How to design desirable futures? Toward an integrated framework drawing on future‐forming and design science scholarship

Abstract

Many organizations and their stakeholders are facing major technological, societal, and geopolitical shifts, making it increasingly necessary to jointly shape desirable futures. This Perspective paper builds on Romme's research program that seeks to re‐introduce a problem‐solving (i.e., engineering) mindset in management research. More specifically, we connect design science (DS) as a body of literature focused on designing and evaluating solution‐artifacts to the rapidly growing body of future‐forming (FF) scholarship, also known as “desirable futures” research. The DS and FF literatures address complementary dimensions of the challenge of shaping desirable futures but have largely developed in isolation. Consequently, management scholars and practitioners lack an actionable approach for connecting (envisioned) desirable futures to the design interventions that help to move toward those futures in multi‐stakeholder settings. We therefore propose a framework for collaboratively designing desirable futures by integrating insights from the DS and FF discourses. This framework consists of two interdependent layers of artifacts, which jointly structure collaborative design processes for shaping desirable futures. The layer of ends‐oriented artifacts reflects which futures are desired, and the layer of means‐oriented artifacts is about how to shape these futures. Co‐design is defined as the iterative process in which actors jointly articulate both ends‐oriented and means‐oriented artifacts to align their interests and perspectives in achieving a desirable future. Our framework also informs an agenda for research on how diverse stakeholders co‐design the various artifacts that shape desirable futures. More broadly, we argue management scholars must move beyond explaining extant realities to actively designing desirable futures.