Markus F. Peschl

Diese Festschrift ist eine Hommage an Theo Hug für seine vielen Verdienste innerhalb und weit über die Universität Innsbruck hinaus. Neben den theoretischen Fragestellungen im Spannungsfeld von Bildung, Medien, Kultur, Gesellschaft und Technologie geht es Theo Hug auch immer um die praktische Auseinandersetzung mit all diesen Fragen, insbesondere um die Wechselwirkung zwischen digitalen Medien und Individuum sowie Gesellschaft. Insofern stehen diese Streifzüge an den Nahtstellen von Medien, Bildung und Philosophie kursorisch auch stellvertretend für das umfangreiche wissenschaftliche und bildungspolitische Engagement und Wirken des des Menschen, Denkers und Pädagogen Theo Hugs. Ihm ist wesentlich die institutionelle Verankerung von Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, sowie die der Medienbildung an der Universität Innsbruck zu verdanken.

This paper explores a transformative understanding of learning and/as knowledge creation, emphasizing an engaged epistemology that aligns with 4E cognitive science approaches and anticipatory sense-making. Traditional education paradigms rooted in propositional knowledge (transfer) are challenged, while the cultivation of neglected modes of knowing (perspectival and participatory) is presented as essential for developing the skills and mindsets needed for successfully navigating the complexities of a dynamically unfolding uncertain world. The paper argues for a paradigm shift in education that centers on an enactivist perspective, anticipatory sense-making and non-propositional forms of knowing. By reimagining learning as ongoing dialogue with the world (“ex-ducere,” Ingold), this approach envisions education as a collaborative endeavor of co-becoming. Here, knowledge is co-created and innovation arises from the dynamic interplay of human creative agency with the creative agency of the world itself. Through an engaged epistemology, education can become a catalyst for generating profound novelty and meaningful futures, equipping individuals with the competency to get in resonance with the world-to-be.

When Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, started to forge pitons (a piece of climbing equipment) in 1957, he never planned to become a businessman. All he wanted to do was produce climbing gear for his friends and himself. However, half a century later, his company Patagonia (now worth 3 billion dollars) has become one of the most renowned outdoor brands on the market. It is also known to be one of the most sustainable clothing companies in the world and, as a business, incorporates its core values into all its actions. Altogether, Patagonia evokes the coherent aesthetic image of an organisation that is very much in alignment with its purpose, stakeholders, and the environment. In our paper, we examine this notion of alignment and think of it as a kind of resonance between the organisation, its purpose and its stakeholders – a dynamic process of unfolding, co-creating and being co-created in and for a thriving environment. Using Patagonia’s example, the paper aims to provide practical implications and principles based on theoretical foundations related to organisational capabilities, such as understanding and leveraging future potentials and fostering a mindset of resonance and co-creation. To this end, we draw on recent interdisciplinary findings from future-oriented approaches to innovation, creativity, enactive cognitive science and anthropology, as well as organisational learning and spiritual knowledge management, and place them in the context of the challenges of today's VUCA world.

This paper investigates whether AI can possess wisdom, a complex and deeply human capacity. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on philosophy, 4E cognition, Material Engagement Theory, and engaged epistemology, to argue that wisdom is a dynamic force unfolding through meaningful life experiences and resonant interactions with the world. Central to our discussion is Rosa's concept of resonance, essential for fostering personal growth, emotional empathy, as well as existential and bodily connectedness to the world and its unfolding into an uncertain future. Despite the advanced capabilities of AI/Large Language Models (LLMs), we demonstrate their inability to embody wisdom due to their lack of deep sense-making, embodied interaction, and meaningful engagement with the world and future potentials. We emphasize the need for cultivating human wisdom to ensure technological advancements enrich rather than diminish the human experience, advocating for a balanced and reflective human-technology relationship.

