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This chapter focuses on Norman K. Denzin's vast and enduring contributions to sociology and the study of research methods and methodology, particularly with respect to “us[ing] the tools of the critical sociological imagination” (Denzin, 1989) as we conduct our research. Through revisiting and extending lessons and principles from his book The Research Act (1989) – especially the need for “triangulation” – in relation to C. Wright Mills' Sociological Imagination (1959), this chapter explores how cultivated critical sociological imaginations can help researchers best meet our “obligations to change the world, to engage in ethical work that makes a positive difference” (Denzin, 1989) throughout all phases of the research act.

Moral agents have moral choice. This chapter argues that moral choice denies historical inevitability when moral choice is informed by both moral imagination and historical imagination. I explore this by way of one specific historical example which should be used, as the philosopher Bernard Mayo argued, as a moral exemplar. In pursuing my arguments I utilise work by Sir Isaiah Berlin, amongst others. I do though take issue with Berlin, whom I argue has confused not the nature but the role of historical imagination, claiming dominance for it where it cannot dominate. I conclude with historical inevitability being refuted by moral choice, informed by both moral imagination and historical imagination.I argue that the refutation of historical inevitability has implications for Australian businesses in their current dealings with the People’s Republic of China. Australia escaped the Global Financial Crisis because of Chinese purchases of Australian commodities. But Australian business in trading with China is trading with an unjust regime. Hoffman and McNulty (2009) argue that regarding a regime such as China we can ‘learn from our past’. Regarding the past I argue that Australian business executives dealing with China would benefit by studying the historical example of Churchill’s May 1940 decision and should use that as a moral exemplar. Earlier generations of Australian managers contemptuously dismissed Chinese workers. The current generation of Australian managers, who fail to morally acknowledge China’s workers and citizens, risks being equally contemptuous, dismissive and racist.

Critical Theory was, more than anything else, a determined effort to keep alive the notion that there were alternatives to the existing cognitive order, one that seemed to find necessity in the contingent (and irrational) order of mature capitalism. Herbert Marcuse famously paid tribute to the power of the Imagination to destroy the illusion of the absence of alternatives to the existent, developing both an esthetic social theory and a social theory of esthetics. Yet the founder of Critical Theory, Max Horkheimer, was always suspicious of the Imagination, seeing it as predominantly a reproductive and not productive faculty – something that strengthened the hold of the existent on us, not the reverse. I argue that some of Horkheimer's interpretation of the role of the Imagination is rooted in his early work on Kant's Third Critique, which was conducted under the imprimatur of Gestalt psychologist Hans Cornelius. Thus suggests that there may be more connection between Horkheimer's early Gestalt-influenced thinking and his later work, and may even suggest possible directions for a post-Freudian critical theory.

The temporal imagination is the understanding of the intersection of one entity’s timescape with the larger timescapes of which that entity is a part. We examine in detail what the temporal imagination is, complemented with a discussion of the related timescape idea, and why the temporal imagination is necessary to function in any timescape. We also discuss group attributes that will likely affect the development of the temporal imagination and its use and how its use in group boundary spanning efforts affect both the groups and the larger organization.

Imagination is the exercise of generating new and novel mental images. Because of its utility for the arts, it is primarily thought of as a purely aesthetic tool. And yet, as a cognitive orientation to the world, imagination has much to offer business leaders. Imagination shifts leaders away from ingrained ways of thinking; it emphasizes reframing existing situations, moving beyond constraining mental models, and formulating innovative responses. In short, imagination is the critical cognitive link connection between what is and what might be. This application brief describes a module designed to develop moral imagination in leadership students in Gonzaga University’s Masters in Organizational Leadership Program. It outlines the use of popular film – in this case, the classic Woody Allen (1989) film, Crimes and Misdemeanors – to help students identify ethical events, assess various viewpoints concerning these events, and then practice reframing the events using moral imagination.

Imagination is a complex mental process where consciousness departs from reality to create new content not currently found in existence. Imagination is key to marketing persuasion, but studies that examine consumer imagination in response to marketing messages illustrate confusing and sometimes contradictory perspectives about consumers’ mental processing. This paper aims to provide a review of the existing literature on consumer imagination relevant to marketing scholarship, and builds a new theoretical framework to organize and explain these papers.

A systematic review of the marketing literature was undertaken to identify all papers related to consumer imagination and its role in marketing persuasion. A focus was placed on empirical papers, review papers and meta-analyses.

A new conceptual framework was created to classify the consumer imagination literature based on both the characteristics and the content of imagination. The existing marketing literature was then organized into the framework. The framework helps to explain seeming contradictions between different studies as well as helps to collect similar studies together to summarize schools of thought.

The imagination framework presents an entirely new way of conceptualizing imagination research in marketing. This new categorization structure not only clarifies consumers’ use of imagination in response to marketing messages but also identifies questions for future research in this area of marketing theory.