Management studies can be regarded as applied cybernetics because both disciplines are concerned with designing and steering complex and dynamic systems. All managers are cyberneticists, intentionally or otherwise, because they are trying to bring under control a system of incredibly high variety. According to a pioneer of management cybernetics, Stafford Beer (1966, 239), management is the mastery of “high variety systems”. As discussed above, even a medium-sized company has an incredibly large number of possible states. A manager will undoubtedly find indications in cybernetics as to how they can perform complex tasks.

Zusammenfassung Peter Drucker wollte nicht sagen, dass Strategie unwichtig sei – vielmehr sei eine kraftvolle und empowernde Kultur der sicherere Weg zum Unternehmenserfolg. Menschen werden von der Kultur, in der sie leben, beeinflusst. Ein Kind lernt zum Beispiel, welche Normen, Werte und Verhaltensweisen in seiner Familie üblich sind.

Zusammenfassung Wenn eine Führungskraft mit einem Problem nicht weiterkommt, hilft es oft, einen Schritt zurückzutreten und das Gesamtbild zu betrachten. Um die Dinge anders zu sehen und neue Lösungen zu entdecken. Es gibt einen sehr guten Grund, warum Menschen, welche die digitale Transformation vorantreiben, einen „ganzheitlichen“ Ansatz bevorzugen – ein Begriff, der häufig im medizinischen Bereich verwendet wird.

Zusammenfassung Immer mehr Unternehmungen ergreifen die Initiative, Entwicklungsprozesse zu initiieren, um neben der Effizienz auch die Effektivität zu steigern. Das Topmanagement hat erkannt, dass es sich den Anforderungen der Umwelt, beispielsweise einer veränderter Wettbewerbssituation, technologischen Veränderungen oder dem Wertewandel, aktiv stellen muss und die internen Prozesse anzupassen hat.

Innovation is l/Je specijic 1001 of entrepreneurs, l/Je means by which l/Je exploit change as an opporlunity for a different business or a different service.It is capahle ofbeing presenled as a discipline, capahle ofbeing learned, capable ofbeing practiced."

The history of management studies – more recently called business administration – is characterized by a myriad of models and approaches to business. On the one hand, models govern an enterprise’s external relationships; these segment the environment and analyze interdependencies with the enterprise. The analysis in these cases foregrounds the various environmental issues and factors, which vary widely over time. On the other hand, some models discuss the enterprise’s internal relationships and publish conclusions about internal functions, structures, and cultural challenges.

A growing number of companies are taking the opportunity to initiate development processes to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Top managers have realized the need to face environmental challenges, such as a changing competitive situation, technological advances, or value change, and see that internal processes should be adapted.

The definition of the enterprise as a productive social system makes it clear that the enterprise as a whole should be viewed as a system and is made up of a number of subsystems. This description explains the company and its actions using system-based concepts. Several questions arise in relation to system-based management theory: how did system theory arise? What is generally understood by a system? What form do the effects of system theory take on management studies? System theory is a relatively young science, still in the process of development. It is significantly influenced by the findings of philosophers and academics from various disciplines (e.g., biologists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, sociologists, psychologists). The company is seen as a system with a lot of interactions and unmanageable variables and not as a machine.

When a leader is stuck on a problem, it often helps to step back and look at the bigger picture. To see things differently and discover new solutions. There’s a very good reason why people at the center of driving digital transformation favor a “holistic” approach – a term often used in the medical space. A holistic approach, for example, to digitalization is an interesting way to achieve the necessary breakdown of silos to develop adaptable future-proof solutions. And, of course, as with holistic medicine, this approach forces us to leave the beaten track. In medicine, the term “holistic” encompasses the idea that our bodies are interconnected systems and can be explained only by looking at the whole, rather than its individual parts.

The organization – the structure – of an enterprise should always be considered in the context of strategy and culture. An isolated view should be avoided as far as possible since otherwise unrealistic and fictional organizational solutions are implemented and the organization is run as an end in itself. The integrated model of the enterprise illustrates the dimensions of the magic trilogy and the cross-relationships between them and with other dimensions. The systemic view has had various effects on organizational questions in the past, both in the search for new, innovative organizational tools and in the debate on the subject of strategically oriented organization. New organizational models are to be encouraged by aligning them with the company’s strategy and culture (Laloux 2014, 1ff.).

This study delves into the practical implementation of humane entrepreneurship (HumEnt) through an extensive case study of a Swiss small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) operating in the winter sports industry. This particular SME showcases several distinctive traits that align with what we can define as its humane entrepreneurial orientation. The primary objective of this case study is to analyze how the HumEnt model is applied within the SME's overarching corporate strategy and business model. Furthermore, this article introduces a three-dimensional positioning matrix, synthesizing insights from two prevailing approaches in the HumEnt literature. This matrix offers a more holistic framework for comprehending the HumEnt model in depth.

