The future of society in an increasingly digital modern age is at stake. While goals such as educational equity, ecological sustainability or the elimination of socioeconomic inequality are capable of consensus, this applies neither to the way in which the goals are to be achieved nor to the goal perspectives associated with them. There is disagreement about the how and what of the future (Radkau 2020). The greater the difference between the present and the idea of the future, the more polarizing the effect of future semantics (Fenske/Hülk/Schuhen 2013). The desire for change carries the risk of disappointment or resignation. This is because the future is unattainable, regardless of which preferences are inscribed in its projection (Luhmann 2005). The central social task is therefore to work on and with the possibilities of the present. For working with contemporary possibilities, society relies primarily on the principle of organization, whose principle of effect functions as a response to the lack of configurability of the future (Wendt 2022). In this context, organizations are both problem and solution.

The classical form of the modern organization has therefore fallen into a state of discredit. Due to their inherent logic, organizations are an established target for the projection of change intentions (Manhart/Wendt 2020). The differentiation of action-guiding organizational structures systematically limits the perception and connectivity of alternative possibilities, leading to negative effects such as blind spots, structural inflexibilities, and path dependencies (Duschek 2012). Organizational success in planning and securing action regularly implies a lack of ability to adequately adapt to changing conditions. In this way, organizations generate their own need for renewal. In a countermovement, the necessary forces of renewal are increasingly searched for in control gaps, which in turn are planned and organized (Wendt 2020). The future sustainability of an organization requires that its own renewal itself becomes the object of organizational routines and processes.

The paper outlines the dialectic of organizational need for renewal in a theory-systematic way. In particular, advancing digitalization points to the need for cultivating remaining scope for action and decision-making, as these become computationally limited in the course of the expansion of digital structures and algorithms. It is therefore of central relevance to counteract blind spots and path dependencies and thus enable a form of organizational resilience that is not exhausted in robust planning scenarios. Successful management relies not only on the environmental indifference of organizational processes, but also on a specific adaptability to changing conditions. This sensitivity must be cultivated if an organization wants to remain viable in the future. The paper discusses current management approaches with a view to enabling the future viability of the organization or to exhausting and overcoming the possibilities of structural specifications of the classical organization.

The paper contrasts societal semantics of the future with the inherent logic of modern organization. The central societal task is to work on and with contemporary opportunities in order to ensure its own future sustainability. In narratives of disruption (Daub 2020), however, the fact that social changes, educational, participation, labor market, or economic programs, must pass through organizations' eye of the needle (Corsi 2005) is regularly ignored. After all, socially far-reaching decisions can only be made in organizations. On the one hand, this constellation generates criticism of organizations; on the other hand, it becomes apparent that organizations have to adapt to changing conditions in order to enable the achievement of social goals. The paper analyzes contemporary management concepts with regard to their potential to relativize and productively turn criticism.

Management concepts act as the driving force of constant reorganization processes, whose vanishing point is to exhaust and overcome the possibilities of structural constraints of the classic organization. In this context, it is not only the question of the transformation potential of management concepts that arises, but above all the question of which concepts can be used to meet the demands of contemporary society.

Daub, Adrian (2020): Was das Valley denken nennt. Über die Ideologie der Techbranche. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Duschek, Stephan (2012): Regelpfade – Wirkmächte des (Miss-)Erfolgs von Organisationen. In: Duschek, Stephan/Gaitanides, Michael/Matiaske, Wenzel/Ortmann, Günther (Hrsg.): Organisationen regeln. Die Wirkmacht korporativer Akteure. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, S. 195–221. Fenske, Uta/Hülk, Walburga/Schuhen, Gregor (Hrsg.) (2013): Die Krise als Erzählung. Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf ein Narrativ der Moderne. Bielefeld: transcript. Manhart, Sebastian/Wendt, Thomas (2020): Komplexe Organisation und organisierte Komplexität. Die Pädagogik partizipativer Organisationsgestaltung im Zeitalter des Populismus. In: Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung 43, H. 3, S. 377–393. Luhmann, Niklas (2005): Gleichzeitigkeit und Synchronisation. In: Luhmann, Niklas: Soziologische Aufklärung 5. Konstruktivistische Perspektiven. 3. Auflage. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, S. 92–125. Radkau, Joachim (2020): Utopie. Die Zukünfte des Vergangenen. In: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Hrsg.): Stichworte zur Zeit. Ein Glossar. Bielefeld: transcript, S. 267–278. Wendt, Thomas (2020): Die nächste Organisation. Management auf dem Weg in die digitale Moderne. Bielefeld: transcript. Wendt, Thomas (2022): In Zeiten der Zukunft. Organisation, Möglichkeitsraum und Bildung als Formen der Temporalität. In: Schröder, Christian, Zöller, Ulrike (Hrsg.): Bildung gestaltet Zukunft – Soziale Arbeit zwischen Bildung und Stadtentwicklung. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, S. 128-139.