemanczyk, P., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2024). Munich Impact Study – Deep dive into startup and founder profiles. Chair for Strategy and Organization (TUM).
- Treffers, T. (2023). Impact of Venture Clienting – The First Quantitative Study on Corporate-Startup Performance. Eds.: Glassdollar.
- Treffers, T., Stumpf-Wollersheim, J., Welpe, I.M. (2023). Künstliche Intelligenz in Kundeninteraktionen – Chancen und Herausforderungen für KMU. Der Betriebswirt, Heft 3/2023.
- Treffers, T., Born, N. Welpe, I.M., Winkler, B. (2023): Wie DEI-Programme Erfolg haben: Von unwirksamen Maßnahmen hin zu echter Wirksamkeit. Organisationsentwicklung, Ausgabe 04/2023.
- Born, N., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2023): Wie sich Diversität weiter denken lässt: Die Macht der Bilder, Sprache, und Strukturen. Personalführung, Heft 06/2023.
- Born, N., Treffers, T., Welpe, I.M. (2023): Kein Nullsummenspiel: DEI kommt allen Geschlechtern zugute. Personalwirtschaft, Ausgabe 05_2023, S. 22-27.
- Treffers, T., Heidegger, L., Welpe, I.M. (2022): Gender diversity in German and French startups – still a long way to go to close the gap. In cooperation with the Roland Berger Foundation for European Corporate Management.
- Ritter, A.-C., Langemeier, J., Hoffmann, A., Treffers, T. (2020): Entrepreneurship in Times of Crisis. VHB 100 Call for Inspirations.
Key third-party projects 🔑📂
- 2025-2028: Daimler-Benz Stiftung – Technologische Intelligenz zur Transformation, Automatisierung und Nutzerorientierung des Justizsystems (TITAN)
- 2023-2025: Bayrisches Staatsministerium für Digitales, Applied AI – Accompanying scientific research for the project KI transfer +
- 2023-2025: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung – Strukturelle Erhöhung der Sichtbarkeit von Wissenschaftlerinnen an Universitäten, Forschungseinrichtungen und in klassischen und digitalen Medien (SESiWi ) (01FP22074)
- 2019-2023: Volkswagenstiftung, Kollaboratives Institutsmanagement mit industriellen Methoden (96533)
- 2017-2022: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung – PlayMINT – Spielerische Förderung von Studentinnen in eine unternehmerische MINT Karriere (01FP1704)
- 2011-2013: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – Sadder but wiser? Mood, overconfidence, and uncertainty preferences (PI97/15-1)
List of courses 📋📚
Bachelor
- Thesis Seminar (WS 20/21 - WS 22/23)
- Applied Strategy: Strategy in the global market place / Corporate internationalization strategies and transformation through digitization (SS 22)
- What’s cooking – founding startups and unicorns in real time (WS 21/22)
Master
- Research in Action: Mastering scientific theory and empirical practice (SS 25)
- Micropolitics, power, and negotiations: your way to the top (WS 23/24 - WS 24/25)
- The era of artificial intelligence - how to boost productivity, reduce costs, enhance quality and creativity with AI (SS 23 - WS 24/25)
- The creator and ownership economy: players, business models and tools (WS 22/23)
- What’s cooking – founding startups and unicorns in real time (WS 21/22 - WS 22/23)
- Thesis Seminar (WS 20/21 - WS 22/23)
- Design your life & career: worauf es in Beruf, Karriere und Leben wirklich ankommt! (WS 20/21 - WS 21/22)
- Empirical research methods (WS 19/20 - SS 21)
- What’s hot, new, and true in management: journals, blogs, podcasts (WS 20/21)
- The future of management research: innovative, original and evidence-strong ways of data collection and analysis (SS 20)
- Management in times of corona, recession and crisis (SS 20)
- Judgment & strategic decision making (SS 17 - SS 18)
Executive
- MBA Strategic Management: The organization 2020 - trends and influences on organizations(SS 24 - WS 24/25, SS 21)
Doctoral
- Efficient academic writing for empirical research (SS 24 - SS 25)
- Empirischen Forschungsmethoden - Evidenzorientierte empirische Forschung und multivariate statistische Analyse von Fragebogendaten und hierarchischen Datenstrukturen (SS 20)
Room Number: 2547
Phone: +49 89 289 24812
Email: theresa(dot)treffers(at)tum(dot)de
Research Interests:
- Individual and team behavior in entrepreneurship and startups
- Artificial intelligence at work and in leadership
- Diversity, equality, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in organizations and startups
