Imagining the Future: Sci-Fi Cinema as a teaching tool

In the past, future strategies and strategic scenarios in organisations had always been based on an extrapolation from past trends assuming that the environmental conditions characterizing the past were going to be much the same in the future. However, nowadays the world is becoming more unpredictable and turbulent with increased risks which across time and social context. Fast development technological advancements in organisations including exponential growth of AI, gen AI and AI clones need more refined ways of teaching future strategists who can creatively imagine and critically think about the future of organisations. Cinema has long been recognized as a powerful pedagogical tool in leadership and management education. Movies can provide a stimulating and motivating alternative to conventional teaching methods for students who live in proliferation of visual modes of communication and increasingly expect integration of visual teaching methods in the classroom. Sci-fi futurology cinema, in particular, holds potential for critically exploring the future of organisations by rethinking traditional human-centered paradigms in light of fast-developing AI-facilitated technological advancements. By integrating powerful narrative and visual elements, sci-fi movies offer strategy scholars an interesting means to illustrate complex topics and concepts in engaging and accessible ways. In our research project, we focus on Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner (1982). Using Blade Runner as a source for thinking about an alternative future, we explore its potential for critical and meaningful classroom discussion in terms of how to lead and to strategize in an AI-driven world. This project is currently in the development stage, and at the conference, we would like to foster a discussion on how interdisciplinary insights, including those from cinema, can contribute to visionary thinking about the future in strategic management education.