Chair in Small Business & Entrepreneurship (LEMEX)

On 15th November 2024, our colleague Tenzin Yeshi was invited to be a guest lecturer at Hochschule Bremen.

The LEMEX is looking for a dedicated student assistant for its practical project Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Bremen-Oldenburg, who will support us in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in digital transformation and promoting AI readiness.

On November 14 and 15, the RENT Conference - Research in Entrepreneurship and Small Business - took place for the 38th time in Nantes, France.

As part of our Start-up Management 2 course, we are lucky enough to have three great guest speakers at LEMEX who will tell our students about their entrepreneurial journey and focus on various topics in the field of start-ups and business management.

This year's Start-up Week Bremen & Bremerhaven, initiated by Starthaus Bremen & Bremerhaven, will take place from November 18 to 24, and we will have a stand at the convention in the Weserstadion on November 18 and 19.

The future concepts bremen was awarded the transfer prize of the University of Bremen! The teaching format took third place in the University of Bremen's first transfer prize for outstanding transfer achievements and projects.

From 18-20 October 2025, LEMEX, in collaboration with Startup Migrants , BRIDGE - Gründen aus Bremer Hochschulen, and Deutsche Postcode Lotterie, organized an intensive crash course for aspiring entrepreneurs at Bremen University.

Last week, Merle Petersen and Quynh Duong Phuong participated in the workshop “The Impact of Gendered Migration Cycles on the Labor Market Integration of Female Migrants in European Welfare States - Developing Pathways towards Gender-responsive Policies” at the Technical University of Berlin.

As part of our 'Entrepreneurial Ecosystems' seminar, 31 Master's students worked with mentors to examine the status quo of Bremen's start-up ecosystem and develop solutions to overcome identified weaknesses.

On Tuesday, Thomas Baron gave an insight into our research and transfer activities in the field of start-up ecosystems in his presentation “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems - regional relevance, concept and debates” as part of the Institute for Work and Technology colloquium.

Prof. Dr. Jörg Freiling, Tate Reit, and Tenzin Yeshi, recently participated in the "UNDIPUS Workshop on Refugee Entrepreneurship in the EU: Sparking Grass-roots Innovation, Civic Empowerment, and Transnational Connectivity by the Ukrainian Refugee Communities" at Greifswald University.

Register now for practical experience during your studies at future concepts bremen for the winter semester!

From September 16th to 18th, LEMEX hosted a study exchange program for a delegation from Moldova focused on the project “Entrepreneurial and Digital Innovation in Moldova: Supporting Ukrainian Refugees”.

On Monday, Dierck Tietje successfully completed his doctoral colloquium on his thesis „Wirkung einer Familienverfassung auf Konflikte in Familienunternehmen – Eine empirische Untersuchung deutscher Unternehmerfamilien“.

Today, the doctoral colloquium of our colleague Quynh Duong Phuong on her work “Exploring the Transition Gap - A Processual Model of Contextual Influence on Students' Engagement in Entrepreneurial Activities” took place.

On September 17, the Startup Germany Summit of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection took place in Berlin. And we were there!

The doctoral colloquium of our dear colleague Tenzin Yeshi took place today.

This year, the Hashtag#CAMPUSiDEEN competition was held for the 21st time by BRIDGE - Gründen aus Bremer Hochschulen. A team of students from LEMEX also took part!

On Friday, September 27th from 12:00 to 13:00 there will be an information event in SFG 1010, where you can find out everything about writing your thesis at LEMEX!

The Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Bremen-Oldenburg recently published a podcast on the topic of "New Work - Working Worlds of the Future".

Recently, our colleague Quynh Duong Phuong published the article "The Significance of Team Dynamics in Students' Entrepreneurial Decision-Making" in the journal European Management Studies.

Our LEMEX team, led by Prof. Dr. Joerg Freiling, Tate Reit and Tenzin Yeshi, together with our project partner Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, organized a workshop to discuss the qualitative data collection method.

