Introduction: How to Survive in a Changing World

This is an ambidextrous book. At its core, it is interested in business practice and investigates how companies can use the values cockpit as a means of making themselves more competitive. Establishing a corporate culture that is securely grounded in certain values is one of the key value creation processes determining the future viability of any business in our economy. On this practical and pragmatic level, this book explains how companies can use a rational, unbiased instrument to tailor their value sets to match the unique qualities and nature of their organizations. The English language version adds a new theoretical shell around its practice-oriented core. It frames the book’s subject of value-oriented management as part of something larger than the simply entrepreneurial wish to create and maintain a sustainably viable business. That shell engages with current ethical, ecological, and political discourse of what sustainability means for our economic order as a whole. Considering these higher concerns, this book is trying to add to our understanding of how we can tackle the global problems that our economy’s belief in untrammelled and limitless growth has created. It is not (only) meant as a “create your own sustainable business” manual for managers, but as one possible answer to the question of how the future of all of us can be protected with such a self-sustained, self-responsible company.