Dealing with complexity
Economic Research

Initiative Future Association pursues pathways to socio-creative economy by advancing a social mission through an ongoing economic activity.

Our economic research includes:

Responsibility toward people

Today's economic system is in need of fundamental change. Since economic success and material wealth became the predominant ideology in our world, the environment has been badly injured, which resulted in inhuman working and living conditions for millions of people.
There is mounting evidence that the focus on maximizing profit and the missing integration of social and ecological issues led to increasing economical and ecological crises.
Seeing the fading brilliancy of maximizing profit, people are seeking for pathways to social sustainability. Given that our economic and social system are closely tied together, the combination of social purpose and economic activity opens up such an avenue to a viable social system.
In fact, enterprises in which the social purpose represents the main reason for doing business are already recognized by researchers and policy-makers for having the potential to solve socio-politic issues.
Our research program therefore aims at the ransformation of our economies into viable social systems that create added economic, social and ecological value to society (referred to as «creative» economies).

Many people lack motivation at work, due to excessive labor and daily routine without the possibility for personal evolvement. According to a recent study published by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, this lack of spirit and purpose results in high losses for the companies and in personal frustration for the employees.
In contrast, our own social enterprise has shown that engaging in an economic initiative for the purpose of helping other people highly enriches daily work. This way, joy and motivation come back into people's offices.

As a result of today's raised complexity and uncertainty, enterprises are in need of utilizing their full innovative potential. Going back in history, we find one of the most effective techniques of dealing with complex systems, resulting in high flexibility and the ability to apply interconnected thinking: it is the art of steersmanship, expressed in the term cybernetics.
This term originates in the Greek kybernetes, which can be translated as steersman or governor. In fact, cybernetics points out the skill of dealing with complex systems and causal chains, illustrated by the ancient steersman who had to move his ship across the Mediterranean sea.
Certainly, sailing across the sea was not an endeavor that could be described by a linear projection; in contrast, the steersman would meet unexpected challenges and trials. In effect, dealing with such a complex situation required acting and reacting according to the situation at hand. In addition, the Apostle St. Paul uses kybernesis in his first letter to the church in Corinth to describe leading or governing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Seeing that the cybernetic approach greatly enhances the ability to cope with complexity and uncertainty, this art of steersmanship is also applicable to the economy. Doing so, enterprises move from orienting towards linear projections and detailed plans to using the dynamics of the system they are embedded in, and, thus, become able to react flexibly to unforeseen events.