LEMEX organized in cooperation with Startup Migrants and BRIDGE - Gründen aus Bremer Hochschulen the Startup Preschool at the University of Bremen from 14 to 16 June 2024.

On 27.6.2024 from 15:00 to 19:00 the Demo Day of future concepts bremen will take place again and all interested parties are cordially invited!

The survey for the German Startup Monitor has started. Take part in the survey now and give startups and founders a voice!

On the 27th of June 2024, the final presentations of our master seminar “Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” will take place from 2pm to 6 pm.

Recently, Prof. Dr. Aki Harima, Dr. Jan Harima and Prof. Dr. Joerg Freiling published the article “Ecosystem Orchestration: Unpacking the Leadership Capabilities of Anchor Organizations in Nascent Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.

We are delighted that LEMEX was represented on the jury for the Bremen Start-up Award by our Thomas and was able to experience the impressive pitches!

The article “Resilience on an emotional rollercoaster: Refugee entrepreneurship under adversity” by Tenzin Yeshi, Prof. Dr. Aki Harima and Prof. Dr. Joerg Freiling, published in the European Management Journal, is now also available as a print version.

Prof. Dr. Jörg Freiling, Tenzin Yeshi and Tate Reit, together with their Moldovan partner ASEM, have launched a groundbreaking research project on the integration of Ukrainian refugee entrepreneurs into the Moldovan labor market.

In the coming summer semester, future concepts bremen is once again opening its doors for you to deepen your theoretical knowledge in practice!

Recently, Prof. Dr. Beata Glinka and Prof. Dr. Joerg Freiling edited and published the De Gruyter Handbook of Migrant Entrepreneurship.

A new version of the LEMEX Student Journal "Current Issues in Entrepreneurship Research" is now available for download on our homepage! The research articles of our Master students were written under the supervision of Aki Harima.

On February 5th, a research seminar took place where some of our PhD students and PostDocs gave interesting insights into their research projects and discussed them with the LEMEX team.

The final presentations of our Master's students from the Entrepreneurship & Management 1B seminar took place on February 2nd.

On January 25th, the final event of the Design Thinking course Entrepreneurship & Management 1A took place in the Campus Space of Sparkasse Bremen. Eight student teams presented their problem-solving concepts in a pitch.

On the 20th of Febuary from 12:00 to 14:00 there will be an information event in WiWi1 A1070, where you can find out everything you need to know about writing your thesis at LEMEX!

As part of Thomas Baron's English-language master's seminar "Current Issues in Entrepreneurship Research", the course participants gave exciting insights into their informative research work at the University of Bremen in their final presentations yesterday.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of our dear colleague Aki Harima as Associate Professor at TalTech - Tallinn University of Technology. In her new role, Aki will take over the leadership of the Entrepreneurship Research Group in the Estonian capital from February 1, 2024.

On 25.01.2024 from 15:00 to 19:00 the Demo Day of future concepts bremen - Innovative Practice Projects - will take place again and all interested parties are cordially invited!

Last weekend, from December 8 to 10, the Social Impact Challenge Weekend, a collaboration between LEMEX and BRIDGE, took place at the DIGITAL HUB Industry Bremen

Last Friday, we had the pleasure of welcoming Viktoria Theoharova, founder of HUDDY, as a guest in our lecture "Start-up Management 2".

From November 15 to 17, Thomas Baron and Leon Marquardt took part in the RENT Conference in Gdansk. There they presented the current state of their research!

On 26 and 27 October, the conference "Commercialization and Entrepreneurship in the XXI Century" of the Uniwersytet Warszawski took place in Warsaw; and we were there!

Last minute reminder!

Register now for practical experience in your studies at future concepts bremen for the winter semester!

To support a project in the field of "Didactic e-learning application scenarios", we are looking for a student assistant (m/f/d) in the period from 01.11.2023 - 31.03.2024 (extension possible) for max. 42 hours per month.