Recent publications in the field of KM emphasize the importance of topics such as Spirituality (e.g. Bratianu, 2017; Kaiser, 2023; Rocha & Pinheiro, 2021), Phronesis (practical wisdom) (Kragulj, 2022; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 2019; Rocha et al., 2022; Serenko, 2024), Organizational Purpose (Kerschbaum, 2022), dealing with future potentials and future-oriented innovation (Peschl, 2018, 2020) and Responsible KM (Durst, 2021) as future avenues for KM research. However, it seems that these topics have not yet entirely found their way into practice, or, although the phenomena described are inherently present in organizations, they do not receive much attention from practitioners these days. With this paper we seek to initiate discussion on how to deploy research results on topics like Spirituality, Practical Wisdom, non-rational Knowledge, future-oriented knowledge work, and Organizational Purpose into applied contexts. We argue that an essential step is to adequately train students at universities with the new content. Todays students are the leaders, entrepreneurs, and managers of tomorrow. Therefore, we present selected educational concepts that help students build competencies in understanding and applying non-rational forms of knowledge. The intention of these newly designed teaching concepts is to move our field of research out of the metaphoric ivory tower towards the application in organizations. We argue that this is a necessary step for the development of the field of KM, enabling our research to remain relevant in modern-day business and organizational environments.

With the advent of Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, and, more generally, generative AI/cognitive technologies, global knowledge production faces a critical systemic challenge. It results from continuously feeding back non- or poorly-creative copies of itself into the global knowledge base; in the worst case, this could not only lead to a stagnation of creative, reliable, and valid knowledge generation, but also have an impact on our material (and subsequently our social) world and how it will be shaped by these rather uninspired automatized knowledge dynamics. More than ever, there appears to be an imperative to bring the creative human agent back into the loop. Arguments from the perspectives of 4E- and Material Engagement Theory approaches to cognition, human-technology relations as well as possibility studies will be used to show that being embodied, sense-making, and enacting the world by proactively and materially interacting with it are key ingredients for any kind of knowledge and meaning production. It will be shown that taking seriously the creative agency of the world, an engaged epistemology, as well as making use of future potentials/possibilities complemented and augmented by cognitive technologies are all essential for re-introducing profound novelty and creativity.

The role of spirituality in organizations has received increasing attention over recent years. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to take up this shift and develop the foundations for an alternative approach to knowledge management: Spiritual Knowledge Management. A key question in spirituality concerns the unfolding of the identity (of an organization) or the self toward a “higher end” or purpose. We propose the concept of the phronetically enacted self (understood here both in an individual and an organizational sense) that helps us conceive of how this unfolding can be achieved in a thriving and sustainable manner. The self is conceptualized as a highly dynamic and emergent “entity” that is grounded in a continuous process of becoming and of transitions transforming a state of potentiality into a state of actuality and fulfillment. Insights from the theory of spirituality, enactive cognitive science, the theory of potentials/possibility studies, phronetic organizations, and resonance theory lead us to a novel understanding of knowledge-driven organizations embodying a spirituality-based and, as a consequence, (regenerative) sustainable approach. Finally, we will develop the basic characteristics and leverage points for transformative shifts toward sustainability in organizations.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to challenge processes of organizational learning and innovation that are based on making use of, extrapolating, or adapting past experiences and knowledge, because such a strategy turns out to be incapable of dealing with the challenges of today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. As a possible way out, a conceptual model is proposed that integrates organizational learning and innovation as a future-driven learning process and a future-making practice.Design/methodology/approach: This work is conceptual in nature, drawing on (both theoretical/philosophical and empirical) interdisciplinary concepts and evidence from a variety of fields, including organizational studies, organizational learning, innovation studies, systems theory and systems biology, as well as cognitive science.Findings: The author proposes a paradigm shift in organizational learning: from a future-oriented perspective, organizational learning can be viewed as an innovation process that is based on “learning from the future as it emerges.” A conceptual approach is presented that integrates future-oriented innovation and organizational learning as a future-making practice. It is based on learning from future potentials as a source for sustainable innovations. Both epistemological/ontological foundations and organizational implications are discussed.Originality/value: This paper introduces a new perspective on the role of future-oriented innovation in the context of organizational learning. It shows how organizational learning and innovation can be integrated and how shortcomings of absorptive capacity can be overcome by assuming a future-driven perspective. Furthermore, an epistemology of future knowledge/potentials and its applications for organizations is developed.