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Future making is a theoretical perspective on how organizational actors such as managers, designers, or strategists orient themselves towards an uncertain future. Scholars of future making draw on theories of practice to explore how the future is made in the present, as actors explore and materialize their imaginings of the future (Comi & Whyte, 2018; Whyte, Comi, & Mosca, 2022; Wenzel 2021; Wenzel, Krämer, Koch, & Reckwitz, 2020). They challenge the assumptions that actors can predict the future, or even plan for the future through engagement in corporate foresight (this including activities such as scenario planning and strategic planning). From this perspective, the future is problematic, uncertain and partly unknowable; and as such cannot be controlled through anticipation, calculation or foresight.

Contents 1.	Theoretical tributaries of future making 2.	Future making vis-à-vis other theoretical perspectives 3.	Theoretical framework of future making 3.1.	Imagining 3.2.	Testing 3.3.	Stabilizing 3.4.	Reifying 4.	Theoretical framework of future making 5.	Future making in organization, design, and online environments 6.	References

Theoretical tributaries of future making
Future making draws on theories of practice, as well as on pragmatism. It focuses on what actors do in practice as they engage with the future and its representations (Comi and Whyte, 2018; Wenzel et al. 2020, Wenzel 2021). This perspective draws attention to the actual (rather than reported or idealized) doings of organizational actors, and sheds light on a wide range of formalized as well as spontaneous practices of engaging with the future (Wenzel 2021). Whyte et al. (2022) draw on the pragmatist tradition (Dewey, 1938) to theorize future making as a form of inquiry that proceeds through engagement with (visual and verbal) representations of the future. The use of such representations “opens up sensemaking and allows participants to critically question what is known, engaging the senses (Ewenstein & Whyte, 2007) with both focal attention and subsidiary awareness, learning from indeterminate situations as they arise and become represented.” (Whyte et al. 2022: 6).

Future making vis-à-vis other theoretical perspectives
Future making differs from other theoretical perspectives on the future such as foreseeing, future perfect thinking, or wayfinding into the future (Comi and Whyte, 2018; Wenzel 2021). Scholars of future making focus on actors crafting preferred futures, rather than foreseeing possible futures (see also Adam and Groves 2007). Differently from scholars of foreseeing, they emphasize the problematic nature of the future and question the assumption that organizations can anticipate or prepare for the future by deploying foresight techniques. Future making also differs from future perfect thinking, where actors project a desired future (as if it was in the past) and retrospectively work out the path to its realization. Future making involves an existential engagement with the present as actors live in the world while engaging with others and the materials at hand. It challenges the assumption that a future perfect can be realized in the face of the uncertainties that the future poses, and instead places the focus on the practical work that actors do to make a realizable course of action for the future. Although emphasizing an existential entwinement with the present, future making differs from wayfinding into the future. The latter places the focus on spontaneous actions of organizing and strategizing for the future: here, the future is realized through habituated actions of dwelling rather than purposeful actions of building. Differently from wayfinding, future making integrates building and dwelling: it “is partly driven by a preconceived design or strategy for the future, and partly lodged into the habituated actions that practitioners deploy as they dwell into visual artefacts…” (Comi & Whyte, 2018: 1076). Theoretical framework of future making Scholars of future making set out to explain how the future is made in the ‘here and now’ of organizational practice, as organizational actors engage with the materials at hand (e.g. drawings, models, or representations) to give form to their imaginings of the future. Comi and Whyte (2018) propose a theoretical framework of future making and visual artifacts, whereby the future is made through iterative practices of imagining, testing, stabilizing and reifying (see Figure 1).

•	In imagining, actors produce artifacts (e.g. sketches, drawings, and models) that give material form to their abstract imaginings of the future, be it a corporate strategy, a building design, or an educational program. In order for such imaginings to be realizable, artifacts need to embody information about the present (e.g. budget constraints) as well as the past (e.g. previous findings). •	In testing, actors engage in a combat of proposals and counterproposals – i.e. a dialogic practice where alternative imaginings of the future (e.g. strategy or design options) are first proposed, and then challenged through the generation of counterproposals. The most promising imaginings are then selected, and further tested to detect and correct clashes. To this end, actors might use sophisticated representations (e.g. market data or measurement information). •	In stabilizing, actors become committed to realizing a given imagining of the future. This involves securing the support of key stakeholders (e.g. strategy makers or future users) by using artifacts to either resist or accommodate their requests (without however compromising the work done to date). At this stage, artifacts can be utilized also to make the future appear more incumbent and trigger a sense of urgency around the decisions to be made. •	In reifying, actors become concerned with materializing and assembling multiple views of the future, by producing artifacts that convey a sense of possibility about the imagined future (without however creating a sense of finality). This involves, for instance, the production of strategy plans or design reports, as well as the assembling of PowerPoint presentations for key stakeholders. As actors recursively engage in practices of imagining, testing, stabilizing and reifying, views of the future evolve from provisional to more stable, and from partial to more holistic. Increasingly, artifacts are mobilized not just to inform, but also to persuade key audiences. Future making in organization, design, and online environments Future making is relevant to a wide range of organizational practices – e.g. strategic planning, project management, and organizational development. These practices are oriented towards the future, which becomes materialized through representations (e.g. strategy plans or reports). Previous research has further recognized the connection between design and future making (Emilson et al. 2014, Sumartojo et al. 2018). Design practices such as building design, digital design, or sustainable design are seen as ‘natural allies of futurity’ (Yelavich and Adams 2014) due to their close engagement with innovation, newness, and the crafting of what is not yet existing (Comi and Whyte, 2018, Luck 2018). Design also makes an intensive use of representations, which are central to future making (Comi and Whyte, 2018; Whyte et al. 2022). In design, the uncertainty about the future is viewed as generative (Luck 2018; Akama et al. 2018), with representations being used as epistemic objects (Ewenstein and Whyte 2009) whereby designers make the future (Comi and Whyte, 2018). Recent research has explored how future making is realized in online environments such as the video conference (Whyte et al. 2022). Whereas future making presupposes a sensorial engagement with the world, participants in online environments are remote from each other and from people, places, and materials. This remoteness brings itself challenges: actors might lack the shared experiential knowledge that they would develop in face-to-face settings and might become morally disengaged from the futures they are making. This could lead to unsustainable and dystopic futures. In order to address these challenges, Whyte et al. (2022) suggest three remedial actions: 1) soliciting feedback from distant actors, 2) juxtaposing alternative options for the future and 3) changing media to engage with different representations of the future.