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1.
Practising the scenario-axes technique 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
Studying the future seems a mission impossible, since both the appearance of the future and its underlying dynamics are unknown and unknowable. Nevertheless, the future is being studied by professional futurists. So, professional futurists seem to have found ways to structure ‘the unknown’. The question is, then, how do they do this? Over the years, professional futurists have developed several types of techniques and methods to structure thinking and discussing the future. The scenario-axes technique, which aims to align divergent perspectives on how the future may unfold, is one such structuring device.In the past 2 years, we did ethnographic research at the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (RPB) and followed professional futurists constructing and applying scenario axes in their scenario projects. Our observations illustrate how the scenario axes are practised by professional futurists and show that the scenario axes do not function as a unifying structure fostering alignment of different perspectives in the way that scenario theorists and practitioners often suggest. Instead, not one, but three different applications and interpretations of functional meaning of the scenario axes co-existed: the scenario axes as a ‘backbone’, as a ‘building scaffold’ and as ‘foundation’. 相似文献
2.
Riccardo Cinquegrani 《Futures》2002,34(8):779-783
This article analyses the concept of epistemic community focusing the attention on two aspects, which contribute to define this ‘actor’: knowledge and capacity of acting under the conditions of uncertainty. The link between these two issues and the ‘nature of future studies’ is considered and the possibility of considering some organisations and institutions as future epistemic communities is explored. The case of the World Futures Studies Federation is examined in detail.In 1992, Peter Haas defined an ‘epistemic community’ as follows: “an epistemic community is a network of professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, they have a shared set of normative and principled beliefs, which provide a value-based rationale for the social action of community members; shared causal beliefs, which are derived from their analysis of practices leading or contributing to a central set of problems in their domain and which then serve as the basis for elucidating the multiple linkages between possible policy actions and desired outcomes; shared notions of validity—that is, inter-subjective, internally defined criteria for weighing and validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise; and a common policy enterprise—that is a set of common practices associated with a set of problems to which their professional competence is directed, presumably out of the conviction that human welfare will be enhanced as a consequence” [1].In ancient Greek, the term ‘episteme’ has a meaning which belongs to the philosophical sphere; ‘community’ is a concept which comes from the religious tradition and, more recently, has been the objective of sociological studies. Epistemic community links the two terms to indicate a ‘new’ and in some aspects, atypical political actor. At etymological level we already have a first sort of indication with respect to what is meant: politics as a synthesis of religion (faith), sociology (the decisions taken by policy makers have consequences on the whole society) and philosophy (intended as Weltanschaung). The German term Weltanschaung means the idea, concept or the ‘vision’ of the world and life. It is the way in which an individual or a social group considers the position of the human being in the world and the attitudes and actions they develop on the basis of a particular vision of the cosmos.In addition to this formal definition, Haas identifies other characteristics: “members of an epistemic community share inter-subjective understandings; have a shared way of knowing; have shared patterns of reasoning; have a policy project drawing on shared causal beliefs, and the use of shared discursive practices and have a shared commitment to the application and production of knowledge” [1].This definition could be analysed in several ways with particular attention to one or more of the indicated criteria. We could assume that the expression ‘possible policy actions and desired outcomes’ is to be understood as the ‘long term implications, expected, possible, probable and desired’ of a decision taken or that which will be taken, and this would already represent a linkage between the policy, the futures studies and an epistemic community; moreover, usually ‘the policy choices concern consequences, which can only be partially anticipated’ [2]. This gives rise ‘to the desire for information, which is not so much based on purely technical knowledge but rather information, which is the product of human interpretation’ [1]. Epistemic communities, national or trans-national, are one possible provider of such information.At this stage, and considering only this aspect of the whole definition, we could argue that a network of experts active in the field of future studies would represent the perfect portrait of what we are looking for: a multi-person actor able to ‘anticipate’, using knowledge, various backgrounds and expertise. To anticipate, in this context, might be specified as to understand or comprehend global and local changes. In general, futurists work within the framework of complexity and uncertainty, try to re-define problems in broader context and attempt to comprehend ‘change’ using knowledge.An example could be helpful: the change we are experiencing in Eastern European countries appears as multi-dimensional: in less than 15 years those countries have moved from a
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- socialist economy (closed and planned), to a
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- ‘Western economy’ (the so-called market economy), to a
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- technological one as a consequence of globalisation and, lastly,
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- to the learning economy.
