The conference was organized and hosted by the Social Science
Research Center’s Unit on Organization and Technology. The event was held at
the WZB in central Berlin on the edge of the Tiergarten and the cultural
forum. The
WZB campus
combines August Busse’s 1894 Beaux-Arts Imperial Insurance Agency with James
Stirling’s 1988 postmodern basilica.
The event also celebrated the 60th birthday of
Prof. Meinolf Dierkes, the WZB’s first president and now Director of the
research unit on Organization and Technology. A
tribute to
Dierkes was delivered by Prof. Ariane Berthoin Antal. Among other qualities,
she praised his ability to combine scholarship with friendship, saying that,
rather than focus on competition as others might, Dierkes has built on
collaboration.
“He draws together and excites very diverse types of people
to think together and work together,” she says. “Americans, Germans,
Israelis, British, Chinese, Italians, French, Finns, Canadians, Japanese.
People who would not necessarily gravitate to one another, such as
economists, historians, sociologists, and engineers. Managers and academics,
politicians and labor union representatives. People who might not usually
take time to listen to each other, old and young, men and lots of women.”
