Author: rstraub

Meaningful Work Should Not Be a Privilege of the Elite
by Richard Straub & Julia Kirby

Posted on rstraub2 CommentsPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

It is hard for anyone to be against the idea of inclusive prosperity. Of course the bounty produced by economic growth should be broadly shared. But the devil is in the details, and when people advocate for inclusive growth they don’t always have the same things in mind. Some, for example, are inspired by Thomas Piketty, who seems to have singlehandedly set a new agenda for economics research. This group focuses on reducing the disturbing inequalities in individuals’ incomes and wealth. Others, like the Legatum Institute, think of prosperity less in financial terms and more as overall well-being, and focus on measuring and growing all its components in societies around the world. A third group […]

The Promise of the Entrepreneurial Society
From Secular Stagnation to Secular Prosperity
by Richard Straub

Posted on rstraubLeave a commentPosted in 8th Global Peter Drucker Forum

A defining moment   It may be that we are living a defining moment for the future of capitalism and for humanity. For the last 200 years entrepreneurial prowess enabled by financial capital has powered a long surge of economic growth. Over the major innovation cycles, the capitalist system has been resilient enough to absorb the effects of the crashes caused by pure speculation and turn them to its advantage. Production capital took the lead over financial capital and real value over paper value, as Carolta Perez has so brilliantly demonstrated.   Fast forward to today, and the picture is not so happy. Financial capital is in the driving seat. Eight years on, the world […]

The Human Difference
by Richard Straub

Posted on rstraub9 CommentsPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

We are on the threshold of a new and different world. How it will unfold depends on the collective thinking and actions of managers.   Over the last 250 years, a series of radical scientific and engineering advances has triggered an accelerating rise in living standards that even the two deadliest wars in history have failed to halt. The digital revolution propelled by Moore’s law is the latest and most far-reaching in this line of transforming “general purpose technologies.” It carries the tantalising promise to augment the power of the human brain in the same way that steam, the internal combustion engine and electricity augmented human brawn.   But as stunning as humankind’s technological achievements […]

Becoming an Entrpreneurial Society (Video)
by Richard Straub

Posted on rstraub1 CommentPosted in 6th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Short Bio: In his 32 years with IBM Dr. Richard Straub has held key international executive functions such as Deputy General Manager for PC Europe and Global Chief Learning Officer. Since . 2006 he has started a new career working with non-profit organizations – as part time executive and as social entrepreneur. He is currently executive committee member at the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and Secretary General of the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG). In addition he retained a strategic advisory role for the IBM Global Education Industry.   As a social entrepreneur he founded in 2008 the Peter Drucker Society of Austria and in 2010 the Peter Drucker Society Europe. He is […]

The Digital World in 2030: What Place for Europe?
by Richard Straub

Posted on rstraub3 CommentsPosted in 6th Global Peter Drucker Forum

This document was produced as an input to the European Commission (via the European Internet Foundation) to suggest a review and renewal of policies in the field of digital technology and digital media. It is a contribution to a discussion at a European level, and readers are invited to provide their comments on those subjects that they consider as important for shaping the future of Europe.   Technology Centric World View   When it comes to the discussion of our digital future the world-view of the European Commission is too much centred on technology and does not take sufficiently into account the human factor. Europe could differentiate itself in the international debate and in the […]

Towards the New Paradigm of Long-Termism
by Richard Straub, President Peter Drucker Society Europe

Posted on rstraub1 CommentPosted in 6th Global Peter Drucker Forum

The devastating effects of overblown short-termism and profit maximization are increasingly recognized as key issues for our societies at large and their importance and urgency is felt by all stakeholders. There is a fundamental issue though – most commentators and experts would strongly agree on the diagnosis, but nobody has yet come up with a viable alternative model that would be broadly accepted.   The agency theory (as conceived by Jensen and Mecking) that spawned the shareholder value model conveys the illusion of a scientific type of approach; it provides a fact based analytical model to make rational investment decisions into corporations with clear indicators providing the basis for current and future performance assessment. It […]

Drucker Forum 2013 – Opening speech
by Richard Straub

Posted on rstraub3 CommentsPosted in 5th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Welcome to all of you to the 5 th Global Peter Drucker Forum  – welcome to you here in the auditorium and welcome to all those on our live stream. In addition to the 350 present in the auditorium we have some 1000 participants registered for the live stream.   It is with quite some emotion that I am addressing you – almost by the day 5 years ago we began something which we hoped would become a journey – exactly in this place. Today I can confirm that the Global Peter Drucker Forum has become a centre of gravity and a recognized platform to bring together the greatest management thinkers and practitioners to exchange […]

Why Managers Haven’t Embraced Complexity

Posted on rstraubLeave a commentPosted in 5th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Nobody would deny that the world has become more complex during the past decades. With digitization, the interconnectivity between people and things has jumped by leaps and bounds. Dense networks now define the technical, social, and economic landscape.   I remember well when the idea of applying complexity science to management was first being eagerly discussed in the 1990s. By then, for example, scholars at the University of St. Gallen had developed a management model based on systems thinking. Popular literature propagated the ideas of complexity theory – in particular, the notion of the “butterfly effect” by which a small event in a remote part of the world (like the flap of a butterfly’s wings) […]