Cross-fertilising scenario planning and business history by process-tracing historical developments: Aiding counterfactual reasoning and uncovering history to come

Abstract

Scenario planning is a tool for considering alternative futures and their potential impact. The article firstly addresses the paucity of history on management tools by discussing several important lineages in scenario planning’s evolution over time, and the emphasis placed on historical analysis by some specific variants therein. Secondly, it describes how causal analysis can be enhanced in scenario planning by process-tracing important historical developments. Thirdly, it outlines how a scenario planning that incorporates history in this way can assist historians to identify counterfactuals and understand the relative importance of alternative causes, thus enriching historical accounts. It can also enable business historians’ research on the relationship between businesses and their external environments, and on management decision-making. In concluding, scholars of scenario planning and business history are urged to open a mutually-beneficial dialogue. The article initiates this by setting out some ways in which they can cross-fertilise each other.