Exploring Future Business Visions Using Creative Fictional Prototypes
Special Issue of FUTURES, published by Elsevier, Amsterdam
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00163287)

Edited:
Dr. Gary Graham, Leeds University Business School
Prof. Vic Callaghan, Essex University School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
Dr. Anita Greenhill, Manchester Business School

Call for Papers
Although the guest editors share the premise of legendary Science Fiction (SF) writer Isaac Asimov (In Joy Still Felt, 1980, Doubleday) that predicting the future is a losing game, Brian David Johnson’s books (Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction (Morgan & Claypool, 2011)) & Screen Futures (Intel Press, 2010) offer a revised vision of the future of management theory/practice in which fictional creations shape tomorrow’s world of technological innovation. Johnson introduced the concept of science fiction prototyping in CS’10 “The 1st International Workshop on Creative Science: Science Fiction Prototyping for Engineering and Product Innovation” (Kuala Lumpar, 19 July 2010). The SF prototyping process creates science fiction based on science fact with two main goals. First SF prototypes advance the development of business by envisioning the impact of future science or technology on people, culture and wider systems. The second goal of SF prototypes is to offer a possible management vision for the future that is based on science and reason. This idea of creating art from science (and vice versa) is not new to the Futures readership, but there is a need for management theorists to begin directing their intellectual focus away from predicting the future and to start developing business visions for all our futures. Therefore the purpose of this special issue is to invite high quality papers which explore the use of fictional creations to motivate and direct research into new business visions and applications (e.g. new products, designs, concepts, identities, brands, business models, value chains, strategic environments and lifestyles). In particular we call for science fiction prototyping articles which first, develop a fictional short story or a series of short vignettes based on an existing business concept(s) and second, present future theoretical propositions and applications. Some examples of Science-Fiction Prototypes (mainly from the science and engineering domain) can be found at www.creative-science.org. It is our intention that the peer-reviewed SFPs published in this special issue of Futures will consist of futuristic scenarios written by authors drawn from a diverse set of disciplines including: business, architecture, humanities, creative arts, media production (films & games) plus science and engineering. We aim to make the special issue a central imaginative interdisciplinary facility in exploring potential managerial futures.

Topics:
We welcome contributions from a diverse set of disciplines ranging, for example, from business, through humanities to the sciences. Our only proviso is that the stories should have an obvious connection between the subject matter and how it shapes future business models. We are less interested in evolutionary changes and more interested in ideas than may radically transform the business vista. However, that said, we also are looking for stories that are plausible, and grounded in rationality.


Deadline for submission: 29th February 2012.

Please email your submissions to (also, if you are considering submitting a paper to this journal, it would be helpful if you would contact us to let us know):
g.graham@leeds.ac.uk;
vic@essex.ac.uk;
a.greenhill@mbs.ac.uk
Clearly mark on your email subject “FUTURES SUBMISSION”

Your paper should be between 5000-8000 words, plus illustrations.
Please follow the author guidelines that can be found at the following web address:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30422/authorinstructions

We are part of the 'Faculty Cooperative' movement which seeks to encourage open sharing of knowledge within the educational community, see:
http://www.FacultyCopperative.org