Abstract
Technology-based, envisioned futures have a significant influence on the dynamics of technological development and, as a consequence, on societies. If such envisioned futures are successful, they contribute to the formation of issue-based fields with the envisioned future at its core. Within such a field, organizations orient and coordinate their activities in pursuit of the envisioned future. This article uses the example of “Industrie 4.0” in Germany to analyze why, how and under what circumstances such imagined futures tend to emerge, diffuse and stabilize. In particular, it highlights the early phases of envisioned technological futures before they are widely known and accepted. The paper brings together concepts from organization studies (OS) as well as from science and technology studies (STS), the most prominent of which being “expectations in technological developments” (van Lente 2000; van Lente and Rip 1998a). For a more detailed understanding of an envisioned future’s impact on the present, I argue that it is essential to analyze the role and the activities of organizations and the formation of organizational fields in such processes. I show how Weick’s concept of sensemaking and the related ideas of enactment and sensegiving can contribute to this idea of field formation. This combination enables a better understanding of the role of organizations, especially in the early phase of such processes. I argue that one main virtue of an envisioned future, when successful, is its ability to provide orientation to a multitude of different organizations.
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Notes
- 1.
Drawing on the model presented in this paper, one path for future research could be to compare successful examples like “Industrie 4.0” with other less successful terms that failed to resonate on a large scale. But it should come as no surprise that finding those ideas that never “made it big” poses some methodological problems.
- 2.
Known as “Industrie 4.0” in Germany, this phenomenon is referred to as “industrial internet” in the US, and other countries use other terms. In France, for example, the term “l’Industrie du Future” (the industry of the future) is used.
- 3.
http://www.plattform-i40.de/I40/Navigation/EN/Industrie40/WhatIsIndustrie40/what-is-industrie40.html, accessed June 22, 2016.
- 4.
- 5.
https://www.bmbf.de/de/zukunftsprojekt-industrie-4-0-848.html, accessed June 22, 2016.
- 6.
The authors draw attention to contrasting national imaginaries, such as “atoms for peace” in the US and “atoms for development” in South Korea (Jasanoff and Kim 2009).
- 7.
Sensemaking can also be described as a micro-level theory: originally, sensemaking described processes involving individual actors, which were then transferred to an organizational level. More generally, sensemaking does not represent a consistent theoretical approach. Very different offshoots of this perspective have been developed in recent decades (Maitlis and Christianson 2014). Therefore, what I present here is the summary of one specific perspective within the sensemaking literature.
- 8.
Therefore, in contrast to other concepts such as “industries,” organizational fields are not defined by a set of similar organizations, but by the emergence of a social structure linking the involved actors.
- 9.
Hoffman illustrates this for the case of environmentalism in the United States. Environmental NGOs and chemical companies were involved with this issue. These two groups shared an interest in the issue, but little else.
- 10.
These steps already include a variety of sensemaking processes, but they do not constitute the focus of the described model. Nor do they represent the very first steps. This type of storyline already builds on pre-existing elements, ideas, and developments.
- 11.
This also means that fields addressing envisioned futures can develop very differently in different countries. This is very much in line with the imaginaries perspective described earlier.
- 12.
Some of the interviews lasted only 15 min; the longest lasted over four hours.
- 13.
The fact that many actors are required to perform active sensemaking as part of their job is also useful for data collection. Most were quite willing to do an interview and most have also made public statements about their stance towards Industrie 4.0.
- 14.
https://www.bitkom.org/Themen/Branchen/Industrie-40/Vision-Industrie-40.html, accessed: 08.08.2016.
- 15.
https://www.bmbf.de/de/zukunftsprojekt-industrie-4-0-848.html, accessed June 22, 2016.
- 16.
http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Themen/Industrie/industrie-4-0.html, accessed 08.08.2016.
- 17.
An example is a funding scheme bei the German Ministry of Education and Research: https://www.bmbf.de/foerderungen/bekanntmachung-1352.html, accessed November 21, 2017.
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Meyer, U. (2019). The Institutionalization of an Envisioned Future. Sensemaking and Field Formation in the Case of “Industrie 4.0” in Germany. In: Lösch, A., Grunwald, A., Meister, M., Schulz-Schaeffer, I. (eds) Socio-Technical Futures Shaping the Present. Technikzukünfte, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft / Futures of Technology, Science and Society. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27155-8_6
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