in this field may be something to consider. Today, information and communication technology (ICT) pervades all fields of our lives and has already had a deep impact on business and society. With new architectures such as “cloud computing” we should get to the point where it becomes a true utility and enabler for innovation. It has the potential to make us much “smarter” in dealing with our environment, with our institutions and with each other.
ICT provides us only with tools and infrastructures. By applying the “social technology” called management we can create value from technology based solutions such as intelligent cities, smart grids, cost-effective social services, personalised health care and telemedicine, technology enhanced learning and new open innovation approaches.
There is significant experience and a considerable body of knowledge from business research and education that managers can draw on. However, a reorientation of academic institutions towards practical relevance without giving up scientific rigour should be of high priority along with adequate funding schemes for management research that have been provided only for “hard” technology oriented research so far.
Another silver lining is the new generation of people arriving in the workplace. For them purpose and meaning are of the foremost importance. They tend to look at the bigger context. As digital natives they are interacting with technology in a natural way. With a
72 Management Today | March 2012
strong sense of ownership for their personal development they seem to have significant entrepreneurial genes in their DNA. These attitudes will be essential in a society that will have to become more entrepreneurial to sustain itself.
As the American magazine Business
Week pointed out in June 2009, innovation performance as a driver of economic growth was not brilliant in the last decade. The bubble economy may have resulted from insufficient innovation in the “real” economy. Now there is a realistic chance that some new technologies will at last achieve breakthroughs and create new growth industries – such as miniaturised silicon- based machines (MEMS), biotech, alternative energy and tissue engineering.
Even so, much will depend in the 21st century on our progress in non-technological innovation with deep changes in how companies operate and how society functions. John Kao in Innovation Nation (Free Press 2007) defines innovation as the ability of individuals, companies and entire nations continuously to create their desired future. Matthias Horx has recently launched a call to action in his “creative manifesto” (Das Buch des Wandels, DVA 2009) to all those who are passionate about creating a new society in an evolutionary and peaceful manner.
This is perfectly in line with Professor Drucker’s famous quote: “The best way to predict the future is to create it”, which summarises well the challenge for management in the next society.
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