Systems

2026/07/052026/07/05

Deciding the Undecidable: Why Strategy Needs “Urteilskraft”

tl;dr: Under deep uncertainty, strategy confronts questions no method can settle. Urteilskraft is that capacity: it frames what can be calculated and judges what can be justified.

This essay expands on a talk I gave at the Wissenschaftsfestival Stuttgart 2026, held at ISM Campus Stuttgart under the title “Zukunft, Zweifel, Zuversicht – Future Skills in Zeiten des Umbruchs.”

If there is one place in Europe where nobody needs “times of upheaval” explained to them, it is the Stuttgart region.… Read more

2025/07/30

Notes from AOM 2025

tl;dr: AOM 2025 brought planetary boundaries, postgrowth, and critique closer to the centre — but the structural tensions remain. Hopeful shifts, unfinished conversations.

2025 in Copenhagen marked my first in-person AOM since 2019 in Boston. I had joined the virtual meetings in 2020 and 2021, but skipped 2022 and 2023. Returning felt both familiar and strange — especially since this was the first AOM Annual Meeting ever held outside of North America. With around 13,000 participants, it was also the largest in the Academy’s history.… Read more

2017/07/252017/07/25

The Future of Systems is in the Past: From the Laws of Form to System Storytelling

tl;dr: Form theory as hardware enables systems research to tell formalized system narratives by (1) formalizing systems and their working as well as (2) enable understanding of systems.

The initial promise of systems research, providing a unique conceptual lens for addressing complex real-world problems, is probably more in demand in our age than ever before. Messy and intertwined problems like climate change mitigation and adaptation, managing the digital transformation of economy and society, as well as finding a new global governance framework in a time of resurgent nationalism and authoritarianism, defy classical predict-and-control approaches in the fields of economics or political sciences.