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Each day, many different people in different societies are striving within their daily work to advance society. Every society needs to create ideas for further development and in order to become recognised as developed. The purpose of this paper is to show how different cultures at different times created similar ideas and theories to develop their society.

A comparison between the development theories of Ibn-i-Khaldun and Wallerstein's famous “world system theory” is undertaken to show that similar ideas of development were in existence even centuries before. Technically, seminar papers were posted and reviewed on an e-learning platform in order to reach such peer-reviewed assessment in a “Global Studies” curriculum.

The paper shows that the similarity between all developed countries is a strong state and extensive economic activity in different areas among cooperative people. All of these three characteristics are measurable and visible in today's western societies, and also centuries before in other countries (the Golden Age of the Muslim World).

Limits to comparing the two development theories of Ibn-i-Khaldun with Wallerstein's world system theory arise because of the large gap in time and the big cultural differences between the authors of the two theories. There is, on one side, Ibn-i-Khaldun in the thirteenth century whose religion (Islam) played an important role in his development theory and on the other side there is a western author, Immanuel Wallerstein in the twentieth century. In Wallerstein's development theory, religion has almost no role. Another point is that Wallerstein's theory provides a guideline to almost all countries for reaching development but Ibn-i-Khaldun's target countries are the Muslim countries which were experiencing decline at his time.

Unlike traditional approaches, the present analysis includes early scientific theories from non-European authors. Thus, one of the main objectives of “Global Studies” is fulfilled; namely a trans-disciplinary, globalised perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the applicability of the concept of granularity to the necessity of future research or – as often called in the European Union – forward looking (FL). After theoretical deliberation, it uses a planned world-wide information system as a case study for applying the notion of granularity regarding economic sectors, time steps, geographic regions and correlations for energy, water, land use and several other drivers of global change.

A planet-wide information system might optimally include areas such as human development indicators, water demand and supply and deforestation issues. A short literature analysis on “granularity” shows this concept to have a highly culturally determined and constructivist nature.

The spatial, temporal and sectoral granularity of data presentation strongly impacts conclusions and considerations while looking forward. Hence, granularity issues are of key importance for the question of which megatrends are ultimately discerned as most relevant.

These findings may impact the regular report on global megatrends authored by the European Environment Agency, as well as world-wide energy and emission scenarios and technological foresight, such as the “Global Change Data Base” as a next step of research.

In future research, the step from purely quantitative perceptions towards structural perceptions, pattern recognition and understanding of system transitions might be facilitated. The FL statements of larger companies might be diversified, enlarged in scope and use deeper structural understanding.

Earlier databases tend to have been focused on one or several single disciplines; the present approach, however, attempts transdisciplinarity and a multiparadigmatic approach.

Various economic growth theories propose a view of globalisation resulting in economic convergence. However, others suggest economic divergence (i.e. a widening gap between global rich and poor) and others still, different patterns of development. Hence it is necessary to validate such globalisation hypotheses with sound quantitative data.

The paper proposes the “Global Change Data Base” (GCDB) that includes an analytical tool (AT) providing correlations between primary and secondary data (by country by year) from the fields of population, agriculture, economy, energy and human development.

The AT is able to first test the hypotheses on global development and globalisation and second to suggest new hypotheses on the mechanisms of globalisation. Results can be used in curricula of Global Studies worldwide.

These data analysis has still to be complemented by sociological, political and economic theories providing insights into global restructuration processes and structural transitions through globalisation.

“Forward-looking” as an emerging scientific discipline is supported by the proposed detailed analytical methods, namely by providing quantitative, in-depth techno-socio-economic megatrends.

The perception of globalisation might be rendered more inter-subjectively traceable by the GCDB.

Up-to-date means of forward-looking are less detailed regarding economic sectors and energy sources compared to the proposed GCDB.

The role of managers is crucial to achieve holistic organizational goals to benefit the key stakeholders. However, a Western perspective is dominant as management literature where the work of Anglo-Arab philosophers is largely ignored. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap and promulgate the writings of Ibn Khaldun (a fourteenth-century Muslim philosopher) to advance management knowledge.

This paper is primarily based on the review of Ibn Khaldun’s book Muqaddimah.

This study provides valuable insights to the leaders as well as management practitioners by offering some useful directions to the management researchers for further research. The analysis revealed five themes: Fikr (mindfulness), Ta’awun (cooperation), Ta’akhi (brotherhood), ethical leadership and Adal (justice).

This paper is an original contribution to the extant literature available on organization development and scant literature available on imparting employee welfare agenda in contemporary organization from the perspective of a Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun.