The Paradox of Organizing Imagination A Qualitative Study on the Facilitation of Imagination in Innovation Workshops

Abstract

Within increasingly complex and volatile conditions, imagination becomes important for organizations as it provides a basis for novel solutions that address upcoming and unfamiliar challenges. While the importance of imagination is recognized in academia and practice, research on how it can be systematically nurtured and guided in organizational practice remains scarce. Adopting a qualitative research design, this thesis aims to fill this gap by analyzing how imagination is organized in the context of innovation workshops. To this end, 18 semi-structured interviews with workshop facilitators and participants were conducted. The findings highlight how imagination in workshops is shaped by a dynamic relationship between structured facilitation and flexibility. Further, the findings were analyzed through the lens of prospective sensemaking to unpack its role in the organization of imagination. The analysis suggests that imagination does not directly translate into innovation outcomes but requires a dual process of sensemaking. First, sensemaking stabilizes imaginative ideas and later roots them in reality. Artefacts, such as use cases, become important means for this process as well as sustaining imagination beyond the workshops. The findings extend imagination literature by unpacking imagination in its embedded context and providing a holistic view of imagination with its preceding and subsequent elements that are necessary to generate innovative outcomes. Further, this thesis offers practical implications for designing and facilitating a workshop that fosters imaginative thinking and prospective sensemaking in this context.