The future is fiction, not fact; or better yet, a series of competing fictions prescribing what the future will or should look like. Different narratives about the future stand in direct relation to specific actors in the public debate, both through framing tactics used by narrators in the media, and through political and dispositional processes of narrative subscription.

The future is in need of a paradigm shift: from ‘predictions’ to ‘imaginaries’. We propose an integration of theory around framing contests, field frames, narrative subscription, and corresponsive mechanisms to offer a plausible account of our empirical discoveries and develop an agenda for further research. The future does not need to be something that happens ‘to us’—instead, the future can be what we ‘make it’.

Interestingly, the two paragraphs above are extracted (with minimal intervention, you can check it below) from the abstract of a recent paper on the future of work. In fact, in the abstract, the word future is always followed by “of work” (the future of work). However as you can appreciate, the statement would apply to the future of EVERYTHING of interest to us.

Very interestingly also, the authors do not seem to know (at least they do not mention them) any of the main references to images and narratives in the field of futures studies. They seem to reach their conclusion independently. In my view, this clearly shows the strength of certain ideas (which appear once and again, at least when we collectively reach the right moment of maturation) but also the need and the opportunity to gain from a much more deliberate and concerted interdisciplinary study of the many challenges we are facing.

Here are the 7 narratives the authors extract from the analysis of all print media articles (485) that appeared in the Belgian press related to the topic of the future of work between 2015 and 2021.

Across two datasets—a corpus of 485 print media articles and a multi-actor survey of Tech/Innovation experts, Authors/Journalists, Economy/Labor Market experts, Policy Makers/Public Administrators, and Engaged Citizens (N=570)—we build the case that the future of work is a fiction, not a fact; or better yet, a series of competing fictions prescribing what the future will or should look like. Using an abductive and curiosity-driven mixed-method analysis process we demonstrate that different narratives about the future of work stand in direct relation to specific actors in the public debate, both through framing tactics used by narrators in the media, and through political and dispositional processes of narrative subscription. From these findings, we infer that research on the future of work is in need of a paradigm shift: from ‘predictions’ to ‘imaginaries’. This, we argue, will help counter deterministic and depoliticized understandings of the future of work. We propose an integration of theory around framing contests, field frames, narrative subscription, and corresponsive mechanisms to offer a plausible account of our empirical discoveries and develop an agenda for further research. As the practical implications of our research show, the future of work does not need to be something that happens ‘to us’—instead, the future can be what we ‘make it’.

Dries, Nicky, Joost Luyckx, and Philip Rogiers. ‘Imagining the (Distant) Future of Work’. Academy of Management Discoveries, 26 June 2023. https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2022.0130.

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Featured Image: Artificial Ring-Shaped Dyson Sphere Around a Planet, ARTMAXX