Researching (for) desirable futures: How can we theorize what does not exist?

Like many of our colleagues, we came to academia through a combination of intellectual curiosity to understand the world of organizations and management coupled with an ambition to produce knowledge that also shapes this world in a positive way. As we are living through troubled times of the COVID-19 pandemic, growing populism, heightened inequality and the coming climate emergency, our desire to offer inspirational models for social transformation has become greater and more urgent.