Organizations are the central entities of the business world, comprising multiple people pursuing a collective goal while being linked to an external environment. Both academics and practitioners have kept up a continuing interest in advancing their understanding of organizations. This is the first of two volumes dedicated to the state of the art of theories and practices of organizations. It is the outcome of contributions by alumni and alumnae of the ESB Business School at Reutlingen University. This first volume provides a discussion of contemporary organizational forms and properties, as well as on team aspects.

This volume views human existence from various perspectives and asks what its purpose is. The underlying thesis is that humans are creatures of relationships. Any anthropology that fails to take this fact seriously will of necessity remain abstract. Instead the authors are interested in how different academic disciplines describe the variety of relationships in human life, taking into account their ethical and theological dimensions.