ABSTRACT
Systems constellations provide good applications in systemic and evolutionary contexts. Strategy and innovation processes, as well as concepts in the light of a sustainable development, can be analysed on the basis of evolutionary-systemic approaches. Evolutionary-systemic approaches provide a different view of organisations and allow ways to better understand the learning and development processes of social systems. Transformation, change and complexity are structural elements examining strategies and innovations for their contribution to a sustainable development. Both evolutionary and systemic conceptions relate to change and complexity, as well as to the object of investigation with each other, and also highlight processes as central issues (Osterhold, 2002). A basic assumption of both approaches is a dynamic, complex and constantly changing world. Systemoriented concepts emphasise the self-organisation and self-dynamics of systems. The special gain of systemic approaches is based on a different point of view because they can demonstrate phenomena presented in a shortened, insufficient way or not at all in a linear-causal view. Systems theory focuses superficially on self-organisation, patterns and complex structures, in addition to emphasising the relationship of the single elements among one another (Bestehorn, 2001). In that sense, the quality and the specific nature of the relationship are of particular interest. The latter can be described as interactions and shows that system elements do not exist in isolation but influence one another, and thus a so-called recursivity arises (Vogd, 2005). Interaction processes are therefore circular, or they or reverse and complicate or hamper clear cause-effect classifications. The clear significance of systemic perspectives can be seen in the superposition of several logical chains and levels of description.
