On Thursday, May 28th, 2026 at 12:00 PM (CET), we are hosting the CAS SEE Seminar with Ali Aslan Gümüsay on "Imagining Desirable Futures: A call for prospective theorizing with speculative rigo" in conversation with the RECAS Fellow Vehap Kola.
Ali Aslan Gümüsay
Ali Aslan Gümüsay is Professor of Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Sustainability at LMU Munich and Head of the Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Society Research Group at the Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society.
Before, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg, DAAD Prime Fellow at WU Vienna and Lecturer at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He received his DPhil from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Prior to this, he worked as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.
About the Seminar
With the looming planetary emergency, the future will be anything but an extension of the past. Yet theorizing the future poses a peculiar problem. By definition, it is not present yet. The conundrum of the future is that it requires conceptualizing and theorizing what is not (yet) observable and does not (yet) exist.
Scholars have called for more impactful theories; we argue that one powerful avenue to make organizational theories more impactful is to make them more future-oriented. In this article, we call for prospective theorizing, which we define as a future-oriented approach to theorizing that is concerned with imagining desirable futures. First, we argue that prospective theorizing involves a shift along two dimensions (onto-epistemological and axiological): from projection to imagination, and from values-neutral to values-led theorizing.
Second, we suggest and promote prospective theorizing practices that might enable such a shift, distinguishing between inputs, throughputs and outputs of theorizing.
Third, for such prospective theorizing to be scientifically evaluable and rigorous, we develop the notion of speculative rigour, and outline criteria of generative potency, process transparency, plausible desirability and speculative plausibility. Overall, we argue that prospective theorizing adds to greater plurality in our theorizing towards (re)generative scholarship for imagining desirable futures.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88989643663?pwd=VnZTOWRmdnl0WEZIdTczc1paZWtkdz09
Meeting ID: 889 8964 3663
Passcode: 328897
Fellowships
Fellowships are supported by OSF Western Balkans, ERSTE Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
UNIRI The Moise Palace: Cres Island
An education center of the University of Rijeka. A five-hundred-year-old patrician townhouse and the largest Renaissance palace on the Croatian islands. A venue and forum for various scientific and research activities, it welcomes visiting academics, students and scholars.
