About today not tomorrow: The role of future thinking in strategic analysis and management decision-making

Abstract

This seminar presents various strands of ongoing work that integrate the theories and practices of strategic foresight with the broader domains management, strategy and leadership. The futures and foresight field has existed for more than 70 years during which it has incorporated theories and methods in cognate fields that seek to improve management future outcomes. The reverse is also true as mainstream management areas have entered the terrain and adopt the frameworks of a maturing foresight field, particularly against the backdrop of an increasingly uncertain external environment. This should be so, because the foresight field addresses how outcomes are envisaged, planned, pursued, and achieved in an environment that is unpredictable, and how firms may control transition in the context of industry and macro-conditions they don’t control. However, these interfaces are frequently constrained by academic discipline rigidity. In this regard the seminar will define the future studies field in a way that orients it to a variety of management disciplines and seek to draw out a conversation that helps participants frame or reframe their own research agendas using the affordances the field offers.