Implications of two new paradigms for futures studies

The paper considers the emergence of two recent perspectives in futures work. One is evolutionary futures studies. The other is critical futures studies. After describing aspects of each, the paper considers them as alternative rival paradigms in relation to criteria that include: the role of the human being as subject, the role of interpretation and differences in methodological premises. It concludes that both have contributed to the development of futures methods but that a number of theoretical and methodological problems still remain unsolved.     

Weak signals analysis,knowledge management theory and systemic socio-cultural transitions

The theoretical goal of this article is to narrow the gap between existing knowledge management theories and theories of weak signal analysis, and partly wild card analysis. The following theories and associated theoretical frameworks are discussed in the article: (1) Environmental Scanning Model, (2) Nonaka's Knowledge Management Theory, (3) Gammelgaard's and Ritter's Knowledge Retrieval Matrix, (4) Boisot's Information Space Model and (5) Vejlgaard's Diamond Shaped Trend Model. These various and nevertheless complementary perspectives are important for the further development of weak signal analysis, knowledge management theory and knowledge management practices in modern organisations as well as for anticipation and decision-making in policy-making arenas. There are still many theoretical and empirical challenges in these fields of scientific knowledge. A general conclusion is that all these frameworks provide interesting new perspectives for modern futures studies as such. Another conclusion is that there are various knowledge management (KM) and scanning frameworks available for implementing weak signal analysis. However, this paper, its observations and conclusions also imply that a more generalised approach to weak signal analysis needs to be developed and that modern KM theories should be used when developing new futures studies/foresight methodologies. According to the theoretical guidelines presented in this article, it is possible to make the suggestion that it would be wise to integrate the latest developments in weak signal analysis into knowledge management theory and vice versa.     

Learning with futures to realise progress towards sustainability: The WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative

This paper addresses the limited evidence of how futures work bears fruit in the present by exploring a specific, yet significant, empirical case study. The results of our longitudinal study into the WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative shed light on how organisations are harnessing the perspective of the long term future to identify what can and should be done in the near term to keep progress towards sustainability on track. We provide evidence of the expected and realised benefits of this collaborative futures initiative. These benefits extend beyond direct decision support, manifest at multiple levels and vary over time. We note that shift from single client to collaborative futures work is inherent to addressing sustainability challenges and call for more research into how collaborative futures practices are evolving to deal with new puzzles and wicked problems.     

Forecasts or fallacies: Two issues for futures research on the internet

This paper explores the idea of futures research online, and considers whether two issues in particular — high rates of change, and complexity — pose a significant problem to the success of internet-orientated futures research. In particular, these two potential problems will be considered from the perspective of new developments within futures research frameworks and methodologies.     

Information transmission in informationally linked markets: Evidence from US and Chinese commodity futures markets

This paper investigates information transmission and price discovery in informationally linked markets within the multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity and information share frameworks. Based on both synchronous and non-synchronous trading information from Chinese futures/spot markets, the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), and CME Globex futures markets for copper and soybeans, we show that there is a bidirectional relationship in terms of price and volatility spillovers between US and Chinese markets, with a stronger effect from US to Chinese markets than the other way around. Additionally, the NYMEX and CBOT play a more important role than the CME Globex in the flow of information from US to Chinese markets. Moreover, we find that Chinese copper market adjusts more quickly than the NYMEX copper market to correct the disparity between both markets. However, the converse is true in the case of soybeans. Finally, our results highlight the remarkable role of Chinese futures markets in the price formation process, though NYMEX and CBOT futures markets are the main driving force in price discovery.     