In the 23rd edition of the "African Development Perspectives Yearbook: Business Opportunities, Start-ups, and Digital Transformation in Africa", Joerg Freiling published the article "On the Cultural Sphere of Transnational Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Digital Business Development of African…

Social innovations provide important solutions for social challenges. Social enterprises can play a key role in transforming our society for a more sustainable #future.

This year's 83rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM) took place from August 4-8, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, under the title "Putting the Worker Front and Center".

To support a project in the field of social entrepreneurship, we are looking for a student assistant (m/f/d) in the period from 01.10.2023 - 15.06.2024 for 43 hours per month.

Our Thomas Baron was a guest at hub.berlin, one of the most important business festivals of the German startup scene, at the end of June. This year's core topics were sustainability, mobility, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, security, metaverse, lifestyle and policy.

On 22.06. Quynh Duong Phuong and Florian Borgwardt from the Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Bremen-Oldenburg conducted the interactive workshop "Innovativeness and sustainability of SMEs".

On Saturday, June 24, the Open Campus at the University of Bremen took place - and we were there!

On 06.07.2023 from 14:00 to 19:00 the Demo Day of future concepts bremen - case studies from practice - will take place again and all interested parties are cordially invited!

On June 7th, Professor Sibylle Heilbrunn will offer the workshop "Challenges of Data Gathering: How to Overcome Cultural Barriers" for Phd students.

On June 8th, Professor Sibylle Heilbrunn will present her book "Dark Sides of the Startup Nation Winners and Losers of Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Israel".

Joerg Freiling and Tenzin Yeshi attended a conference on "migrant entrepreneurship: Developments at the intersection of policy and practice" organized by MIG.EN.CUBE Project at Bologna University on April 28 and 29.

The Mittelstand-Digital Zentrum Bremen-Oldenburg supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their digital transformation. Along with four other institutions, LEMEX also provides a team that participates in this project and accompanies SMEs in questions of digitalization.

Register now for practical experience in your studies at future concepts bremen for the summer semester!

The workshop "Introduction to library research - tips and tricks for students" will help you to find your way through the library's wide range of literature and will be a great help for future term papers and theses! Be part of it!

On March 15, the Mittelstand 4.0 Kompetenzzentrum Bremen will hold an event on how networking can help you on the way to founding a start-up and invites everybody who would like to come!

At the end of the winter semester, our master's students presented their Design Thinking solution ideas to relevant problems. Over the course of the semester, they identified and studied problem areas in order to subsequently develop focused solution ideas through to prototyping.

Over the past 5 years, LEMEX has been a partner in the Inno-Quarter project.

Dear students, the winter semester is coming to an end and the preparations for the new one are starting. Those who would like to write their Bachelor's and Master's thesis with us should take note of the following information: Kick-off event for the Bachelor and Master theses

In the upcoming summer semester of 2023, Professor Sybille Heilbrunn will offer "Who are the Winners and the Losers of Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship?" in English.

On June 27th, 2024 from 14:00 to 18:00 the Demo Day of future concepts bremen - Digital Innovation Projects will take place - and all interested parties are cordially invited!

The article "The Injection of Resources by Transnational Entrepreneurs: Towards a Model of the Early Evolution of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem," authored by Aki Harima, Jan Harima, and Jörg Freiling, was selected by the Editorial Board of the journal "Entrepreneurship & Regional Development".

Our Thomas Baron is a member of the working group "Startups & Innovations", which meets regularly to strengthen and support the startup landscape in Bremen.

Tenzin Yeshi, Aki Harima, and Jörg Freiling challenge the static view of resilience in entrepreneurship research by theorizing the resilience of refugee entrepreneurs as a dynamic process of business development.

