The specialization Cultural Change & Society

I learn to understand and lead cultural change for the common good!

With the Workers’ Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movements, the Civil Rights Movement, the 1968 movement, the Digital Transformation, the peaceful Revolution of 1989 and now the Climate Justice Movement & Fridays for Future each generation has left their mark on society and induced cultural change. However, good leaders, regardless of whether in business, politics, or civil society, not only react to cultural change but anticipate and steer it from the onset.  

In Cultural Change & Society you will explain the interconnectedness of individual, cultural and social change by looking at historical examples. Based on this, you will analyse current areas of social and cultural transformation and reflect about the difficulties of making sense of transformations while they are happening. Moreover, you will examine the interactive relationship between organisational and societal change.

This specialization will also focus on the role of performance and performativity in cultural change. You will apply and study performance and performativity in political, economic, and organizational contexts from different perspectives. Furthermore, you will analyse the contribution of intermediaries on the meso-level for the transmission and dissemination of change on the micro-level to the macro-level and vice versa.

Lastly, you will develop an advanced understanding of politics & economies and management & leadership as cultural and social practices. A special focus by this specialization is being placed on betwixt and between, transition phases between two rather static conditions, and liminality, the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the stage of a rite of passage, and their interconnection to transformation.