3.
Paul Dragos Aligica 《Futures》2009,41(3):147-155
The article is both a contribution to the intellectual history of the field and a reminder that future studies have always been concerned not only with the epistemics and the cognitive procedures regarding the future but also with the impact of ideas on the very unfolding of the future. Cases when social predictions, by the mere fact of being made public, change the situations they have predicted, are an important challenge for social theory and institutional design. Richard Henshel dedicated an important part of his work to their study. The paper starts by mapping the conceptual contours of the problem. Then it outlines the ways in which various authors have dealt with its challenge, thereby putting the distinctiveness of Henshel’s unique contribution in a clearer perspective. The paper continues by presenting Henshel’s main arguments as they were developed around the key concept of ‘prestige loop’ as well as some of the implications of the fact that social predictions and ‘prestige loops’ not only challenge the way we understand the relationship between social theory and its practical applications, but also the ways we understand the very nature of applied social science and its relationship with futures studies. 相似文献
4.
This paper develops a particular narratological approach to analyse a common category of narratives: individuals’ accounts of their organization’s context and purpose. In two phases of interview research with 45 senior UK accounting professionals (tax officials, tax advisors to, and tax directors of, multinational companies) we focus on a pivotal period in the governance of UK taxation. We advocate analysing what ordinarily could be called ‘real world’ narratives about this context (‘tax tales’) as if they were folk tales. This approach draws on an influential analysis of folk tales by Propp. Our theoretical contribution is to show how features of strong or dominant plots, of the kind that structure folk tales, also help accounting professionals to make sense of this complex governance environment. This helps us understand personal projects of sense making in a context that is technically, legally and morally complex and has implications for governance, for policy, and for accounting as a professional project. 相似文献
5.
This paper contributes to Strategic Niche Management (SNM), an analytical technique designed to facilitate the introduction and diffusion of radically new sustainable technologies through societal experiments. According to SNM, intensive networking among social actors is a crucial process for the successful incubation of new technologies. However, the manner in which innovation success relates to different characteristics pertaining to the structure and functioning of these actor networks has remained rather unclear. In this paper we open up this ‘black box’ by bringing in social network analysis (SNA), which allows for a more systematic analysis of this issue. We review theoretical SNA contributions that shed light on the link between actor network attributes and innovation outcomes. Then we elaborate a case study about the emerging biofuels sector in Tanzania. After analysing the case from a conventional SNM perspective, we apply SNA techniques to generate more in-depth insights into the composition and functioning of the actor network and how this affects the innovation performance and development prospects of the sector. Policy implications are also discussed. 相似文献
6.
Ziauddin Sardar 《Futures》2010,42(3):177-184
The term we used to describe the study of alternative futures is important. Disciplines and discourses do not emerge from a vacuum but have a history and a cultural context; and their names can hide as much as they reveal. This paper examines such terms as ‘futurology’ and ‘foresight’, and argues that to emphasise plurality and diversity the study of the future is best served by the moniker ‘futures studies’. It suggests that remembering the history of futures discourse is necessary to resolve the crisis of identity and meaning, and frequent fruitless reinvention, of the field. Finally, it presents Sardar's four laws of futures studies: futures studies are wicked (they deal largely with complex, interconnected problems), MAD (emphasise Mutually Assured Diversity), sceptical (question dominant axioms and assumptions) and futureless (bear fruit largely in the present). 相似文献
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Applying a resource-dependency perspective to intra-multinational enterprise (MNE) power [55] and [56], this paper examines the effect of the deployment of advanced ICT and particularly the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Although subsidiaries in the multinational do not have authority-based or ‘structural’ power with respect to key strategic decisions [6] and [16], they may have ‘resource-based’ power in the form of knowledge and capabilities that is of value to the multinational as a whole. Business network analysis highlights the ‘invisibility’ of the external networks (often in the host country) to the upper echelons in the multinational through which valuable subsidiary knowledge and capabilities develop. It points out that this ‘invisibility’ undermines the headquarters’ ability to control the subsidiary [3], [28], [36], [44], [70] and [74]. In this paper we argue that the deployment of ERP undermines the resource base of subsidiary power and thus helps to restore greater central authority in the MNE. The paper reports findings from studies in twelve MNEs which have implemented ERP and points out that from the perspective of subsidiary managers a key effect of ERP deployment is the reduction in their autonomy. This may have significant adverse implications for the futures of the MNE as a federative organizational form and the legitimacy of MNE operations abroad. 相似文献
9.
