Forecasting, backcasting, migration landscapes and strategic planning maps

Forecasting and backcasting are both useful techniques for futures strategic planning. However, attempting to integrate these is problematic as the former constrains what the latter can achieve. Here, development of strategic planning maps to mediate this transition is suggested. These are based on the development of migration landscapes that span the gap between projected trends and aspirational futures, highlighting those intermediate events or indicators that will indicate realisation. This allows the determination of intermediate states assuring viability during the transition and the opportunity to respond to changes in the environment. As such, decision makers can better manage risk and so make better informed decisions.     

Reconciling the electricity industry with sustainable development: backcasting — a strategic alternative

The concept of Sustainability has emerged from a recognition that all terrestrial systems, be they natural or human, are interconnected, and cannot, therefore, be adequately understood through reductionist analysis. Such an understanding has fundamental implications for the policy making process. While specialist knowledge remains an essential prerequisite in the development of effective ‘sustainability’ policies, it is not in itself sufficient. An equally important, and all too often neglected, component, is the understanding and insight gained from synthesising detailed and disparate information from across a range of disciplines. With this in mind, this paper builds on Lovin's and Robinson's earlier ‘backcasting’ work to suggest an alternative strategic structure for reconciling a reliable and affordable electricity industry with the broad tenets of sustainable development. Within this alternative model, electricity demand, as well as supply, becomes an endogenous factor in the policy making process. Moreover, the model essentially rejects the mechanistic optimisation underpinning both the contemporary market model and the earlier planned structure of the electricity industry. By contrast, the backcast proposed here embraces wider environmental and social responsibilities through a more circumspect appreciation of current knowledge and hence a more flexible and responsive policy agenda.     

Futures literacy: A hybrid strategic scenario method

What stories do we tell about the future? This article develops a topology of storytelling about the future, which is used to develop a definition of ‘futures literacy’. It goes on to outline a hybrid strategic scenario method for acquiring the capacities of futures literacy.     

Participative backcasting: A tool for involving stakeholders in local sustainability planning

This paper reports on the use of a backcasting approach with local stakeholders in five European cities where several Images of the Future were formulated for household consumption in sustainable cities. The aim was to find methods for inspiring local stakeholders to participate in discussions about sustainability with a long-term perspective. Previous exercises of similar kinds have mainly involved experts. A method based on workshops and back-office work was developed and is described and analysed here, together with the results obtained. The outcomes in terms of ideas, votes and dimensions are also discussed. The findings suggest that the method worked reasonably well, with the process quality receiving the highest ratings. The quality of outcomes was perceived as less reliable. Adaptations should include more efforts to recruit participants with varied backgrounds and more innovative approaches for liberating subjects’ minds during the time travel stage of the process. The outcomes obtained show that there appears to be a common set of popular ideas for more sustainable everyday city life in the EU, including more local and organic food, a greener environment, better public transport and opportunities for non-motorised transport and reorientation of values.     

构建富有韧性的可持续城市发展路线图

世界银行最新报告《城市规划、连接与融资——现在：城市的优先重点》称,如果现在所做的基础设施、住房与公共服务投资实现高效率和可持续性,快速城市化就能给发展中国家带来长期的经济、社会和环境效益。     

Constructing a knowledge‐based system to aid scenario‐based strategic planning: an application to the European airline industry

This paper explores the use of scenario planning and the design of a knowledge‐based system in strategic decision making, in the context of the European airline industry. Several innovative strategies were derived, as well as other key recommendations based on sound strategic reasoning, and participants testified to the effectiveness of the approach in stretching their thinking. The requirement to draft strategies as expert system rules, with reasons, was useful in clarifying thinking and achieving group consensus. This methodology, therefore, aids effectiveness of the scenario planning process itself, while providing a dynamic, accessible means of storing the resulting strategic thinking. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Futures in Australian education—tacit, token and taken for granted

This article critically examines ways in which futures are conceptualized in the language of Australian education. From an analysis of selected examples of research reports, policy documents and other texts, it is suggested that futures in Australian educational discourse are often conceived in terms of (1) tacit inferences, (2) token invocations or (3) taken for granted assumptions. Conceptualizing futures in such ways may be disempowering and allows education in Australia to be vulnerable to forces of economic and technological determinism.     

Bidders’ strategic timing of acquisition announcements and the effects of payment method on target returns and competing bids

Using a sample of acquisition announcements released during trading versus nontrading hours, this study examines how the strategic timing of acquisition announcements determines the impact of the method of payment on target stock returns and competition among bidders. For overnight acquisition announcements, we find that cash payment offers positively and significantly affect acquisition premiums and target returns, yet these results do not hold for daytime announcements. Cash payment offers made during nontrading hours are more likely to deter potential bidders and complete proposed transactions. However, we find no such relationship for daytime announcements. These findings suggest that the timing of acquisition announcements by bidders is important for assessing the effects of payment method as a signal of target valuation and a preemption of competing bids.     

A multi‐agent‐based hybrid framework for international marketing planning under uncertainty

The increased complexity and competition in the global marketing environment present new challenges to decision‐makers. The characteristics of the international marketing planning problem are clarified in this paper. The advantages and disadvantages of relevant techniques and technologies that may be applied to deal with the planning problem are analysed. A multi‐agent‐based hybrid intelligent framework for international marketing planning and associated Internet strategy formulation is then established, with underlying techniques, technologies, software architecture and integration method outlined. In addition, a software prototype of the hybrid framework, called AgentsInternational, is created and presented, with initial evaluation results reported. Further work on this topic is also planned. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non-receptive organizational contexts and scenario planning interventions: A demonstration of inertia in the strategic decision-making of a CEO, despite strong pressure for a change

This study presents a single-case analysis of an unsuccessful scenario planning intervention within an organization. Our analysis utilises corporate documents produced prior to a scenario-based intervention, pre-scenario-development interviews with members of the top management team, and knowledge of post-intervention events. We conclude that, even in the face of strong, orchestrated pressure for a re-think of a fragile strategy, the aspirations of the CEO were dominant. Our case analysis illustrates that inertia in strategic decision making can be extreme—more extreme than the extant literature has recognised. Critical voices can go unheard. We end with consideration of issues to do with facilitating the early recognition that a strategizing intervention can stall.     

“Every today was a tomorrow”: An integral method for indexing the social mediation of preferred futures

The visions we hold of the future, whether they are of utopias or dystopias, are not simply a matter of personal imagination. Our conceptions of the future are mediated to us as much as they are privately created by us. To this point, futures studies have not developed an integrative and broad-based framework for considering the social mediation of futures. Understanding how social mediation impacts on our futures visioning requires an interpretive framework that can cope with the multilayered nature of futures visions, the worldviews that are associated with them and a theory of mediation that can be applied within such a context of ‘depth’. Using theory-building methodology, the current paper attempts this task by describing a theory of social mediation that builds on the integral futures framework. An application of the framework explores the relationship between various scenarios of health care futures, their associated worldviews and the mediational factors that influence our visions of future health care systems.