Skip to main content

Uncertainty and Opportunity as Drivers for Re-Thinking Management: Future-oriented organizations by Going Beyond a Mechanistic Culture in Organizations

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
ReThinking Management

Abstract

The demands on managing an organization have changed dramatically over the last decades. Besides classical tasks, such as planning or controlling, modern management has to cope with a hyper-complex world; both inside an organization and in relation to its systemic environment. We have to re-think management in the light of managing uncertainty and opportunity. As shown in the following, it is not sufficient to just adapt to changes in the market and environment, but it is necessary to engage in actively creating novelty, new knowledge, and innovations as well as in proactively designing and shaping internal (organizational) and external (e.g. market) niches. In other words, our claim is that it is necessary to re-think management with respect to shifting from managing and controlling to enabling innovation and knowledge creation in order to establish a future-oriented organization.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Adolf, M. and Stehr, N. (2014): Knowledge. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alvarez, S.A. and Barney, J.B. (2007): Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. In: Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1-2), 11-26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amabile, T. (1996): Creativity in context. Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aristotle (2007): Metaphysics. [online: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.html (02.04.2011)].

  • Bachmann-Medick, D. (2016): Cultural turns: New orientations in the study of culture. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boden, M.A. (2004): The creative mind: Myths and mechanisms (second ed.). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bohm, D. (1996): On dialogue. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bohm, D. (1998): On creativity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan, J.M. and Vanberg, V.J. (1991): The market as a creative process. In: Economics and Philosophy, 7(2), 167-186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, C.M., Kaufman, S.P. and Shih, W.C. (2008): Innovation killers. In: Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 98-105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A. (2013): Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 1-73.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, R.G. (1990): Stage-gate systems: A new tool for managing new products. In: Business Horizons, 33(3), 44-54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, R. (2006): Making present: Autopoiesis as human production. In: Organization, 13(1), 59-81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corning, P.A. (2002): The re-emergence of “emergence”: A venerable concept in search of a theory. In: Complexity, 7(6), 18-30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Courtney, H., Kirkland, J. and Viguerie, P. (1997): Strategy under uncertainty. In: Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 67-79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Depraz, N., Varela, F.J. and Vermersch, P. (2003): On becoming aware: A pragmatics of experiencing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorst, K. (2003): The problem of design problems. In: Cross, N. and Edmonds, E. (Eds.): Expertise in design. Sydney: Creativity and Cognition Studio Press, 135-147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorst, K. (2006): Design problems and design paradoxes. In: Design Issues, 22(3), 4-17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drucker, P.F. (1985): Innovation and entrepreneurship: Practice and principles. London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drucker, P.F. (1988): The coming of the new organization. Harvard Business Review, 66, 45-53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drucker, P.F. (1993): Post-capitalist society. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ettlie, J.E., Bridges, W.P. and O’Keefe, R.D. (1984): Organisational strategic and structural differences for radical vs. incremental innovation. In: Management Science, 30(6), 682-695.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2010): Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1PA5yNL, 03.02.2012

  • Fagerberg, J., Mowery, D.C. and Nelson, R.R. (Eds.). (2006): The Oxford handbook of innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fagerberg, J. and Verspagen, B. (2009): Innovation studies: The emerging structure of a new scientific field. In: Research Policy, 38(2), 218-233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Felin, T. (2012): Cosmologies of capability, markets and wisdom of crowds: Introduction and comparative agenda. In: Managerial and Decision Economics, 33(5-6), 283-294.

    Google Scholar 

  • Felin, T., Kauffman, S.A., Koppl, R. and Longo, G. (2014): Economic opportunity and evolution: Beyond landscapes and bounded rationality. In: Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 8(4), 269-282.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedenberg, J. and Silverman, G. (2006): Cognitive science: An introduction to the study of the mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldspink, C. and Kay, R. (2003): Organizations as self-organizing and sustaining systems: A complex and autopoietic systems perspective. In: International Journal of General Systems, 32(5), 459-474.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamel, G. (2009): Moon shots for management. In: Harvard Business Review, 87(2), 91-98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hennessey, B.A. and Amabile, T.M. (2010): Creativity. In: Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 569-598.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hohwy, J. (2013): The predictive mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser, A. and Fordinal, B. (2010): Creating a bar for generating self-transcending knowledge. In: Journal of Knowledge Management, 14(6), 928-942.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauffman, S.A. (2000): Investigations. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauffman, S.A. (1993): The origins of order: Self-organisation and selection in evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauffman, S.A. (2011): Enablement and radical emergence. [online: http://n.pr/1OzWQxk (02.02.2015)].

