Disciplined Vision Casting: A Method for Exploring Possible Futures in the Era of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

This conceptual essay introduces Disciplined Vision Casting (DVC) as a new method for exploring alternative futures. Drawing on scenario planning, introspection, and creative writing, DVC casts a set of future scenarios, based on a combination of guiding uncertainties found in the literature. Marketing scholars stand to benefit from leveraging DVC as it provides them with a laboratory for exploring undiscovered contexts and circumstances that may challenge widely held beliefs. DVC allows the researcher to cross the interdisciplinary barriers to study the confluence of a variety of technological and economic forces on society. As such, this novel method of projecting into the future offers the researchers a stimulus for theory development and a low-cost and readily implementable method of foreseeing potential future events, thus assisting them as they reimagine the discipline in the era of UN Sustainable Development Goals and other global sustainability initiatives.