The Imagination Advantage: Why and How Strategists Combine Knowledge and Imagination in Developing Theories
本文理论化战略家面对不同类型问题时，如何以不同方式结合知识与想象力发展出分析性、重构性或投射性理论，从而获得战略优势。
We theorize why and how strategists develop different types of theories when confronted with different types of problems by combining knowledge and imagination in different ways. We propose that strategists’ epistemic stances affect how they combine knowledge and imagination and whether they develop either analytic theories, or constructive theories of two types: reconfigurative and projective. We theorize how imagination complements knowledge in theory development to generate distinctive strategies and strategic advantages. We argue that analytic theories enable conjectural anticipation, which contributes to early timing of strategic actions; that reconfigurative theories posit novel value dimensions and enable industry shaping; and that projective theories articulate novel possibilities to shape desired and desirable futures. Our ideas advance research on how imagination is leveraged in theory development, future-oriented strategizing, and shaping strategies.