Nicole Gottschalck

Nicole Gottschalck is an Assistant Professor at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, affiliated with the Economics Group, with a research focus on Organizational Behavior. She contributes to the academic understanding of personnel management, employee retention, and organizational dynamics, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises and family firms.

Her research interests include:

• Organizational Behavior and Work Attitudes
• Personnel and Human Resource Management
• Contextual Influences on Employee Engagement
• Challenges in Middle Management during Organizational Growth
• Resilience and Ambidexterity in Small Businesses
• Family Firm Governance and Management

Nicole's recent publications explore themes such as entrepreneurial orientation, ambidexterity, and resilience in small business owners, as well as reference point formation among managers under volatile conditions. Her work frequently investigates how organizational context shapes managerial decisions and employee outcomes, particularly in family-owned firms. She has published in top-tier journals including the Journal of Small Business Management, Small Business Economics, and the Journal of Family Business Strategy.

Nicole Gottschalck earned her doctoral degree at the IHK – Chair of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises at WHU, where her dissertation focused on employee retention across organizational contexts. Prior to that, she completed two interdisciplinary master’s programs at Leipzig University and the Institut Européenne (Nice, Berlin, Istanbul), and holds a bachelor’s degree in History and Journalism from Justus-Liebig-University Gießen.

She advises on research related to organizational change, leadership in growing firms, and human capital management. While no formal grants or funded projects are mentioned in the provided text, her research output indicates active engagement in empirical studies on firm performance and managerial behavior.

Nicole is involved in research activities within the Economics Group at WHU, particularly in areas intersecting behavioral economics, organizational theory, and SME/family business research. She collaborates with prominent scholars such as Franz Kellermanns, Laura Rolan, and Elisa Stommel.