Socratic Thinking about Climate Change

Of course, we could study intensively the different approaches to the ethical question of ¨Why should we bother about climate change?¨ that scholars have identified. But we believe that policymakers and responsible citizens must able to answer that question for themselves.

Want to save some money? Food Waste Challenge

Project Drawdown describes reducing food waste as one of the most effective ways to reduce carbon intensity. It was found that "Interventions can reduce loss and waste, as food moves from farm to fork, thereby reducing overall demand. Reducing food waste is important for our environment and it can also mean a great financial profit …

Coronavirus (7) – Groupthink by Governments and Health Authorities

When we proposed in the first blog post about coronavirus that the slow reaction and lax attitude of institutions can partly be explained by the phenomenon of groupthink, we could not imagine that later on groupthink would assume an even more dominant role in tackling the crisis. In the beginning, warnings about an emergent pandemic …

Thinking about the Spread of the Coronavirus (2) – Concepts

In the crucial month of February, in those weeks before the major outbreak in Europe, there was still room to stock up on protective equipment, to scale up the laboratories, to expand the purchase and production of test materials, to prepare for the removal of serum with antibodies in healed patients. Only, it didn't happen. …

The Dominant Designing Idea in Organisations and Public Administrations

Managing organizations are in essence establishing coordinating mechanisms. Below we argue that most organizations use Control, that is setting up formal processes of assigning, evaluating, and regulating resources in order to accomplish an organization's goals. This is the generally accepted standard approach to organizing. But can we escape from that? Standard Thinking: Control Most organisations and governments …