Last Friday, November 22nd, the international scientific symposium „Leadership in a Digital World“ took place at the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart. In his opening speech, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Werner. G. Faix, Managing Director of SIBE and dean of the faculty of leadership and management at Steinbeis-University, pointed out the urgency of innovation in order to remain successful in the future. He called on the companies present at the event to promote disruptive innovations and to not just make incremental progress.
The subject-specific part of the day began with a video presentation by Prof. Dr. Klaus Mainzer, Emeritus of Excellence at the Technical University of Munich. He spoke about ethics in the context of artificial intelligence and outlined a roadmap for cooperation between humankind and machines. Up to lunch break further lectures on the current situation of leadership in the context of international relations, the role of tourism with regard to digitization and Leadership 4.0 followed.
For all participants, afternoon began in divided into two parts. 20 preregistered participants took part in the workshop „Qualification of executives in the context of AI“ by Dr. Sylke Piéch, Senior Research Manager Educational Technology Lab of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Piéch described, among other things, how the so-called robot recruiting, meaning recruitment using artificial intelligence, can look like. She emphasized that although the selection process is managed by the AI, the human being should have to make the final decision.
All other visitors were able to get a wide-ranging overview on the topic of „leadership“ during the poster session that took place in parallel. Eight scientists presented their current research projects, whose topics ranged from „Entrepreneurial Leadership“ and „Data Mining Risks“ to the influence of artificial intelligence on the workplace in 2040.
Following another set of presentations, for example on leadership and change management, the event was concluded by Dr. Ingmar Hoerr, Chairman of the Supervisory Board and founder of CureVac AG. In the round of questions, which followed his presentation, the necessity of promoting clusters in Germany was highlighted. Those local compound of institutions from the most diverse fields are the driving force behind innovation and the German opportunity to keep up with international competition, says Hoerr.
The scientific symposium of SIBE in cooperation with Steinbeis and Eurac Research gave all participants an interesting insight into the role of leadership in the (digital) future. Disruptive innovation, institutional cooperation and employee empowerment were the focus. Although many new impulses were made, just as many relevant questions were raised. Those should be looked at and researched in more detail in the future.