Methodological skills:
- Field, lab, and online (quasi) experiments and (online) surveys
- Systematic literature review and meta-analysis
- Secondary and trace data
- Physiological data (skin conductance, EEG, fMRI)
Current research projects:
- TITAN: Technologische Intelligenz zur Transformation, Automatisierung und Nutzerorientierung des Justizsystems
- The Gottman Initiative: We enable founders and VCs to build high performance startup teams
- KI transfer plus: Das einzige Programm in Deutschland, das Ihr Unternehmen ganzheitlich ins KI-Zeitalter führt
- SeSiWi: Strukturelle Erhöhung der Sichtbarkeit von Wissenschaftlerinnen an Universitäten, Forschungseinrichtungen und in klassischen und digitalen Medien
h-index: 19 i10-index: 23 Google citations: 1.461
Theresa Treffers is a Senior Academic Councillor at the School of Management of the Technical University of Munich and a Full Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at Seeburg Castle University in Austria. She studied Business Administration at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and the National University of Singapore. She subsequently earned an additional Master of Business Research at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, where she also completed her PhD summa cum laude in 2011. After her doctorate, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) at the Rotterdam School of Economics. From 2013 to 2016, she was an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. In 2018, she served as Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen. She received her venia legendi (habilitation) in Business Administration from the TUM School of Management in 2022.
Her research interests focus on predicting startup success based on founding team characteristics, the transformation of work, collaboration, and leadership through emerging technologies and AI, as well as diversity, equality, and belonging in startups and corporations.
Her research has received several awards, including research prizes and Best Paper Awards, and has been published in leading academic journals such as the International Journal of Management Reviews, Journal of Economic Psychology, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and Long Range Planning.
She teaches courses on leadership, entrepreneurship and startups, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, diversity, equality, and belonging, and empirical research methods.
Theresa Treffers ist Privatdozentin und akademische Rätin an der TUM School of Management der Technischen Universität München und Universitätsprofessorin für Management und Entrepreneurship an der Privatuniversität Schloss Seeburg in Österreich. Sie studierte BWL an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München und an der National University of Singapore. Anschließend absolvierte sie einen zusätzlichen Master of Business Research an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, an der sie 2011 auch mit summa cum laude promovierte. Nach der Promotion arbeitete sie als Postdoktorandin in einem durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft geförderten Projekt an der Rotterdam School of Economics. Von 2013 bis 2016 war sie als Assistant Professorin in Entrepreneurship an der Technischen Universität Eindhoven in den Niederlanden beschäftigt. 2018 war sie Gastprofessorin in Entrepreneurship an der Universität St. Gallen. Ihre venia legendi in Betriebswirtschaftslehre erhielt Sie 2022 von der TUM School of Management.
Ihre Forschungsinteressen beziehen sich auf die Vorhersage von Startup Erfolg durch das Gründungsteam, die Veränderung von Arbeit, Zusammenarbeit und Führung durch neue Technologien und KI und Diversität, Gleichbehandlung und Zugehörigkeit in Startups und Corporates.
Ihre Forschung wurde mehrfach ausgezeichnet mit Forschungspreisen und Best Paper Awards und in anerkannten Fachzeitschriften wie dem International Journal of Management Reviews, Journal of Economic Psychology, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice und Long Range Planning veröffentlicht.
Sie lehrt zu Führung, Entrepreneurship & Startups, Künstliche Intelligenz, digitale Transformation, Diversität, Gleichbehandlung und Zugehörigkeit und empirischen Forschungsmethoden.