ABOUT THE RESEARCHER
Miriam Feuls is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Organization.
Her research draws on insights from organisation studies, process studies, and cultural and social studies to advance the understanding of processes of (organisational) continuity and change and their interrelation. Empirically, she is engaged in the study of time and temporality, innovation and creativity and grand challenges, which she has explored in the context of creative businesses, food production and life science.
As part of the Actionable Futures project funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, she is exploring organisational transitions to green and sustainable futures. In particular, she examines how large corporations work towards distant climate goals in the present.
Miriam co-directs the Centre for Organization and Time, which invites multiple understandings of time to explore the more complex and dynamic phenomena of organisation and how they can contribute to shaping our societies.
Read more about Miriam and her research.
Green transition: How can companies navigate the unknown future?
Committing to distant climate goals has significant implications for companies. Managers must find new ways to steer the company into a distant future, and they must find new ways to invest in innovation, all while being disrupted by unforeseen events such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine. However, it remains a particular challenge to plan for a future about which we know little. The paths towards distant futures can only be partially anticipated as many solutions, mechanisms and actors do not exist at present.
It is such issues that have been the foundation of Miriam Feuls’ research. Together with her colleagues from the Centre for Organization and Time at Copenhagen Business School, she conducts the research project ‘Making distant futures actionable’ funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The research project studies pioneers and their practices leading the green transition in Danish industry: energy (Ørsted), food (Arla Foods) and life science (Novo Nordisk).
“We can see in our research that the unknowability of the distant future can be both a challenge and an opportunity at the same time”, says Miriam in the video, where she also presents some of the initial ideas of how companies navigate the unknown. While it is common knowledge that a distant-future focus allows companies to think big or be bolder, a short-term focus helps create accountability: “But there is no trade-off between the two. Short-term thinking is essential for thinking for the long-term, just as long-term thinking is essential for the short-term. […] If companies take this seriously, they can prevent themselves from slipping into incrementalism or relying on future solutions that remain too abstract to pursue”, Miriam explains.
Want to know more?
Read more about the research project Actionable Future Projects or read the article 'Green Transition: Innovation for a Zero Carbon Future'