12699: The Future of Future-Making Research: Conceptualizations, Boundaries, and Future Research Avenues

Recent studies highlight a growing interest in future-making research. Future-making research enables organizations to imagine better futures and more effectively integrate future visions into new ventures, products, or services, and it empowers scholars to develop prospective theories that can contribute to more desirable futures. However, while future-making research is highly relevant in theory and practice, its conceptualization and boundaries remain blurry. For example, future-making may be seen as an evolutionary practice of making sense of possible and probable futures, or as a more revolutionary practice of envisioning desirable futures. To better understand the varying perspectives, scholars may reflectively reappraise past research and evaluate, negotiate, and shape established theories towards future-fit, while prospectively formulating new theories and rigorously design research programs that remain relevant in an unknowable future. To this end, future-making research poses at least four types of challenges: (1) translational challenges of reconciling philosophical assumptions, (2) transformational challenges of reconciling theory and practice, (3) transitory challenges of reconciling stability and change, and (4) transtemporal challenges of reconciling temporal orientations. The PDW brings together renowned scholars to share their unique perspectives and provide guidance to future-making researchers from diverse fields—including strategic management, entrepreneurship, design, innovation, ethics, and futures studies— to discuss and find ways for tackling the unique challenges of future-making scholarship.

Participation is open and no preregistration is required.