This article explores the practical impact of humane entrepreneurship on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), demonstrating how adopting a humane entrepreneurial orientation (HEO) can significantly enhance financial performance, employee engagement, and environmental sustainability. It provides valuable insights for business leaders and policy makers by showcasing how integrating humancentric approaches into business strategies not only drives profitability but also strengthens organizational commitment and social responsibility. The article emphasizes the practical benefits of HEO for SMEs, while calling for further research to assess its broader applicability across different industries and regions.

As a recent phenomenon, crowdfunding has been positively influencing entrepreneurial financing and has been leading the way to a democratization of financial opportunities for entrepreneurs and backers. With the ambition to positively impact the entrepreneurial processes in crowdfunding markets, the RCoins project evolves around the idea of all citizens becoming sustainable investors, while helping transition from a linear to a circular economy. Today, the platform users receive 1 RCoin for every recycled bottle and use their RCoins for offers and discounts or for donations to charities. The next step will be to encourage citizens to be more motivated toward plastic bottle recycling, incentivizing them via an innovative crowd-investment reward platform. As part of an entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem, RCoins will help increase the adoption of innovation in sustainable entrepreneurship and will contribute to resolving social and environmental issues by identifying and creating entrepreneurial opportunities.

During Covid-19, some innovative start-ups not only absorbed the shock but also improved afterwards through the development of capabilities related to antifragility. Drawing on the antifragility literature we have selected a set of internal capabilities that influence the survival of start-ups. Then, we applied qualitative benchmarking of the fuzzy-set to examine which interactions between the aforementioned internal capabilities affect the survival of innovative start-ups. We used a unique dataset of 37 innovative start-ups that survived in Italy after the Covid-19 lockdown. Our results suggest the interaction between some specific capabilities (creativity, flexibility and collaboration) are antecedents of antifragility. The interaction between these capabilities enables start-ups to survive during a crisis.

This article aims to investigate the differences in entrepreneurship activity and entrepreneurship-related perceptions and intentions within Switzerland and to shed light on the explanations of those differences through a cultural context. Two possible divisions within the country that complement each other are used: the administrative division into seven NUTS2 regions and the division into language regions (German, French and Italian). The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is used for entrepreneurship-related data and the European Social Survey for measuring societal values. The findings of this article show that higher perceptions about the possibilities to be successful in entrepreneurship or higher entrepreneurial intentions do not automatically lead to entrepreneurship. The analysis of societal values both across language regions and across NUTS2 regions in Switzerland shows that it is the pattern that matters, not the single values, and sometimes the combination of societal values and educational background determines entrepreneurship activity. Comparing the patterns and correlations across three language regions and across seven NUTS2 administrative regions in Switzerland shows that pronounced differences can be found across language regions. In a country with a high economic and human development level like Switzerland, most of the entrepreneurship is opportunity-driven and not necessity-driven.

The digital technologies that are emerging around the world are completely transforming the paradigms of our economies, societies, and firms, including the new reality of international trade that is becoming connected. Although there are many opportunities to be built, traditional theories of business internationalization do not specifically address the pervasive effects of digital technologies. This article aims to jointly study digitalization and firm internationalization and proposes an overall conceptual process that links these dimensions through entrepreneurial behaviors of firms and entrepreneurs. This process demonstrates how the use of digital technologies impacts entrepreneurial behaviors and how this might shape new opportunities to enhance the propensity for internationalization of firms. It illustrates that the effective use of digital technologies depends to a large extent on the entrepreneurial behaviors of firms (with an entrepreneurial orientation) and of entrepreneurs (with their self-efficacy). These results provide new relevant practical value to practitioners and policy makers.

Determining when a company is ready to enter a foreign market is a difficult undertaking. The timing needs to be well considered. On the one hand, developing learning routines necessary for foreign markets and creating sufficient commitment among the staff needs time. On the other hand, older companies tend to be reluctant in their learning ability and act less agile. This article examines the effect of age on the speed and success of internationalizing firms. We also examine different types of perceived impediments in the subsequent internationalization process. A set of hypotheses is developed, drawing on the international new ventures (INV) approach. We test firms’ age at internationalization as a predictor for the speed at which new markets are entered, as well as for subsequent growth in foreign sales while controlling for size, branch, and strategic posture. Relying on longitudinal data from a sample of internationalizing firms from Switzerland, there is evidence of path dependency: The older the firms when they start to internationalize, the slower their subsequent internationalization process. By the same token, we have also observed that firms starting early with their process of internationalization are able to internationalize much faster. This negative impact of age on internationalizing business affects firms not only in the short or medium term, but also in the long term, i.e. over more than 30 years of post-internationalization. Finally, we found evidence that age at internationalization raises the likelihood that the firm will perceive a lack of international experience among its employees and managers as a major impediment for its international success.