We develop the concept of the distant future as a new way of seeing the future in collective efforts. While a near future is represented in practical terms and concerned with forming expectations and goals under conditions of uncertainty, a distant future is represented in stylized terms and concerned with imagining possibilities under conditions of ambiguity. Management research on future-oriented action has developed around problems of the near future. To explore distant futures, we analyze the case of geoengineering, a set of planetary-scale technologies that have been proposed as solutions to the threat of climate change. Geoengineering has increasingly been treated as if it were a reality, despite continued controversy and in the absence of any implementation. We find that societal-level imaginaries that were built on deeply-held moral bases and cosmologies underpinned the conception of geoengineering, and that a dialectic process of discursive attempts to reconcile oppositional imaginaries increased the concreteness and credibility of geoengineering so that it increasingly has been treated as an 'as-if' reality. We suggest that distant futures orient collective efforts in distinctive ways, not as concrete guides for action but by expressing critiques and alternatives, that can become treated as 'as-if' realities. Imagine a new world where a vast wall of mirrors is erected in outer space to protect the earth from the heat of the sun. Imagine using US Navy warships to blast trillions of tiny particles high up into the sky or deploying a fleet of modern 'steam' ships into the seven seas to spray salt water into the air 24 hours a day to create better clouds. Or how about covering vast stretches of desert with sheets of white plastic to reflect light back to the sun? What about dumping billions of tons of iron filings into the sea or building millions of chemically coated plastic trees to suck up carbon dioxide from the air? … This may all sound like preposterous science fiction-yet the debate about 'geo-engineering' a way out of catastrophic levels of climate change seems to be gaining grip in several parts of the world.

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In this chapter, we develop a theoretical framework of an attention-based view of organizational learning. Specifically, we explain how the three pillars of Ocasio’s (1997, 2011) attention-based view—focus of attention (and its subnotions of executive attention and attentional vigilance), situated attention, and structural distribution of attention—are relevant for three main outcomes of organizational learning: knowledge creation, retention, and transfer. We also discuss how attention interacts with other well-known learning mechanisms, such as performance feedback, capabilities, trust, and experience, and when and how attention either amplifies or negates their effectiveness for learning. We conclude with an evaluation of the attention-based view of organizational learning and suggestions for future research.

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