Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to challenge processes of organizational learning and innovation that are based on making use of, extrapolating, or adapting past experiences and knowledge, because such a strategy turns out to be incapable of dealing with the challenges of today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. As a possible way out, a conceptual model is proposed that integrates organizational learning and innovation as a future-driven learning process and a future-making practice.Design/methodology/approach: This work is conceptual in nature, drawing on (both theoretical/philosophical and empirical) interdisciplinary concepts and evidence from a variety of fields, including organizational studies, organizational learning, innovation studies, systems theory and systems biology, as well as cognitive science.Findings: The author proposes a paradigm shift in organizational learning: from a future-oriented perspective, organizational learning can be viewed as an innovation process that is based on “learning from the future as it emerges.” A conceptual approach is presented that integrates future-oriented innovation and organizational learning as a future-making practice. It is based on learning from future potentials as a source for sustainable innovations. Both epistemological/ontological foundations and organizational implications are discussed.Originality/value: This paper introduces a new perspective on the role of future-oriented innovation in the context of organizational learning. It shows how organizational learning and innovation can be integrated and how shortcomings of absorptive capacity can be overcome by assuming a future-driven perspective. Furthermore, an epistemology of future knowledge/potentials and its applications for organizations is developed.

Purpose: While many approaches in the field of unlearning aim at describing, understanding or explaining the “what” and/or “how” of unlearning, this paper aims to focus on the “where-to” and the goal of unlearning. In many cases, unlearning starts off with a specific result or goal in mind. This paper suggests that such an approach has to be challenged in the context of a highly complex and uncertain world and to introduce a mode of unlearning following a strategy of future-oriented open-endedness.Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper draws on (both theoretical/philosophical and empirical) interdisciplinary evidence from a wide variety of fields, such as organization studies, organizational (un)learning, systems theory, cognitive science and innovation studies.Findings: It turns out that open-endedness in unlearning processes plays a central role, especially if we are confronted with high levels of uncertainty and complexity. In such an environment, following a strategy of co-becoming with an unfolding environment and with an emergent goal seems to be more promising than aiming at a preconceived (un-)learning goal.Originality/value: The unlearning literature provides various approaches to what unlearning is and how it can be executed. However, understanding the actual goals and outcomes of unlearning and how these goals are identified and determined is a rather under-researched field. In many cases, they are preconceived in advance finding their realization in new forms of knowledge, assumptions, belief systems, values or routines. This paper challenges this strategy and addresses the gap of how it is possible to unlearn toward an uncertain future. This has an impact on the process of unlearning itself; it has to be reframed and understood as an open-ended strategy for identifying emerging future potentials, purposes and goals in a process of co-becoming with an unfolding future.

With the advent of Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, and, more generally, generative AI/cognitive technologies, global knowledge production faces a critical systemic challenge. It results from continuously feeding back non- or poorly-creative copies of itself into the global knowledge base; in the worst case, this could not only lead to a stagnation of creative, reliable, and valid knowledge generation, but also have an impact on our material (and subsequently our social) world and how it will be shaped by these rather uninspired automatized knowledge dynamics. More than ever, there appears to be an imperative to bring the creative human agent back into the loop. Arguments from the perspectives of 4E- and Material Engagement Theory approaches to cognition, human-technology relations as well as possibility studies will be used to show that being embodied, sense-making, and enacting the world by proactively and materially interacting with it are key ingredients for any kind of knowledge and meaning production. It will be shown that taking seriously the creative agency of the world, an engaged epistemology, as well as making use of future potentials/possibilities complemented and augmented by cognitive technologies are all essential for re-introducing profound novelty and creativity.

Various collaborative innovation methods are increasingly used in strategy development and the implementation of organizational challenges. The aim of applying them is to involve different agents of an organization and support them in generating new ideas in a joint effort. For this research, an experimental field study was conducted in the course of an innovation workshop for 80 top managers in the public sector using a quantitative questionnaire and an ethnographic observation. A novel workshop format was designed using different materials to support the beginning of this innovation process. The groups used either traditional workshop materials, that is, moderation cards (small sheets of colored paper), or novel workshop materials, that is, LEGO bricks. Our results show that both materials significantly influenced the human experience in the workshop. The use of LEGO bricks was perceived as more enjoyable, active, and inspiring than the use of moderation cards. However, the perceived group outcome using moderation cards was rated higher than that working with LEGO bricks. We discuss how using novel workshop materials changes the experience of an innovation workshop, but we also highlight that additional factors, including translation effects, trained facilitators, and specific innovation phases, must be considered to outperform the use of traditional materials.

The role of spirituality in organizations has received increasing attention over recent years. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to take up this shift and develop the foundations for an alternative approach to knowledge management: Spiritual Knowledge Management. A key question in spirituality concerns the unfolding of the identity (of an organization) or the self toward a “higher end” or purpose. We propose the concept of the phronetically enacted self (understood here both in an individual and an organizational sense) that helps us conceive of how this unfolding can be achieved in a thriving and sustainable manner. The self is conceptualized as a highly dynamic and emergent “entity” that is grounded in a continuous process of becoming and of transitions transforming a state of potentiality into a state of actuality and fulfillment. Insights from the theory of spirituality, enactive cognitive science, the theory of potentials/possibility studies, phronetic organizations, and resonance theory lead us to a novel understanding of knowledge-driven organizations embodying a spirituality-based and, as a consequence, (regenerative) sustainable approach. Finally, we will develop the basic characteristics and leverage points for transformative shifts toward sustainability in organizations.