Title: Growth and function: a viral research program for next organisations

Authors: Steffen Roth

Addresses: La Rochelle Business School, 102 Rue de Coureilles, 17000 La Rochelle, France

Abstract: This article is the prototype of a virus that recodes economy biased decision programs of capitalist organisations. To bypass the notorious firewalls of capitalism we developed a program that works as anti-capitalist malware program without being one. This is achieved by changing the programming language from moral code to functional differentiation. If executed, our program: a) decodes growth as both economic and non-economic form; b) installs a multifunctional subroutine that enables organisations to modulate the frequencies with which they code decisions in both economic and non-economic media. The more decisions coded in non-economic media, the less important the economy, and the more alternatives to anti-/capitalist visions of de-/growth emerge.

Keywords: viruses; organisational programs; functional differentiation; social differentiation; degrowth; post-growth; next organisations; capitalism; anti-capitalist malware; economic growth; non-economic growth.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2016.081574

International Journal of Technology Management, 2016 Vol.72 No.4, pp.296 - 309

Received: 05 Sep 2015
Accepted: 31 Oct 2015
Published online: 15 Jan 2017 *

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