How Organizations Manage the Future

This pioneering edited collection explores the question of how organizations manage the future. Moving away from traditional research which focuses on the past, the editors problematize the future as an inherent but under-examined part of organizing. Arguing that the future acts as both a driver of and a performative result of organizing, the book asks how organizations conceptualize and deal with the future and what processes are in place to handle things to come. With empirical research examining the practices, discourses and concepts that play key roles, organizations and their approaches are scrutinized. A timely compendium of theoretical discussion and practical implications on the relevance of the future, this book is essential reading for those interested in organization, sociology and management studies.

Hannes Krämer is Head of the research group Border and Boundary Studies and Scientific Coordinator of the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. His research interests comprise the fields of future research, practice theory, organizational sociology, cultural theory, and boundary research. Matthias Wenzel is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Management and Organization at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. His research interests include strategy as practice, demand-side research in management and video methods.