Biology of Business

label Diverse autorenew 2025-09-29, 17:01 history_edu Silviu Marinescu
Business theorists and practitioners are gradually moving away from a mechanistic paradigm, where complicated systems can be reduced to the collective function of independent components, to a biological paradigm that views business as a complex, emergent property of interdependent autonomous organism-like actors and ecologic‐like environments.

Period
16-07-2014 - 29-07-2014 (2 weeks)

Target group
Master's students with a background within Finance, Business and Management

Course aim
The aim of this course is to provide an in-depth understanding of how key biological paradigms of (a) ecosystem thinking and (2) evolutionary thinking can be harnessed to improve business strategy. Biology metaphors are strewn throughout our business vernacular: Our product has evolved, Its in our companys DNA, Come on, its just survival of the fittest, Their video is going viral, Were part of a corporate ecosystem, That product is nearing the end of its lifecycle. Of course, metaphors are only useful to the extent that they accurately map to reality. The biological paradigm views business as a complex, emergent property of interdependent, autonomous, organism-like actors within ecologic-like environments. By understanding the core essence of truth beneath these metaphors, business strategists can unlock insights not available to competitors locked in a mechanistic paradigm.



Credits
5.0 ECTS credits

Course fee
EUR 0[Convert to USD]Students on a bilateral exchange programme do not have to pay. Freemovers are obliged to pay participation fees while tuition fees only apply to freemovers from countries outside the EU/EEA/Switzerland.

Course leader
Nathan Fisher, North Dakota State University

Aarhus University International Centre
Address: Hoeg Guldbergs Gade 4, building 1650 Aarhus C
Postal code: 8000
City: Aarhus
Country: Denmark
Website: http://www.au.dk/summeruniversity
E-mail: SummerUniversity@adm.au.dk
Phone: +45 8942 2320