Vom Management zum Unternehmertum: Wertschöpfung in komplexen Gesellschaften als zentrale Herausforderung für den regionalen Mittelstand

Peter Kruse (1955-2015), a cognitive scientist and complexity researcher, said in an interview: 'We need to be more on the side of entrepreneurship and less on the side of management. It's not about getting from A to B in an orderly fashion and achieving goals, but about being part of the social dynamic.' This points to the central problem of this discussion paper, which focuses on the plannability of value creation based on the division of labour in complex societies, both in its microeconomic and macroeconomic dimensions. This problem is particularly important in view of the main task of company and political decision-makers to avoid operational and economic emergencies. The increasing share of the service sector in overall economic growth, which has inflationary but also deflationary consequences and is increasingly jeopardising the existence of small and medium-sized companies in the manufacturing sector, is a sign of such an emergency. It is important to develop suitable ways of dealing with this.