In this paper we develop the concept of compromising accounts as a distinctive approach to the analysis of whether and how accounting can facilitate compromise amongst organizational actors. We take the existence of conflicting logics and values as the starting point for our analysis, and directly examine the ways in which the design and operation of accounts can be implicated in compromises between different modes of evaluation and when and how such compromises can be productive or unproductive. In doing so, we draw on Stark’s (2009: 27) concept of ‘organizing dissonance’, where the coming together of multiple evaluative principles has the potential to produce a ‘productive friction’ that can help the organization to recombine ideas and perspectives in creative and constructive ways. In a field study of a non-government organization, we examine how debates and struggles over the design and operation of a performance measurement system affected the potential for productive debate and compromise between different modes of evaluation. Our study shows that there is much scope for future research to examine how accounts can create sites that bring together (or indeed push apart) organizational actors with different evaluative principles, and the ways in which this ‘coming together’ can be potentially productive and/or destructive. 相似文献
10.
Rather than appealing to the agency of community and the received discourse of sustainability, this paper offers a critical perspective on both concepts. It puts forward a contextually dynamic view of urban futures - presented at a moment when the continuity of human settlement in its current forms appears as increasingly problematic. Against this backdrop, both community and urban futures are rethought and brought into relation with (i) the emergent discourse of ‘sustainment’ (named as a moment, project and process) and (ii) the rise of ‘redirective practice’. Overall, the argument and ideas presented seek to reframe how the fate of the city, its social fabric, economy and political structures are viewed and engaged. 相似文献
11.
Even by neotropical standards, the Osa Peninsula on the Southwest Pacific coast of Costa Rica contains extraordinary levels of biodiversity and endemism. Despite a 40-year history of conservation in a country known for its conservation efforts, the greater Osa Bioregion and its complex of protected areas face an uncertain future. Habitat fragmentation and genetic isolation threaten the long-term survival of the Osa's signature species, while Osa policymakers with limited resources struggle to address dilemmas posed by illegal resource extraction and uncertain and changing land tenure. More recently, the socio-political landscape has changed with the emergence of a ‘landed conservation gentry,’ sharing the Osa's ecological wealth with the poor frontier campesino. A review of conservation efforts in the Osa through the political ecology construct of bioregionalism provides an opportunity to further define this construct in the distinct context of neotropical forest conservation. In this article we review the theoretical underpinnings of bioregionalism, focusing on its value for neotropical forest conservation, and apply it to the mosaic of public and private lands that encompass the Greater Osa Bioregion. We characterize the complex and shifting governance framework for Osa conservation focusing on the current conservation initiative, the Osa Biological Corridor project. We conclude with the suggestion that bioregionalism's emphasis on reconciliation of humans and their environment—‘reinhabitation’—an implicit goal of the Osa Biological Corridor project, may offer the best hope for the future. 相似文献
12.
