With firm belief, I support the MARA project which was initiated by scholarship holders of the Foundation of German Business. It is our foundation's objective to support talented and exceptionally committed young students. With our support for future key player we promote early-on entrepreneurship. At the same time, we highly value interdisciplinary thinking and the cooperation between academia and real-life. Thus, I am particularly delighted to witness how the collaboration among our scholars has generated such a sophisticated project as MARA, engaging people and institutions far beyond our foundation. I wish all participants and involved parties a highly successful project MARA 2006 and will observe the progress with great interest.

Each person carrying responsibility knows how difficult it is to make the right decisions. In order to facilitate this task, the use of innovative, analytical approaches has increased, supplementing the well-known 'gut feeling'. The international research project MARA 2006 brings together academics and practitioners in order to discuss new methods and introduce these into the organisational practice. Thereby, all involved parties benefit: Practitioners obtain state-of-the-art methodologies for the optimisation of internal processes, while academics directly receive feedback on their theory-based concepts. This is knowledge transfer at its very best.

At the same time, MARA 2006 is a prime example for individual dedication, initiative and entrepreneurial spirit. Without the commitment of the young organisational team the project as such would be hard to imagine. I can only encourage all participants: Keep up this enthusiasm! For my part, I am very happy to support MARA 2006 and wish all organisers and participants a successful project!