Making sense of uncertainty – Interrogating conceptions of the New Normal

IF 2 4区管理学 Q3 MANAGEMENT

Scandinavian Journal of Management Pub Date : 2025-06-01 DOI:10.1016/j.scaman.2025.101407

Jarle Bastesen , Birthe Kåfjord Lange , Bent Sofus Tranøy

引用次数: 0

Abstract

A world of poly-crisis stimulates concept formation. A popular term for understanding these events is ‘New Normal’. The increased use of this term reflects a demand for making sense of a world characterized by unpredictability and complexity. We will examine how the term New Normal is understood and used in current academic writing and what may these meanings imply for business? This article offers an integrative literature review of 307 articles published between 2006 and early 2023. Our review reveals significant empirical variation while at the ontological level we propose two categories: Those who claim we are in a new steady state vs. those who understand the current business environment as dominated by flux. To enable inferences about strategy and organizations, authors at a minimum need to be clear whether they perceive the new normal as a steady state or a permanent state of flux.

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理解不确定性——质疑新常态的概念

一个多重危机的世界刺激了概念的形成。理解这些事件的一个流行术语是“新常态”。越来越多地使用这一术语反映了人们对理解一个以不可预测性和复杂性为特征的世界的需求。我们将研究“新常态”一词在当前学术写作中是如何被理解和使用的，以及这些含义对商业可能意味着什么？本文对2006年至2023年初发表的307篇文章进行了综合文献综述。我们的回顾揭示了显著的经验差异，而在本体论层面上，我们提出了两类观点：那些声称我们处于一个新的稳定状态的人与那些认为当前商业环境由变化主导的人。为了能够对战略和组织进行推断，作者至少需要清楚他们是将新常态视为稳定状态还是永久的变化状态。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Scandinavian Journal of Management MANAGEMENT-

CiteScore

4.00

自引率

10.00%

发文量

审稿时长

71 days

期刊介绍： The Scandinavian Journal of Management (SJM) provides an international forum for innovative and carefully crafted research on different aspects of management. We promote dialogue and new thinking around theory and practice, based on conceptual creativity, reasoned reflexivity and contextual awareness. We have a passion for empirical inquiry. We promote constructive dialogue among researchers as well as between researchers and practitioners. We encourage new approaches to the study of management and we aim to foster new thinking around management theory and practice. We publish original empirical and theoretical material, which contributes to understanding management in private and public organizations. Full-length articles and book reviews form the core of the journal, but focused discussion-type texts (around 3.000-5.000 words), empirically or theoretically oriented, can also be considered for publication. The Scandinavian Journal of Management is open to different research approaches in terms of methodology and epistemology. We are open to different fields of management application, but narrow technical discussions relevant only to specific sub-fields will not be given priority.