Making desirable futures: Conceptualising the role of futuremaking in impact investing and social entrepreneurship

Strömmer, Kiia S. K.

Making desirable futures: Conceptualising the role of futuremaking in impact investing and social entrepreneurship

Strömmer, Kiia S. K.

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2025

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Strömmer, Kiia S. K.
dc.date.accessioned	2026-06-23T03:45:26Z
dc.date.available	2026-06-23T03:45:26Z
dc.date.issued	2025
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195445
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. TD School.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	This thesis aims to deepen our understanding of how organisations and individuals assess, navigate and shape desirable futures. By integrating insights from organisational studies on temporality and future-making, as well as insights from futures studies, the research examines how impact investors and social entrepreneurs are engaging with future-making to enact desirable futures. The thesis is structured around five key studies: a systematic literature review that highlights gaps in the current understanding of forward-looking impact assessment, an investigation into the diverse futuring techniques used in impact investing, a study on temporal oscillation that explores how impact investors bridge near and distant futures, a paper analysising of how utopian and dystopian imaginaries are shaping collective identities in the emerging decentralised finance, blockchain-for-good field, and finally investigation into how future imaginaries have a performative role in entrepreneurial motivations. The research reveals the mechanisms through which these actors enact imagined desirable futures by connecting distant futures to the present. The thesis contributes to the fields of organisational theory on temporality and future-making, impact investing and entrepreneurship by shedding light on the importance of pluralistic understandings of futures, and unpacking the myriad ways in which organisations and individuals engage with these futures.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	© 2025 Kiia S. K. Strömmer
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/nph
dc.title	Making desirable futures: Conceptualising the role of futuremaking in impact investing and social entrepreneurship	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

This thesis aims to deepen our understanding of how organisations and individuals assess, navigate and shape desirable futures. By integrating insights from organisational studies on temporality and future-making, as well as insights from futures studies, the research examines how impact investors and social entrepreneurs are engaging with future-making to enact desirable futures. The thesis is structured around five key studies: a systematic literature review that highlights gaps in the current understanding of forward-looking impact assessment, an investigation into the diverse futuring techniques used in impact investing, a study on temporal oscillation that explores how impact investors bridge near and distant futures, a paper analysising of how utopian and dystopian imaginaries are shaping collective identities in the emerging decentralised finance, blockchain-for-good field, and finally investigation into how future imaginaries have a performative role in entrepreneurial motivations. The research reveals the mechanisms through which these actors enact imagined desirable futures by connecting distant futures to the present. The thesis contributes to the fields of organisational theory on temporality and future-making, impact investing and entrepreneurship by shedding light on the importance of pluralistic understandings of futures, and unpacking the myriad ways in which organisations and individuals engage with these futures.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/195445