Are Foresight and Serendipity Antithetical? :The Role of Luck in Futures & Foresight Science

This presentation explores the relationship between serendipity and foresight. Does Futures & Foresight Science have a coherent, shared understanding or vision of the role of serendipity in the context of foresight practices? Are serendipity and foresight antithetical or, possibly, mutually reinforcing as Louis Pasteur’s famous phrase – “chance favors the prepared mind” – seems to suggest? In contemporary management studies, the notion of “luck” and the so-called “serendipity mindset” are beginning to take center stage in popular, top-tier journals. Meanwhile, in foresight, luck – when it is raised at all – is typically invoked as a residual category and relegated to being treated as an unnecessary label that merely stands-in for the unavoidable role of randomness, misfortune, or unexpected opportunity. From the Futures & Foresight Science perspective, allowing a concept such as “luck” to meaningfully enter into the scholarly conversation risks dangerous oversimplification: to describe an outcome as lucky, which, in principle, one has no control over, is to simultaneously explain and foreclose explanation, shifting one’s perceived locus of control away from agency-oriented understandings in the world toward a far more deterministic view of actors as passive “pinballs” in an uncertain world. In this presentation, we present on pilot empirical findings that were, unintentionally or serendipitously, stumbled upon in an experimental classroom setting to uncover a theory of stakeholder management. We tested the effects of training in scenario planning and wargaming in a classroom environment on the adoption of (components of) a serendipity mindset. Results and implications are discussed.