Toward a simulated replica of futures: Classification and possible trajectories of simulation in futures studies

Simulation is likely to become a prominent method of theory development. Futures studies have used simulation in different ways such as evaluating scenarios. Nonetheless, the central attributes of computer simulation such as reductionism-based abstraction, determinism and elimination of stakeholders are the main barriers of successful implementation of simulation in FS. In this paper, we would paint the plausible evolutionary panorama of futures of simulation in futures studies after looking at the role of simulation in FS so far. The possible mechanisms and partnerships required to be applied to grapple the above-mentioned difficulties will be enumerated and investigated. These, in three categories, comprise firstly, human-machine interactions such as quasi-game simulations, and scenario visualization, secondly, large-network simulations including crowd sourcing, and thirdly, simulation platforms for replication of emergence. Ergo, crafting a classification of simulation in futures studies and the possible developments will be the main contribution of this paper. A novel double diamond classification will be presented as well which reflects the past and plausible futures of simulation in futures studies.     

Emerging pathways for critical futures research: Changing contexts and impacts of social theory

There has always been a critical, emancipatory tradition within futures studies. Although those voices can still be heard, there has been a growing tendency for futures studies to be driven by more utilitarian needs in business and government. Whilst it is positive that futures thinking and research is increasingly valued within corporate and policy-making settings, much of that work appears to lack genuine plurality of worldviews and interests.The paper traces the changing contexts for futures research over the past 25 years. It argues that futures research needs to be viewed as part of the re-politicisation – in the Habermasian sense – of technocratic decision-making. It suggests that there are three particular reasons for revisiting the need for criticality in futures research: the increasing acknowledgement of systemic interrelatedness (ecological, social, economic), a growth in the forward-looking socio-economic paradigm that permeates both business and policy, and the challenge of theory development. Drawing on social theory and futures research, we suggest three pathways for revived critical futures research: socio-technical practices, future-oriented dialectics, and socio-economic imaginaries. As a result, the paper calls for development in futures studies that would dialectically integrate and overcome the dichotomy between instrumentalisation and (critical) theorising that can be currently understood as somewhat antagonistic. In order to find a balance between these antagonistic dimensions, futures research should be more engaged in enabling critique and revealing assumptions and interests.     

Developing urban and regional foresight: exploring capacities and identifying needs in the North West

Recent changes in the context for English governance are creating new opportunities for futures thinking at urban and regional level. Drawing on a study of key stakeholders concerned with urban and regional development, this paper presents an analysis of current approaches to future thinking amongst policy-makers in England’s North West region. The study offered an opportunity to explore attitudes to foresight and existing capacities amongst public, private and voluntary organisations, to find out best practices in different sectors, and to investigate potential gaps, constraints and needs in terms of futures thinking. The paper describes the main results from the North West study and concludes by exploring ways of enhancing the capacity for territorial foresight at urban and regional levels.     

Boldly going where no brain has gone: Futures of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience

Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience (ECN) is a new discipline that employs methodology from cognitive neuroscience to study, in vivo, the proximate mechanisms of putative evolved psychological/cognitive adaptations. The formalized discipline is less than five years old, but has already generated a plethora of research as well as extended our understanding of the evolved nature of the mind/brain. Here we briefly recapitulate the antecedents to an evolutionarily informed cognitive neuroscience, attempt to fit ECN into a broader evolutionary psychology framework that seeks to account for evolved adaptations to recurrent problems faced by our ancestors, and discuss the futures of this newly formed discipline by expounding on methodological techniques and theoretical accounts that may pervade our future. We believe, as the Nobel laureate Nikko Tinbergen has suggested, that a complete understanding of the evolved nature of behavior and cognition (i.e., evolved cognitive adaptations) can only come from investigations at both the proximate and ultimate levels and, thus here, we attempt to cast ECN as the proximate sister discipline to evolutionary psychology. When taken together these two disciplines have the potential to uncover how and why the mind works.     