This article analyses visions of the future articulated by proponents of ‘biotechnology for the poor’, those who claim that an embrace of transgenic technology in agriculture is critical to alleviating poverty in developing countries. Specifically, we analyse how such ‘biotechnology for the poor’ proponents represent a future with or without transgenic crops. Such representations include visions of a beckoning (promising) future, where much is to be gained from an embrace of transgenic technology in agriculture, and an onrushing (threatening) future, where much will be lost if the technology is not embraced. The article shows that claims about a beckoning or onrushing future by ‘biotechnology for the poor’ proponents are based upon unexamined or problematic assumptions about the poor and poverty. As such, poverty becomes merely a moral backdrop against which visions of a future are articulated. Furthermore, ‘biotechnology for the poor’ writings do not engage in dialogue with alternative voices in articulating their perspectives on the future, losing a key opportunity to democratize debate about this crucial issue. We conclude by considering the policy consequences (in regulatory and institutional terms) of ‘biotechnology for the poor’ depictions of the future, particularly for the global South where such consequences will be felt. 相似文献
13.
Paul Wildman 《Futures》2007,39(5):569-582
In today's complex and turbulent world it is vital to have futurists who can collaborate on collective projects, focus on action codified in exemplar projects and validate actions towards a better world. Unfortunately, current ‘education’ systems focus almost exclusively on the individual learner and have separated the learner from the praxis of the lived life. Furthermore, classrooms separate the learner from design, production and integration of learning into community life. The author argues that overcoming this separation of thinking and doing is one of the key challenges for modernity in future, in particular.This paper argues that a way in which we may be able to meet this challenge is known by the term ‘bush mechanics’ in Australia—innovative individuals who look forward wisely and solve collective problems today through applying their ingenuity with what is available, thus integrating thinking, doing and being in what in ancient times was called poiesis and in Medieval times ‘artificing’ and today can be seen in action learning and the bush mechanic. The four principles, as well as examples, of the bush mechanic approach are discussed including their exemplar projects. Finally, the importance of the bush mechanic approach to ‘futuring’ and creating living breathing examples today of a future our children can live with is emphasised and collaboration sought. 相似文献
14.
Miriam Sharma 《Futures》2005,37(9):989-1003
The peculiarly American study of the ‘non-Western’ world—going under the rubric of interdisciplinary ‘area studies’—is in crisis. Its origins date back to the postwar and Cold War period and may be best understood as a political and policy-driven scholarly endeavor that flourished in the 1960s, 1970s and well into the 1980s. There have been many critiques from both within and outside the field. This article discusses the impacts of major globalizing trends on the field as well as new directions for the future. It focuses on the ‘Moving Cultures’ project of the School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Hawai'i1 that was part of a larger Ford Foundation's initiative to revitalize area studies. This ongoing project utilizes computer-based and other interactive technologies to link students and classrooms across the Pacific divide as part of a pedagogy intending to decolonize area studies. The promises and perils of technology as a beacon for the future of area studies is critically assessed. 相似文献
15.
Stefanie Jenssen 《Futures》2010,42(4):345-354
How does the reflexive knowledge we develop about institutions and environments influence the expectations we might have about the future? The paper addresses this question in the context of Foresight in local governance. It describes a project aiming at creating visions for a Norwegian municipality by inviting schoolchildren to contribute with their ideas of the future. The focus is on how the interactions between project owners and participants produced certain forms of resistance and led to visions best described as idealistic conformism. Introducing the idea of ‘reflexive futures’, I suggest that that a broader understanding of reflexivity as containing both enabling and constraining features can help to unlock certain paradoxes of current Foresight and provide a renewed inquiry into the practise of visioning for strategy and long-term planning. 相似文献
16.
David Turnbull 《Futures》2010,42(2):149-153
In the context of a wider discussion on ‘integral futures’ this paper reconsiders the openly integrative tendency of some moral-hermeneutic agendas. In relating a story that includes a personal failure to bring about ‘integrality’ despite having the best of intentions, a third space is opened as a way to rethink moral futures. 相似文献
17.
All scenario planning projects have a ‘client’ and one of the most challenging tasks facing a scenario planner is the client's role or position in the way projects are conceptualized, delivered and received. The scenario planner has to establish and manage a ‘successful client relationship’—but what actually constitutes that for a scenario planning project?The client acts as the conduit between the scenario planner and the organization for which the scenario planning project is being undertaken.The ‘client as conduit’ implies several challenges for the scenario planner including:
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- The client's awareness and understanding of scenario planning as a method for their organization to learn from the future [1].
