Dr. Oliver Thomas

Work at ZHAW

Position

Associate Professor / Dozent / Senior Lecturer for International Management; Academic research in the field of Entrepreneurship

Focus

Research focus: cognitive psychology in entrepreneurship. Expertise: Corporate strategy, corporate governance, start-up financing, quantitative research

Teaching

Associate Professor / Dozent / Senior Lecturer for International Management (Strategic Management, Marketing, Research Design, and Negotiation Management)

Experience

• Senior lecturer
  ZHAW
  09 / 2018 - today
• Senior lecturer
  Münster University of Applied Sciences
  07 / 2014 - 07 / 2018
• Project Manager/Managing Director for South America
  German Cooperative Banking Association
  09 / 2011 - 06 / 2014
• Various positions (credit analyst, corporate client advisor)
  Banking sector
  09 / 1997 - 09 / 2005

Education and Continuing education

Education

• PhD / Business Administration
  Philipps University Marburg
  09 / 2014 - 03 / 2018
• Master (M.Sc.) in Management / Business Administration
  HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management
  07 / 2009 - 07 / 2011
• Bachelor (B.A.) / German-Latin American Business Administration
  University of Applied Sciences Münster (Double degree with Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica)
  09 / 2005 - 12 / 2008
• Banking Specialization / Banking
  Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
  09 / 1999 - 09 / 2001

Network

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1634-6589

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Thomas, O. and Hess, M. (2025) 'Scaling in the beauty industry : the high-stakes quest for investor capital', International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 15(4), pp. 331–351. doi: 10.1504/IJTCS.2025.149408.
• Thomas, O. (2022) 'Entrepreneurship education : which educational elements influence entrepreneurial intention?', Industry and Higher Education, 37(3), pp. 328–344. doi: 10.1177/09504222221121065.
• Thomas, O. and Reimann, O. (2022) 'The bias blind spot among HR employees in hiring decisions', German Journal of Human Resource Management, 37(1), pp. 5–22. doi: 10.1177/23970022221094523.
• Thomas, O. and Wulf, T. (2021) 'Success factors of academic entrepreneurship education : a new approach', International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 43(4), pp. 531–547. doi: 10.1504/IJESB.2021.117346.
• Thomas, O., Kucza, G. and Schuppisser, S. (2021) 'Can sports sponsorship affect consumers' motivation for sports consumption?', Journal of Promotion Management, 28(7), pp. 893–922. doi: 10.1080/10496491.2021.2009611.
• Thomas, O. and Wulf, T. (2019) 'Entrepreneurship education and intention to start a business : the moderating role of cognitive biases', International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 11(5), pp. 413–439. doi: 10.1504/IJEV.2019.10021564.
• Thomas, O. (2018) 'Two decades of cognitive bias research in entrepreneurship : what do we know and where do we go from here?', Management Review Quarterly, 68(2), pp. 107–143. doi: 10.1007/s11301-018-0135-9.

Books, peer-reviewed

Thomas, O. (2018) New venture creation : the role of entrepreneurship education and cognitive biases. Doctoral dissertation. Philipps-Universität Marburg.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Thomas, O. et al. (2024) 'The impact of store atmosphere and retailers" price positioning on economy, standard, and premium private labels', in Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy. European Marketing Academy, p. 122610.
• Reimann, O. et al. (2024) 'Private labels and negative marketing events : inter-category spillover effects to competing retailers" private labels', in Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy. European Marketing Academy, p. 122609.
• Reimann, O. et al. (2023) 'Private labels and negative information : effects within a retailer', in EMAC Regional Conference, Athens, Greece, 27-29 September 2023.
• Nagengast, L. et al. (2023) 'Private labels and negative information : effects across retailers', in EMAC Regional Conference, Athens, Greece, 27-29 September 2023.
• Reimann, O., Thomas, O. and Kucza, G. (2022) 'Private labels, product harm crises, and cross-brand learning', in Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy. European Marketing Academy.
• Reimann, O. et al. (2021) 'First insights on brand attitude towards a retailer's individual private labels', in Martínez-López, F. J. and Gázquez-Abad, J. C. (eds) Advances in National Brand and Private Label Marketing. Cham: Springer, pp. 20–23. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-76935-2_3.
• Reimann, O., Thomas, O. and Kucza, G. (2021) 'Do PWYW labels affect internal reference prices and prices paid?', in Williams Bradford, T., Keinan, A., and Thomson, M. (eds) Advances in Consumer Research Volume 49. Association for Consumer Research, pp. 523–524.
• Reimann, O., Thomas, O. and Kucza, G. (2021) 'Attitude formation toward economy, standard and premium private label', in Proceedings 2021 AMA Summer Academic Conference. American Marketing Association, pp. 535–538. Available at: https://www.ama.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-Summer-AMA_Proceedings-Cover_v1-3-merged.pdf.

Oral conference contributions and abstracts

Reimann, O. et al. (2020) 'How sport sponsorships affect motivation for sport consumption : the role of perceived brand sincerity', in 20th EURAM Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 4-6 December 2020.

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