July 28th 2021

Publication by Springer Verlag

Published monograph under the title "The Social Management Approach according to Albrecht Müller-Schöll. An Impact Analysis".

Cover Monograph; Foto: Springer Verlag
Cover Monograph; Foto: Springer Verlag

Thomas Dierker, a PhD student at the Department Social Work with research and interest in the field of Social Management and Social Economy, recently published a monograph in the series "Perspectives on Social Economy and Social Management" at Springer Verlag. In his publication entitled "The Social Management Approach according to Albrecht Müller-Schöll. An Impact Analysis", he discusses an early pioneering achievement and authoritative history of the development of Social Management in the German-speaking world.

Concepts and approaches to Social Management have been discussed and negotiated at the practical and scientific level since the end of the 1970s at the latest. The academic discussions on the topic of "Social Management" have taken on a multifaceted and sometimes diffuse development, and the term cannot be conclusively located at the theoretical level even today. In the German-speaking world, the term "Social Management" was first used and coined by Albrecht Müller-Schöll and Manfred Priepke. With their training approach "Sozialmanagement - Zur Förderung systematischen Entscheidens, Planens, Organisierens, Führens und Kontrollierens in Gruppen" (Social Management - For the Promotion of Systematic Decision-Making, Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling in Groups), they published for the first time in 1983 a practical approach for the training and further education of managers in social organizations, which was already applied under their leadership in the Diakonisches Werk from the 1970s. Müller-Schöll and Priepke were the first to recognize the need for specific training and continuing education for leaders in social organizations and to raise this issue. In doing so, they provided the basis for decades of theoretical and practical negotiation and a development that has revolutionized the entire Social Sector. The practical importance of specific management in social organizations is no longer disputed today, and with over 70 Social Management degree programs in the German-speaking world and countless publications on the subject, its academic relevance is also omnipresent.

In his monograph, Thomas Dierker describes and discusses the long-standing development of Social Management starting from this early and formative approach. The focus is on the analysis of the conceptualization and the advanced training approach "Social Management" according to Müller-Schöll and Priepke as well as its impact. In addition, far-reaching theoretical foundations and current trends and developments in Social Management and social economy are contextualized. Exemplary developments and trends in this context are social enterprises and hybrid organizations. These are becoming increasingly important for the Social Sector and are reshaping the Social Sector through innovative concepts. Social organizations face the challenge to react flexibly to changes in the Social Sector and to shape developments proactively. Against this background, concepts and approaches to Social Management will remain relevant in the future and play a crucial role in shaping innovative perspectives for the Social Sector.

In doing so, he makes a scholarly contribution to the wide-ranging social Management discourse that, by focusing on this very specific history of the development of Social Management, consolidates its conceptual and conceptual origins, which is and will remain the basis for many current and future challenges facing the Social Sector.

Thomas Dierker is a PhD student at the Department of Social Work at MCI | The Entrepreneurial School® with research and interests in Social Management and Social Economy. He completed his bachelor's degree in Social and Organizational Education in Hildesheim and is a graduate of the master's program in Social Work, Social Policy and Management at MCI.