Tag: System Theory

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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

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Data, Karl Marx and the End of Money

tl;dr: Data will succeed money as the lifeblood of the economy thus making money irrelevant.

What is going to be the lubricant of the Next Economy? The go-to answer most likely is “data”.  My interest here is not so much on the more technical aspects of data gathering, mining, artificial intelligence and what other buzzwords might be up in the air. I am more curious about larger scale transformations in the fabric of the economy, especially when it comes to the role of data and money. … Read more

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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.

… Read more
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From Now to Next: The Form of the Firm in the Next Economy

tl;dr: Form theory helps you envision a future for companies that enables them to create a convivial society beyond growth.

(This is an extended summary of an article published in March 2017 in a special issue on organizing for the post-growth economy in »ephemera: theory and politics in organizations«) 

When you reflect about the future, especially if you want to go beyond coffeehouse level reasoning, some conceptual framework is necessary that can tolerate the future.… Read more

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Technology Beyond Growth – The Role of Technology in the Postgrowth Economy

Placing the notion of technology within a postgrowth setting is like introducing Conchita Wurst to a Vatican congregation. Not any congregation, but the Papal conclave. Not as a surprise guest to cheer everyone up, but as a serious proposal for the next Holy Father – or in this case: the Holy Trinity of the one, the other, and both. Technology? Are you sure? Technology is either regarded as the dominant means to follow the futile dream of decoupling economic activity from ecological impact thus producing »green« growth – and thus cementing the capitalist, growth-oriented machine, responsible for environmental degradation, productivity increase and workers exploitation, acting as the materialist »perpetuum mobile« spewing out one gadget after the other in order to keep us fixed in our roles as mindless consumers, feeling ever more hollow down to our human core.… Read more