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- The client's level of commitment to learning from the future.
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- The size and context of the scenario planning project.
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- The position of the client within a network of people and/or resources required to run a scenario planning project.
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- The client's involvement or position within the scenario building team created in the project.
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- The benefits and risks accruing to the client through the execution of the scenario planning project.
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- The client organization's capacity to act strategically; its power to perform.
18.
Paul Cilliers 《Futures》2005,37(7):605-613
In this paper the underlying concern is the problem of knowledge. How do we understand the world, what is ‘scientific’ knowledge, and to what extent is this knowledge limited by the fact that the world in which we live is complex? The problems associated with the status of our knowledge of the world have been central to philosophy all along. Here I will focus on the way in which the acknowledgement of complexity transforms some of the traditional conceptions of (especially scientific) knowledge. I will also examine the notions of boundaries and limits, arguing that these notions are not problems we have to get out of the way, but that they are inevitable as soon as we start talking of ‘knowledge’. 相似文献
19.
Isabel Loupa Ramos 《Futures》2010,42(7):682-692
The European Landscape Convention (ELC) calls for the definition of ‘landscape quality objectives’ (LQO) as “the formulation by the competent public authorities of the aspirations of the public with regard to the landscape features of their surroundings”. However, it is not yet defined how the integration of the visions of the public should be carried out. Notably in regions with poor participatory culture and in rural landscapes abandoned by people and consequently by their activities, dealing with the future does not seem a straightforward task. In these marginal rural landscapes the role of agriculture is being altered under the influence of the new rationale of the Common Agriculture Policy, so it may have to assume different functions in the future. Thus, this paper aims at showing how the development of ‘exploratory landscape scenarios’ can be a useful tool, firstly to find plausible landscape futures, and secondly to trigger discussions with the public regarding their aspirations for their landscape. The development procedure for ‘exploratory landscape scenarios’ builds on the ‘intuitive logics’ approach that focuses on the production of a variety of scenarios as starting point for discussion about the future rather than on finding an optimal one, which can limit the options unnecessarily from the beginning. The methodological approach is illustrated at a local scale by using the case study of Mértola in southeast Portugal. The results of the scenario exercise point out the adequateness of the methodology in the development of futures that are perceived as plausible by local stakeholders and, thereby, able to bring out their desires and threats towards the future of their landscape. 相似文献
20.
Henri Guénin-Paracini Bertrand Malsch Anne Marché Paillé 《Accounting, Organizations and Society》2014
Relying on an ethnographic study conducted in the French branch of a big audit firm and using a psychodynamic perspective to interpret the collected data, we show that auditors’ sense of comfort (Pentland, 1993) arises only at the end of the audit process, and that the rest of the time, public accountants are inhabited primarily by fear. Fear plays a crucial but ambivalent role in auditing. On one hand, auditors and audit firms cultivate this feeling through informal and formal techniques to stimulate vigilance, encourage self-surpassment, mitigate the anesthetizing effect of habit and maintain reputation. On the other hand, audit teams’ members strive to alleviate their fear in order to form and convey their conclusions with a certain degree of comfort. In the field, driven by fear, they manage to finally become comfortable either by mobilizing their ‘practical intelligence’ (an intelligence of the body which helps them handle that which, in their mission, cannot be obtained through the strict execution of standardized procedures) or by adopting defensive strategies (such as distancing themselves from work-related problems, mechanically applying audit methodologies or relaxing their conception of a job well done). Fear and risk are closely related phenomena. Michael Power (2007a, p. 180) notes that ‘the significant driver of the managerialization of risk management is an institutional fear and anxiety’. Yet the experience of fear and the role that fear plays in risk management processes is most often overlooked in the literature. In this respect, our study contributes to ‘emotionalize’ and challenge the cognitive and technical orientation adopted by most academics and regulators in their understanding of audit risks and auditors’ scepticism. We also discuss a number of avenues for future research with a view to encouraging further examination of the role that emotions play in the audit process. 相似文献