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Faculty 5
Chair of General Business Administration, in particular Aspects of Organisation and Corporate Governance Vertret.-Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Alexander Martin

Dr Sophia Bittner-Zähr Business Administration, PhD, Teaching and Research Fellow

Contact

Building 10, Room 411a
Erich-Weinert-Straße 1
03046 Cottbus

Telephone: +49 (0) 355 69 3618
Fax: +49 (0) 355 69 3990

sophia.bittner-zaehr(at)b-tu.de

Office hours

On appointment only.

Research Focus

  • Identities and emotions in an organisational context
  • Former members of the organisation (alumni)
  • Temporality and spatiality

Publications and research conferences

  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia; Martin, Alexander (2026): Emotion-related practices in the workplace: an approach to understanding the lived experience of emotions via identity theory, 42nd European Group for Organisation Studies (EGOS) online colloquium, Local Hub Rennes, France, 9–11 July 2026
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia; Tallarek, Marie (2026): Emotion-related practices in emotionally demanding work: a conceptual framework using the example of clinical maternity care, XV – Fifteenth International Conference on Emotions and Worklife (EMONET), Rennes, France, 6–8 July 2026
  • Bittner-Zähr, S. (2026). Alumni Management and Temporal Spatial Distance: A Theoretical Investigation. Management Revue, 37(2). https://doi.org/10.31083/MRev39441
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia; Tallarek, Marie (2026): Emotion-related practices in emotionally demanding work: a conceptual framework using the example of clinical maternity care, VHB Conference (WK Org), Göttingen, 18–20 March 2026
  • Martin, Alexander; Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2026): So, shall we build tanks now!? Identity and emotions in organisational transformation processes: the individual caught between multiple expectations, VHB Conference (WK Org), Göttingen, 18–20 March 2026
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia, Tallarek, Marie (2025): Organisational practices and emotion work: a conceptual framework using the example of the emotionally demanding field of clinical maternity care. Paper Development Workshop in Organisation Studies and Theory for Advanced PhD Students, Early-Career Researchers and Junior Faculty in Western and Central Europe, Winterthur, Switzerland, 1–3 October 25
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2024): Becoming Strong: Role identity development after the transfer to another context. Autumn workshop of the Scientific Commission on Human Resources within the Association of University Lecturers in Business Administration (VHB), Hanover, 4–6 September 2024
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2023): Becoming strong: New role identity development in organisational opening processes. 38th European Group for Organisation Studies (EGOS) Colloquium, Cagliari, Italy, 6–8 July 2023
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2023): One step forward and two back: Organisational opening towards former members as external stakeholders. German-Israeli Minerva School 2023: “Creativity, Innovation and Inter-Organisational Collaboration – Process Views”, Berlin, 29 June – 1 July 2023
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2023): “Where we’re going, together”: Identity regulation beyond organisational membership. 10th Austrian Early Scholars Workshop in Management, University of Graz, Austria, 4–5 May 2023
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2022): “Where we’re going, together”: the fostering of a legacy identity by organisations through the building of interrelationships between past, present and future. European Group for Organisation Studies (EGOS), Vienna, Austria, 7–9 July 2022
  • Bittner-Zähr, Sophia (2017): “Alumni as boundary spanners in increasingly open and dynamically evolving universities”. Summer School on Boundaries in Science and Higher Education (Research), INCHER Kassel, 9–13 October 2017
  • Zähr, Sophia (2017): “Alumni as a strategic resource for innovativeness and competitiveness – insights from a structured literature review on university and firm alumni”. DRUID Academy, Odense, Denmark, 18–20 January 2017
  • Zähr, Sophia/ Geißler, Matthias (2016): ‘Alumni, former employees and knowledge backflows to parent organisations – insights from a structured literature review on university and firm alumni’. Annual Meeting of the Technology Transfer Society (T2S), Phoenix, USA, 3–5 November 2016
  • Zähr, Sophia (2016): “Alumni and their significance in the academic start-up context – findings based on a systematic literature review”. 20th Interdisciplinary Annual Conference on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMEs (G-Forum), Leipzig, 5–7 October 2016

Memberships

  • European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS)
  • Association of University Lecturers in Business Administration (VHB)

Career

Since November 2024Teaching and research fellow in the Department of Business Administration, in particular specialising in organisation and Business Management
August 2024 – November 2024Staff Member at Chemnitz University of Technology, Chair of Business Administration – Human Resource Management and Leadership Studies
October 2023 – July 2024Staff Member at the Rhineland-Palatinate University of Technology Kaiserslautern-Landau, Chair of Strategy, Innovation and Cooperation
June 2021 – October 2023Staff Member at Dresden University of Technology, Chair of Business Administration, specialising in Organisation (Prof. Blagoev)
July 2015 – May 2021Research Staff Member at Dresden University of Technology, Junior Research Group on Transfer of Knowledge and Technology
2012–2015Studied Business Administration (M.Sc.) at Dresden University of Technology
Jan 2010 – Oct 2011Deputy Manager of the women’s fitness studio ‘Pour la femme’, Görlitz
2007–2010Studied Health Management (B.A.) at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences

Other activities

2017Research visit to the University of Cambridge, England (funded by the Dr Händel Research Grant from the Faculty of Economic Sciences at TU Dresden)
2016Research visit to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (funded by a scholarship from the Saxon State Ministry of Science and the Arts of the Free State of Saxony)