On 16 Nov 22, the RENT Conference was held in Naples, Italy, under the heading "Re-thinking Entrepreneurship After the Crisis." This year, the focus was on exploring the impact of the COVID pandemic on start-up activity and the survival of start-ups and entrepreneurs.

The start-up ReMedi Health won the 2nd audience award at the prototype party at ZUKUNFT.unternehmen gGmbH in Oldenburg on November 15. We are particularly pleased about this, as the founding group developed this business idea in one of our courses.

Our Leon Marquardt has returned from his research trip. For two months, from the end of August to the end of October, he was at the Department of Business and Governance at TalTech - Tallinn University of Technology and was supported by Prof. Susanne Durst.

In our guest lecture series, we will highlight key topics of start-ups. For this purpose, we were able to win over four speakers who will present us with practical insights at first hand.

During the 13th SKM Symposium at the TU Kaiserslautern, Jörg Freiling presented an authored paper on Entrepreneurial Ecosystems.

In the first week of October, our Thomas Baron was in Amsterdam at ADEGreen - a conference on sustainability, innovation and social change. There he presented together with Sybrith Tiekstra from Aalborg University the evaluation of their results of the project.

The LEMEX congratulates on the completion of the dissertation, which Dr. Ekaterina Brandtner successfully defended on 02.09.2022.

In the research mile laid out along the quays, LEMEX was also represented this year at the Maritime Days 2022 in Bremerhaven as part of the Mittelstand 4.0 competence centre in Bremen.

This year, the 82nd annual conference of the Academy of Management took place under this heading.

We are looking for student support for a varied range of tasks and offer the chance to gain insights into the startup scene with flexible working hours. Get in touch if you are interested in helping out!

As part of a funded cooperation project, the LEMEX (University of Bremen) and the StartUp Fabular.ai are looking for a Student Assistant in the area of Online Marketing/SEO and in the area of Front-end Development.

Dear students, the summer semester is coming to an end and the preparations for the new one are starting. Those who would like to write their Bachelor's and Master's thesis with us should take note of the following information: Kick-off event for the Bachelor and Master theses

Last week Thomas Baron and Quynh Duong Phuong visited HOWEST University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool West-Vlaanderen), our Belgian Inno-Quarter partner.

Under the heading "Organizing: The Beauty of Imperfection," the interesting conference was held in Vienna July 7-9, with contributions from Aki Harima of LEMEX and Crista Plak of the University of Limoges.

The students were supported by LEMEX in the Department of Economics at the University of Bremen and the company TOPAS Industriemathematik Innovation gGmbH as company sponsor.

Together with students, we from LEMEX experienced a lively discussion about selected business ideas, founding teams and the pitches from the TV series "Die Höhle der Löwen". Many thanks!

Joerg Freiling and Max Oestreich, MA MBA CITuP explore the question whether the Search Fund could be an interesting model for Central European countries with an increase in business successions.

The next guest speaker is waiting in the wings. Next week on Friday, June 17, we will welcome Jan Elsner. We will get interesting insights into his startup Skinuvita, which develops a digital home therapy system for people with chronic skin diseases.

We congratulate our Thomas Baron on his dissertation award with the 1st place! In his thesis, he dealt with the regional characteristics of start-up ecosystems and their development.

Prof. Steve Riccio and students from Dickinson College were guests at the University of Bremen. On this occasion, the American students presented their business ideas, which they had developed in their courses. 

Another publication from the LEMEX team. In this article, Quynh Duong Phuong and Joerg Freiling show how the university campus influences the entrepreneurial start-up conditions of students - two areas that have not been linked before.

The Mittelstand 4.0-Kompetenzzentrum Bremen supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their digital transformation. Along with four other institutions, LEMEX also provides a team that participates in this project and accompanies SMEs in questions of digitalisation.

Dear innovators, This semester, Prof. Dr. Friedrich von den Eichen from LEMEX (FB7) is again offering the course Business Model Innovations: Management of Evolutionary and Disruptive Business Model Innovations.

