Positively disrupting corporate working concepts – for TEDxVienna

“Kick out your boss” is what Elisabeth Scharang, Austrian director and author, demands in her new film about self-governed companies and new forms of corporate cooperation that takes her from a design collective in Graz to Vojvodina and further to Brazil.

And clearly, her work is just the peak of an iceberg of new ideas and concepts that transform – yes, even better: positively disrupt – traditional ways of working in the corporate world.

After decades of capitalism and maximizing profits, we seem to have finally understood that huge proportions of our time are filled with work and how important it is to make this time worthwhile and enjoyable.

Generally, people try to accomplish this by using two different strategies – outside or inside of corporations: entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship.

Entrepreneurship

Ahhhh!!! Do you smell this? This is the scent of endless freedom, truly fulfilling work and self-controlled action… Clearly, I can see, why being self-employed may be very appealing and intriguing for many people.

But, of course, there are downturns as well, especially in these last years of economic crisis:

“Economists said that the surge in self-employment has come about because people have been unable to find permanent work with companies due to the flatlining economy.”

After the „explosion of start-ups“ at the beginning of the century, entrepreneurship turned the cool dream of being your own boss and becoming famous through your innovative and money-making idea, into a nightmare for many people.

A recent study conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research shows that more and more entrepreneurs fail to create jobs based on their business ideas. There’s an increased tendency of self employment turning into outsourced work and payed on a contract basis by big corporations. It’s basically their thrifty way of saving on social security, health insurance and pensions and the result: involuntary entrepreneurs working on minimum wages. As a matter of fact, there are more and more entrepreneurs who depend on social security payments to guarantee for their economic survival.

So, people again turn to new approaches to disrupt working patterns: those already existing within corporate structures.

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