Conclusion: The Balanced Company—Organizing for the Twenty-first Century

This chapter brings together the various research findings of this book and develops a general overview of their implications for our understanding of the balancing processes unfolding in companies and organizations. We open this chapter with an idealized description of the development from shareholder to stakeholder and value-based management, and introduce some of the more unambiguous concepts of the company and management. In these understandings, the ideal is either to be in full control or in full harmony; however, the authors of this book underline the uncertainty and the continuous change in the processes of balancing the complexity of interests and values.