Abstract [en]:
In many cases, the starting point of today’s global devastating crises is the failure of individuals or groups because of egoistic behaviour patterns and the loss of mutual trust, which is caused, if responsible individuals fail through irresponsibility, on the one hand, and – on the other hand – if those for whom they are responsible for, lose their trust in them. In the context of companies and organizations, an answer to this self-perpetuating system is the promotion of cooperation among employees. This can be achieved by developing a “zone of cooperation”, in which a sense for fairness but also for a sportive performance principle is being fostered and also every member’s contribution is being esteemed and zero-sum game-situations are being shunned. Regarding economics and economic life, economic anthropology renders an approach, by drafting a humanistic idea of man. It is a still young scientific descipline, with a very interdisciplinary, but also independent field, not only a subject area of economics. The essay ends with a description of the „Tübinger Concept of Cooperation” as a newly developed management and communication concept. It is an interdisciplinary syntheses of the scientific research on the topic of cooperation for practical implementation.
Keywords: economic anthropology, cooperation, team-cooperation, creation of value, organizational psychology, behavioural economics, procedural fairness, egoistic behaviour patterns, trust, zero-sum game-situations, business ethics, humanistic management