Science-fiction and strategic anticipation: A creative detour?

As businesses face an increasingly complex and technologically abundant world, the ability to envision themselves in an uncertain future becomes an absolute necessity for managers. As a result, while foresight exercises have often been considered difficult or even superfluous in the past, new methods are increasingly being called for with a view to broadening and enriching an organization’s ability to project itself into the future and to liberate it from the limitations of the reflexes embedded in current managerial practices. Science fiction is a prolific fiction and film genre that can be used as a heuristic tool to stimulate managers’ imaginations, on condition that it is used creatively. This article considers the extent to which a company’s vision or what it has to offer be nurtured through science fiction. It explores how science fiction can be leveraged to exploit its imaginative potential and avoid the temptations of forecasting or Manicheism and how the strong emotional response of consumerism can be integrated. The article reviews the main principles of prospective thinking and questions the potential of science fiction to satisfy them, particularly through storytelling and implicit reference to social myths. A typology of ‘creative detours’ through science fiction is proposed to reflect different types of prospective issues. The typology is explained in more detail with the help of a practical case study. Finally, the article defines the methodological conditions that must be met in order to use science fiction as a ‘creative detour’ as a framework for building and leading a foresight exercise with a corporate management team.