The next semester is just around the corner! Did you know that future concept bremen is once again offering you the chance to gain practical experience during your studies?

Within the growing number of migrants, we can find an increasing number of refugees over the last couple of years. Reasons for this are wars, civil wars, and catastrophes of different kinds that make people leave their home country often completely unprepared.

The prototype party aftermovie is ready

Another publication from the LEMEX team. Aki Harima's study examines how the process of embeddedness influences refugees' resource mobilization in their entrepreneurial activities.

Four student teams of the business administration course Project IEM² VI - Digital Innovation Projects I present their solutions to entrepreneurial questions at the DEMO DAY of future concepts bremen on 02.02.2022.

Dear students, the winter semester is coming to an end and the preparations for the new one are starting. Those who would like to write their Bachelor's and Master's thesis with us should take note of the following information: Kick-off event for the Bachelor and Master theses

We are pleased to announce that our colleague Jan has been awarded the Berninghausen Award for Excellence in Teaching 2021 in the category Student Award for the bachelor course "Project Entrepreneurship".

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the University of Bremen, three current projects of the Graduate Group will be presented and discussed in a panel series with representatives of business, the public sector and academia as part of the "Campus City" event series:

In the panel Successful…

Dear students, the kick-off event for the final theses at LEMEX in the wintersemester 2021/22 is going to take place on the 15th of October 2021 from 12:00-01:00pm. The Kick-Off meeting is going to take at the university. The exact room will be announced soon.

Are you working on a start-up idea or have you already founded a company and would like to further develop your product or service based on customer feedback? Then apply by 30th of September at https://innoquarter.eu/join-innoquarter/ and be there on 25th of November 2021 with your test!

All…

We are looking for a student assistant to join the Lemex team on 1st of November to support us in different areas.

More detailed information can be found in the job description linked below:

Job advertisement SHK position Lemex

Deadline for applications is 15.09. We are looking forward to you!

Today's working world is constantly facing new challenges. Many different methods already exist to master these challenges. In a workshop in cooperation with DOCK ONE, the M4.0 team from LEMEX offers the opportunity to discuss needs in industry with other companies from the region and to jointly…

The Innoquarter project goes into another round!

Next Saturday, 24th of July, from 16:30, there will again be some exciting ideas from three local startups specializing in sustainability at the OpenSpace³ Domshof, which are waiting for your valuable feedback.

The founders of EntoSus, Victors Tofu…

Five student teams from the business administration course Consulting, Corporate and Startup Innovation Projects present their digital business models at DEMO DAY. The student teams have worked together with cooperation partners from practice. The following teams and topics are participating:

Team…

Together with our external PhD student Ekaterina Brandtner, Prof. Freiling has published another paper in the Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation (JEMI). In the article entitled Is dominant logic a value or a liability? On the explorative turn in the German power utility industry,…

Dear Founders,

The German Startup Association needs your voice! The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged us tremendously. This year, we want to overcome the crisis and demonstrate how important startups are in renewing our economy and society. What we need above all for this: facts and figures! Make…

Dear startup enthusiasts,

We would like to invite you to the StartUp Day as part of the Open Campus Week on June 7, 2021. This will take place under the motto "Founding? Of course! - From university to StartUp". In addition to a wide range of information, there will be an exciting online LIVE…

We are proud to announce another publication by Aki Harima, Jan Harima and Prof. Freiling. The journal article entitled The Injection of Resources by Transnational Entrepreneurs: Towards a Model of the Early Evolution of an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem was recently published in the 33rd issue of the…

Dear students, the kick-off event for the final theses at LEMEX in the summersemester 2021 is going to take place on the 10th of March 2021 from 12:00-01:00pm. The Kick-Off meeting is going to take place via zoom. You can join the session under the following link:

In cooperation with the Office for Practice and International Affairs we are going to host the Future Concepts Bremen Demo Day on the 11. of February from 12 o'clock. In this online event, more than 15 different presentations in the area of Innovation, Marketing and Digitalization from different…

Our newest edition of our LEMEX Research Papers is online! In this fourth volume five articles explore the entrepreneurship phenomena from theoretical/conceptual aspects. This issue covers rich entrepreneurship-related topics.

