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 editorsStutz, Christian; Ainamo, Antti; Lamberg, Juha-Antti

Journal or seriesM@n@gement

eISSN1286-4692

Publication year2021

Volume24

Issue number1

Pages range17-30

PublisherAssociation Internationale de Management Stratégique (AIMS)

Publication countryFrance

Publication languageEnglish

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.v24i1.4518

Publication open accessOpenly available

Publication channel open accessOpen 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.


Keywordsenterprisesstrategic planningrecessionpasthistoryhistorical consciousnessfuturerenewalscience fiction (literature)relativism

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


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Ministry reportingYes

Reporting Year2021

JUFO rating1


Last updated on 2024-10-03 at 19:57