A1 Journal article (refereed)
Counter-clock world : How planning backwards helps in moving forward in collapsing environments (2021)

Stutz, C., Ainamo, A., & Lamberg, J.-A. (2021). Counter-clock world : How planning backwards helps in moving forward in collapsing environments. M@n@gement, 24(1), 17-30. https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.v24i1.4518

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Stutz, Christian; Ainamo, Antti; Lamberg, Juha-Antti

Journal or series: M@n@gement

eISSN: 1286-4692

Publication year: 2021

Volume: 24

Issue number: 1

Pages range: 17-30

Publisher: Association Internationale de Management Stratégique (AIMS)

Publication country: France

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.v24i1.4518

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Open Access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/78269

Abstract

Research on corporate decline and turnarounds as well as the strategic use of history have so far remained two separate research fields. We integrate these two fields with a thought experiment, proposing ways in which strategists can work with, and through time in managing and turning around declines. Our thought experiment involves two very different types of analogies: a textual one from Philip K. Dick’s science fiction novels, on the one hand, and a visual one from Einsteinian relativity science, on the other hand. Inspired and informed by these different conceptualizations of the past and time, we develop four forms of backward strategizing to successfully manage a struggling corporation on the brink of environmental collapse. The strategic options, presuming that managers are historically conscious agents embedded in time, direct corporations to go back in history, in actual terms, or in a fictional or mythological one – and thus to initiate a past-related rebirth. By offering a more nuanced and complex understanding of temporality and history, our perspective urges scholars to further unpack historical dimensions in managerial cognition of time.

Keywords: enterprises; strategic planning; recession; past; history; historical consciousness; future; renewal; science fiction (literature); relativism

Free keywords: science fiction; organizational decline and collapse; strategic renewal and corporate turnaround management; uses of the past; analogical reasoning; history and temporality

Contributing organizations

Related projects

Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2021

JUFO rating: 1