Imaginative labor and embodied cognition: Economic sociology as a cognitive science.

The article focuses on how economic actors imagine economic objects, processes, and actions amid inherent future uncertainty, proposing an approach grounded in embodied cognition to explain the limits of possible imaginings that enable coordination. Building on Jens Beckert's concept of fictional expectations, the author argues that imagination is a form of embodied imaginative labor, demonstrated through an analysis of elite professional advisory firms—businesses that sell imaginative labor both in recruiting and client engagement. Using metaphor analysis from cognitive linguistics and anthropology, the study identifies two dominant cultural models in consulting discourse: the economy as an "UNSTABLE SUBSTANCE" on the frontstage, emphasizing flux and disruption, and as "NO GAPS, NO OVERLAPS" backstage, reflecting a structured, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive problem-solving approach. This duality illustrates how embodied cognition shapes abstract economic thinking and how institutional processes may reinforce homogeneity in imaginative labor within professional fields.