Due to the current developments regarding the Coronavirus, we unfortunately have to cancel the Bremer Unternehmertag which would have taken place on the 7th. of May 2020. The cancellation is just as difficult for us considering the passion for the topic and the promotion of cooperation between co...

Dear Students,

Here you can find to slides from our Kick-Off event as well as the contact form for writing your thesis at our chair.

Submission Deadline for the contact form is 09th of March at 11am. 

Dear Students,

This is a short reminder regarding our kickoff meeting on writing a thesis at our chair on 28th. of Febuary.

You can find all detailed information here.

Dear Students,

The Kick-off event for writing a thesis at our chair will take place on February 28.

There will be seperate events for bachelor and master thesis which are as followed:

Bachelor meeting is from 12:00 to 13:00 Master meeting is from 13:00 to 14:00

The event will take place in room…

Our new textbook Entrepreneurship - Gründung und Skalierung von Startups is now finally available. 

The textbook published by Springer Verlag discusses scientific entrepreneurship models and methods and techniques relevant for start-ups in an innovative and understandable way. Each chapter guides…

...our colleagues Jan Elsner and Tate Narimanyan!

The wiwib e.V. once again organised the ceremony on the 12th of November in the chamber of commerce in Bremen.  After a welcoming address by Kristina Vogt, the Senator of Economics, Labour and Europe of the freie Hansestadt Bremen, all winners were…

We congratulate our colleague Jan Elsner for the acceptance of his master thesis into the "BestMasters" series by the publisher Springer.

Under the title "Drivers of Corporate learning through an Involvement in Business Accelerators" Jan Elsner conducted a case study at Airbus, which also features…

Dear Students,

Here you can find to slides from our Kick-Off event as well as the contact form for writing your thesis at our chair.

Submission Deadline for the contact form is 21st of October at 11am.  

Dear Students,

The Kick-off event for writing a thesis at our chair will take place on October 11th in room WiWi 1-A1100.

There will be seperate events for bachelor and master thesis which are as followed:

Bachelor meeting is from 12:00 to 13:00

Master meeting is from 13:00 to 14:00

We look…

Dear Students,

The Kick-off event for writing a thesis at our chair will take place on October 11th.

There will be seperate events for bachelor and master thesis which are as followed:

Bachelor meeting is from 12:00 to 13:00

Master meeting is from 13:00 to 14:00

The room will be announced soon.

Das Innoquarter Projekt (hier klicken für weitere Infos) war gemeinsam mit dem Moin Startup Camp auf der Breminale, um verschiedenen Gründern die Möglichkeit zu geben, sich von den Breminale Besuchern Feedback für ihre Geschäftsideen einzuholen. Wir sind sehr stolz, dass das Magazin "Weser…

The BYRD Advisory Board (consisting of doctoral candidates, postdocs and university lecturers) together with the Alumni Association of the University of Bremen has awarded prizes for outstanding doctoral supervision. Among the 24 nominees, Prof. Dr. Jörg Freiling was awarded with the second place.…

We concratulate our former LEMEX co-worker  Martin Krikken on the successful completion of his doctorate on the topic: The Organizational Response to Remote Service Delivery – A Competence-Based Exploration of ‘Remotability’ in the Capital Goods Sector Congratulations, we are very happy!

Together with Prof. Sibylle Heilbrunn, Dr. Aki Harima and Prof. Jörg Freiling have published a new book.

"Refugee Entrepreneurship" is a collection of stories from refugees who have become self employed.

The Weser Kurier has done an article about this case-based topography aswell. You can find it …