Transdisciplinary Dialogue Framework

 

References & Transdisciplinary Framework

My transdisciplinary framework is centred around four underlying dimensions that together shape how value is created, sustained, or placed under pressure.

Ecological conditions
Every society and economy is embedded within physical and ecological systems. Water, energy, biodiversity, and natural resources are not external factors, but the very conditions that make human systems possible.

Social relationships
Value emerges relationally: through trust, cooperation, encounter, and reciprocity between people, communities, and networks. Societies do not function through transactions alone, but through social connection and shared meaning.

Institutional structures
Markets, governments, organisations, and institutions shape how resources, power, and opportunities are distributed. They influence which forms of value are encouraged, protected, or gradually eroded.

Cognitive and perceptual processes
How people perceive, interpret, and make meaning directly influences how societies act. Technology, media, culture, and behaviour shape attention, decision-making, and the collective capacity to understand complex challenges.

These four dimensions do not exist separately, but together form a dynamic and relational whole. Within this relational field of forces, value emerges, economically, socially, ecologically, and societally.

 

A relational perspective on value

Across disciplines, a shared insight becomes visible:

• value does not exist in isolation
• value does not originate in a single domain (market, policy, or individual)
• value emerges in networks of relationships, shaped by systems and grounded in ecological reality

This perspective connects insights from sociology, philosophy, economics, and systems thinking into one coherent view.

Where does value emerge?

Network Society & Digitalization

Manuel Castells, Deborah Chambers

Contemporary society is increasingly shaped by networks of information, communication, and relationships.

Castells shows how power and value shift toward networks.
Chambers explores what this means for human relationships in a digital context.

Insight: value does not emerge in isolation, but within networks of connection.

 

Systems Theory & Complexity

Niklas Luhmann, Fritjof Capra

To understand these networks, a systems perspective is required.

Luhmann approaches society as a communicative system.
Capra connects systems thinking with living and ecological processes.

Insight: systems consist of relationships and communication, not isolated parts.

 

Political Economy, Institutions & Public Value

Daron Acemoglu, Mariana Mazzucato, Thomas Piketty, Dani Rodrik, Vaclav Smil, Joseph Stiglitz, Bruno Latour

Why some societies create prosperity while others do not is rooted in their institutional structures.

Insight: value is enabled or constrained by institutional conditions.

 

Ecological Economics & Natural Value

Herman Daly, Peter Victor, Karl Polanyi, Robert Costanza, Mark Diesendorf, Clive Hamilton, Hermann Scheer, Pushpam Kumar, Jules Pretty, Giulio Boccaletti, Julia Martin-Ortega, Saleh El Serafy, Gretchen Daily.

The economy is embedded in ecological systems and operates within physical limits.

Insight: without healthy ecosystems, sustainable value creation is not possible.

 

Synthesized Perspective

This framework is not value-neutral: it assumes that sustainable value can only emerge within ecological limits and through reciprocal relationships.

Value emerges in the web of relationships between people, systems, and ecological conditions.

Value is therefore not purely financial or individual, but relational and context-dependent.

 

Under which conditions?

Encounter & Meaning

Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, David Bohm, Jürgen Habermas

Meaning emerges through encounter and dialogue, where plurality, judgment, and action come together.

Insight: value arises through relational processes of meaning-making, not from isolated individual positions.

 

Modernity & Societal Tension

Hartmut Rosa, Zygmunt Bauman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The context in which we act is shaped by acceleration, fragmentation, and uncertainty.

Insight: value depends on resilience and robustness rather than optimization and control.

 

Prosperity & Meaning

Tim Jackson, Michael Sandel

Prosperity is not equivalent to growth, but to the quality of life within limits.

Insight: value shifts from consumption toward meaningful relationships and stability.

 

Economic Design & Boundaries

Kate Raworth

How can we design an economy that operates within planetary boundaries while securing social foundations?

Insight: value emerges within a “safe and just space.”

 

Digital Society, Behavior & AI

Sherry Turkle, Jonathan Haidt, Jean Twenge, Kate Crawford, Ethan Mollick, Richard Thaler, Daniel Kahneman.

Digital technologies reshape how we perceive, relate, and make judgments.

Insight: value is shaped by attention, perception, and evolving social dynamics.

 

Economy & Governance

Elinor Ostrom, Herbert Simon, Mark Granovetter, Clayton Christensen

Economic behavior is relational and institutionally embedded.

Insight: value emerges within structures of cooperation, trust, and decision-making.

 

Governance, Strategy & Value

Michael Porter, Henry Mintzberg, Philip Kotler  Kevin Lane Keller, Noriaki Kano, Cees Storm, Tim Koller

Value creation requires choices within complex and dynamic contexts.

Insight: value does not result from optimization alone, but from direction-setting choices under uncertainty.

 

System Dynamics & Transformation

Donella Meadows, Peter Senge, Gregory Bateson, Otto Scharmer, Nora Bateson.

Systems are living, relational wholes in which change is non-linear.

Insight: sustainable transformation emerges through feedback, awareness, and shifts in underlying patterns.

 

Space & Society

Jan Gehl, Jane Jacobs, Ray Oldenburg, Robert Putnam, Richard Florida, Pierre Bourdieu

The quality of space shapes the quality of interaction and community.

Insight: value emerges where social interaction, trust, and connection are enabled.

 

Ecology & Relational Knowledge

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Value arises through reciprocal relationships between humans and the natural world.

Insight: the economy is not merely a system of allocation, but of relationship, care and reciprocity.

 

Capacity

Judgment & Action

This framework only becomes meaningful in practice:

the capacity to perceive, interpret, and act within complexity.

 

Perception

Michael Polanyi

Seeing what is actually happening, beyond assumptions and models.

 

Meaning-making

Hannah Arendt

Interpreting without fixed rules; weighing perspectives in a plural reality.

 

Action

Donald Schön

Intervening in the moment:

• asking questions
• slowing down
• acting under uncertainty

 

Personal Practice

Since the 1980s, I have worked and lived according to these principles, including:

• applying biobased and biodegradable materials
• developing sustainable production chains
• realizing energy-neutral solutions
• prioritizing long-term value over short-term returns

What once required pioneering has increasingly become a necessity.

 

Closing

These references do not form a fixed body of knowledge, but an ongoing inquiry.

How do we organize systems that are not only efficient, but also sustainable, just, and meaningful?