Executives in Science, Business and Society 3

ON FINDING
PURPOSE
Luc Glasbeek is an assistant
professor in the Department of
Management & Organization.
From 1995–2010, he held several
roles in MNOs in the areas of
IT system development, project
management, organisational
learning, and business operations.
Between 2010 and 2019, he
worked as an entrepreneur,
focusing on professional services
delivery. In 2015, Luc joined the
ABRI Executive PhD Program;
he defended his dissertation
successfully in May 2020.
IN A COMPLEX
WORLD
DR. LUC GLASBEEK
VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT AMSTERDAM
PAGE
6
Society cannot function without
human collaboration. For
example, producing just a
classic, yellow pencil requires
graphite mining , clay mining,
the transport, mixing and
heating of graphite and clay;
wood harvesting, cutting,
waxing and impregnation;
pencil assembly, packaging,
marketing, transportation and
distribution; all before the
product is even displayed in a
shop. By the time a child buys
the pencil and starts drawing,
it will have passed through
the hands of countless people
collaborating, managing,
organising, leading, and
venturing out (Friedman,
1980). Thus, it is impossible
for even a simple pencil to
come into existence without
management, organisation,
and entrepreneurship.
Although these behaviours
are integral to our existence
as a human species, they are
understood quite differently
(and often poorly) among
management practitioners and
researchers. To date, debates
continue around what kind
of management is ‘best’ for
different organisational forms,
or even whether management is
necessary altogether.
Furthermore, our perceived
understanding decreases
substantially as the complexity
of what we aim to accomplish
proliferates. Envisage, for
instance, the managerial
challenges of a human mission
to Mars - which I hope we will
witness in the coming decades
- or, more contemporaneously,
the development of a COVID-19
vaccine that is safe, effective,
affordable and extensively
deployable. Teasing apart the
Gordian knot of the necessary
management, organisation, and
entrepreneurship - whilst better
understanding its component
strands - presents a daunting
task for scholars. However,
it must be done, particularly
for the benefit of subsequent
generations.
Young people, more
than anyone else, face
unprecedented, compound
global challenges such as
poverty, resource scarcity and
environmental degradation.
Addressing these issues will
not only require a supreme
scientific understanding of the
workings of nature (i.e., the
hard sciences) but also demand
new and sophisticated forms
of management, organisation,
and entrepreneurship: business
studies.
History has shown that, even in
the most scientifically advanced
environments, a lack of effective
management practices can lead
to disastrous outcomes. NASA
is a case in point. In the 1990s,
its Hubble Space Telescope
was one of the most advanced
scientific instruments ever built,
which has positively and radically
advanced our understanding
of the universe. Nonetheless,
its first production version was
expensive and a total failure,
which scholars have attributed
to a range of managerial issues
(Capers & Lipton, 1993; Quinn &
Walsh, 1994).