The last two decades increasingly have challenged the field of management by confronting it with rapidly growing levels of dynamism, inter-connectedness, and complexity. Systems-based management approaches, their promise already proven, offer great potentials for influencing and coping with this development. This collection of essays offers ideas and exemplary case studies from experts in systemic management, organiza-tional cybernetics, and system dynamics for meeting the challenges in so-cio-economic systems. This book was compiled to honor the academic achievement of Markus Schwaninger, a leading protagonist in developing the field of systemic management and organizational cybernetics. His stature in the field is demonstrated in the forewords by Raul Espejo and John Sterman. The efforts of 18 researchers and practitioners, all closely related to Markus Schwaninger, offer conceptual and empirical approaches that will allow managers and advanced students of the management profession to analyze, understand, and design intelligent organizations. The book weaves its content from both theory and practice and offers hints for improving a variety of organizations, both private and public, profit and non-profit, and large and small.
Stefan N. Groesser is Professor of Strategic Management at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland and a lecturer for System Dynamics at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. He was a visiting scholar at the System Dynamics Group at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has received degrees from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, in business administration and economics, from the University of Bergen, Norway, in System Dynamics, and from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, in Management. Stefan's research interests include strategic management, diffusion management, business models, mental models, and simulation methodology. He has published in the journals Systems Research and Behavioral Science, System Dynamics Review, and the European Journal of Operational Research.
René Zeier is the Director of the Lucerne School of Tourism at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He lectures on systems thinking, marketing, and sales. Based on his practical experiences as a manager at Nestlé, Novartis, and Coca-Cola, he now focuses on implementing insights from systems thinking. The range of his engagement, which includes collaborations with his students, varies from development aid to tailor-made business consulting.
