TY - JOUR
T1 - A game of futures
T2 - the strategy of scenarios in a Danish medical company
AU - Brandt, Andreas
AU - Vangkilde, Kasper Tang
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - While the future has gained increasing attention in organizational research, the minutiae and intricacies of how organizational actors produce and enact the future remain little explored. In this article, we present an ethnographic study of a future-making practice called ‘the strategy of scenarios’ in a Danish medical company. We propose the concept of technologies of prefiguration to capture how such practices prefigure the future so as to make it actionable. Our study shows that this unfolds as a ‘game of futures’ in which prefiguration depends not only on an outward orientation towards societal developments, but equally on an inward orientation towards the political economy of the organization. Although rational reasoning forms part of this game, futures are established and negotiated through arational techniques of enchantment focused on ‘selling futures’. This challenges rationalist ideas of future-making, demonstrating the heterogenous, more-than-rational processes and distinct organizational logics by which futures are shaped.
AB - While the future has gained increasing attention in organizational research, the minutiae and intricacies of how organizational actors produce and enact the future remain little explored. In this article, we present an ethnographic study of a future-making practice called ‘the strategy of scenarios’ in a Danish medical company. We propose the concept of technologies of prefiguration to capture how such practices prefigure the future so as to make it actionable. Our study shows that this unfolds as a ‘game of futures’ in which prefiguration depends not only on an outward orientation towards societal developments, but equally on an inward orientation towards the political economy of the organization. Although rational reasoning forms part of this game, futures are established and negotiated through arational techniques of enchantment focused on ‘selling futures’. This challenges rationalist ideas of future-making, demonstrating the heterogenous, more-than-rational processes and distinct organizational logics by which futures are shaped.
KW - Future making
KW - Innovation
KW - Organizational Ethnography
KW - Scenario planning
KW - Technology of prefiguration
KW - ethnography
KW - Future
KW - medical industry
KW - prefiguration
KW - scenarios
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85169804633&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14759551.2023.2253954
DO - 10.1080/14759551.2023.2253954
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1475-9551
VL - 30
SP - 103
EP - 120
JO - Culture and Organization
JF - Culture and Organization
IS - 2
ER -