  • Kauffman, S.A. (2014): Prolegomenon to patterns in evolution. In: BioSystems, 123(2014), 3-8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J.C. and Sternberg, R.J. (Eds.) (2010): The Cambridge handbook of creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kay, R. (2001): Are organizations autopoietic? A call for new debate. In: Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 18, 461-477.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelley, T. (2004): The art of innovation: Lessons in creativity from IDEO, America’s leading design firm. London: Profile Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koppl, R., Kauffman, S.A., Felin, T. and Longo, G. (2014): Economics for a creative world. In: Journal of Institutional Economics, 1-31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Longo, G. and Montevil, M. (2013): Extended criticality, phase spaces and enablement in biology. In: Chaos, Solutions and Fractals, 55, 64-79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Longo, G., Montevil, M. and Kauffman, S.A. (2012): No entailing laws, but enablement in the evolution of the biosphere. In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. Philadelphia, PA, 1379-1392.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luhmann, N. (1995). Social systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maturana, H.R. (1970): Biology of cognition. In: Maturana, H.R. and Varela, F.J. (Eds.): Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Dordrecht: Reidel, 2-60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maturana, H.R. and Varela, F.J. (1975): Autopoiesis: The organization of the living. In: Maturana, H.R. and Varela, F.J. (Eds.): Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Dordrecht: Reidel, 63-134.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitleton-Kelly, E. (Ed.) (2003a): Complex systems and evolutionary perspectives on organisations: The application of complexity theory to organisations. Oxford: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitleton-Kelly, E. (2003b): Ten principles of complexity and enabling infrastructures. In: Mitleton-Kelly, E. (Ed.): Complex systems and evolutionary perspectives on organisations: The application of complexity theory to organisations. Oxford: Elsevier, 23-50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitleton-Kelly, E. (2007): The emergence of final cause. In: Aaltonen, M. (Ed.), The third lens: Multi-ontology sense-making and strategic decision-making. Adlershot: Ashgate Publishing, 111-124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newell, A. and Simon, H.A. (1976): Computer science as empirical inquiry: Symbols and search. In: Communications of the Assoc. for Computing Machinery (ACM), 19(3), 113-126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolis, G. and Prigogine, I. (1989): Exploring complexity: An introduction. New York: Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschl, M.F. and Fundneider, T. (2008): Emergent innovation and sustainable knowledge co-creation: A socio-epistemological approach to “innovation from within”. In: Lytras, M.D. et al. (Eds.): The open knowledge society: A computer science and information systems manifesto (Vol. CCIS communications in computer and information science) 19. New York: Springer (CCIS 19), 101-108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschl, M.F. and Fundneider, T. (2012): Spaces enabling game-changing and sustaining innovations: Why space matters for knowledge creation and innovation. In: Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change (OTSC), 9(1), 41-61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschl, M.F. and Fundneider, T. (2013): Theory-U and emergent innovation: Presencing as a method of bringing forth profoundly new knowledge and realities. In: Gunnlaugson, O. Baron, C. and Cayer, M. (Eds.), Perspectives on theory U: Insights from the field. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 207-233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschl, M.F. and Fundneider, T. (2014a): Designing and enabling interfaces for collaborative knowledge creation and innovation: From managing to enabling innovation as socio-epistemological technology. In: Computers and Human Behavior, 37, 346-359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschl, M.F. and Fundneider, T. (2014b): Evolving the future by learning from the future (as it emerges)? Toward an epistemology of change. In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(4), 433-434.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peschl, M.F. and Fundneider, T. (2014c): Why space matters for collaborative innovation networks: On designing enabling spaces for collaborative knowledge creation. In: International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering (IJODE), 3(3/4), 358-391.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poli, R. (2006): The ontology of what is not there. In: Malinowski, J. and Pietruszczak, A. (Eds.): Essays in logic and ontology (Vol. 91). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 73-80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poli, R. (2010a): An introduction to the ontology of anticipation. In: Futures, 42(7), 769-776.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poli, R. (2010b): The many aspects of anticipation. In: Foresight, 12(3), 7-17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poli, R. (2011): Ontological categories, latents and the irrational. In: Cumpa, J. and Tegtmeier, E. (Eds.): Ontological categories. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag, 153-163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M.A. (2014): Creativity: Theories and themes: Research, development, and practice (second ed.). London: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarasvathy, S.D., Dew, N., Velamuri, S.R. and Venkataraman, S. (2003): Three views of entrepreneurial opportunity. In Acs, Z.D. and Audretsch, D.B. (Eds.), Handbook of entrepreneurship research. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 141-160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scharmer, C.O. (2001): Self-transcending knowledge: Sensing and organizing around emerging opportunities. In: Journal of Knowledge Management, 5(2), 137-150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scharmer, C.O. (2007): Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges: The social technology of presencing. Cambridge, MA: Society for Organizational Learning.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schein, E.H. (1993): On dialogue, culture and organizational learning. In: Organization Dynamics, 22(2), 44-51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidl, D. and Becker, K.H. (2006): Organizations as distinction generating and processing systems: Niklas Luhmann’s con-tribution to organization studies. In: Organization, 13(1), 9-35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon, H.A. (1996): The sciences of the artificial (third ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephan, A. (2006): The dual role of “emergence” in the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. In: Synthese, 151, 485-498.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tidd, J. (2001): Innovation management in context: Environment, organization and performance. In: International Journal of Management Reviews, 3(3), 169-183.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tidd, J. (2006): A review of innovation models. London: Imperial College. [online: http://bit.ly/1OzXtak (29.10.2014)].

  • Wolff Olins (2015): WO Report 2015: How leaders are creating the uncorporation. UK. Retrieved from https://woreport.wolffolins.com, 11.04.2016.

  • Zia, A., Kauffman, S.A. and Koliba, C. (2014): From the habit of control to institutional enablement: Re-envisioning the governance of social-ecological systems from the perspective of complexity sciences. In: Complexity, Governance & Networks, 2014(1), 79-88.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Markus F. Peschl .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Peschl, M.F., Fundneider, T. (2017). Uncertainty and Opportunity as Drivers for Re-Thinking Management: Future-oriented organizations by Going Beyond a Mechanistic Culture in Organizations. In: Küpers, W., Sonnenburg, S., Zierold, M. (eds) ReThinking Management. Management – Culture – Interpretation. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16983-1_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16983-1_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-16982-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-16983-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics