Future making, the work of enacting the yet-to-come by making sense of and giving form to imaginings of the future, has become topical in management studies lately. Triggered by pressing societal challenges like climate change, inequality and threatened democratic institutions vis-à-vis a societal ‘crisis mode’, management scholars have started to engage with the future as an open-ended temporal category, both as an object of analysis happening in and around organizations, as well as a way of scholarly inquiry. This Point-Counterpoint debate about future making in management research comes right on time, as future-making research seems to be at a crossroads, potentially heading to a bright – or not so bright – future. The contributions to this debate collectively ask: What is the future of future making in management research, and they could not be more different in the pathways they envisage.
What Is the Future of Future Making in Management Research?
Introduction by Christopher Wickert
Future Making: Towards a Practice Perspective
Point by Matthias Wenzel, Laure Cabantous & Jochen Koch
Back to the Future? A Caution
Counterpoint 1 by Alex Wright
Future Making as Emancipatory Inquiry: A Value‐Based Exploration of Desirable Futures
Counterpoint 2 by Alice Comi, Luigi Mosca & Jennifer Whyte