Identifying the comovement of price between China's and international crude oil futures: A time-frequency perspective

Identifying the comovement of price between China's and international crude oil futures can help different market players gain a deeper understanding of the world crude oil market. This paper uses the wavelet (wavelet coherence and phase) methods to study the comovement characteristics at different time scales from three aspects (the strength of comovement, the direction of comovement and the lead-lag relationship of price fluctuation) and uses the complex network method to explore the evolutionary characteristics of the comovement with time. We use the daily closing prices of WTI, Brent and China's crude oil futures (INE) as sample data. The results show that the comovement between INE and international crude oil futures is extremely different from that between other international crude oil futures, and the comovement at different time scales is also different. Compared with the comovement between WTI and Brent crude oil futures, the comovement strength between INE and international crude oil futures is weak and the comovement direction is unstable. China's crude oil futures price fluctuation also tends to lag behind that of international crude oil futures. Compared with the long-term, the short-term comovement strength is weaker, the comovement states are more diverse and the transition between comovement states is more complex. Moreover, during the evolution of time, some comovement states have a higher probability of occurrence and they are also more stable than others. These findings are helpful for policy makers to design policies and for investors to make investment decisions.     

The future of health futures

Health futures represents the application of various futures tools to the arenas of health and health care. This special issue of Futures reflects the significant growth of health futures. Health and health-care systems can be far better by the early 21st century, or they could be worse. Health futures enables individuals, organizations and communities to understand better the threats and opportunities facing their health, both of which are profound. The International Health Futures Network is an indicator of the growth of this subfield of futures. The future of health futures will be shaped by the ability of futures techniques and those who use them to provide value to organizations and individuals. Better networking among health futurists, expert systems, and the ability to measure and communicate quality will be essential.     

Integral futures based on the paradigm approach

The study discusses the interpretation of integral futures in the context of paradigm. The dynamic matrix model of futures paradigm has been developed for carrying out meta-analysis of futures. As a result of meta-analysis integral futures and its new paradigms are defined by way of reconstructing futures paradigm history as responses to changing societal needs and through the outcomes of dynamic and comparative analysis of futures paradigms. The study sets the argument that integral futures: (a) is entering a new phase in development of futures that responds to societal demands for sustainability, democratic participation and continuous knowledge production and integration, (b) it is the phase of cooperation building between theoretical and practical futures, (c) it is the complementary development of co-evolutionary and participatory paradigms, and (d) it unfolds further research perspectives for futures.     

Developing an abduction-based method for futures research

Futures research is an established field of knowledge with a wealth of methods and techniques. However, foresight, future outlooks and scenarios are, as a rule, based on inductivist or deductivist methods, making looking into the future a form of conservative projecting of past and present probabilities onto the road of development lying ahead of us. Closed past or present outlooks give birth to open futures, but these futures usually are little more than exercises in organizational learning. In this paper we present and develop a method for futures research that is based on abductive logic. Abduction-based futures research approach proceeds from closed, imaginary future states to alternative, open theoretical frameworks or explanations. Unlike inductivists and deductivists believe, this procedure from the unknown to the known is rational, and therefore something that can be systematized and learned. There is a logic of discovery, and what could be a better place to apply and develop it than futures research.     

Evidence on the arbitrage efficiency of SPI index futures and options markets

This paper is concerned with arbitrage opportunities in the futures and futures option contracts traded on the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) within a put-call-futures-parity (PCFP) framework. Tick-by-tick transaction price data are employed so that the futures contracts, the call futures options and the put futures options can be matched within a one-minute interval. This paper also takes into account the realistic transaction costs that an arbitrager has to incur, including the implicit bid-ask spread. A thorough ex post analysis is first carried out. The results reveal a significant number of violations of the PCFP in the sample. Ex ante tests are then conducted whereby ex post profitable arbitrage strategies, signified by the matched trios of futures, put and call contracts, are executed with lags up to 3 min. The ex ante results are similar to the ex post results. However, further analysis reveals that the exploitability of the identified arbitrage opportunities is very limited due to the small trading volumes of the futures and options contracts. Thus, we conclude that there is no strong evidence against the arbitrage efficiency between the SPI index futures and options markets in Australia.      

Integrating futures studies with organizational development: Design options for the scenario project ‘RWS2020’

Most futures studies are not used by managers and strategists and do not influence the direction of organizational development. Although the contribution of future studies to management is in theory all but self-evident, the practice in organizations is that futures knowledge is hardly used, or at most, is used selectively and strategically (‘politically’). This article acknowledges that gap and claims that it is a fundamental divide between to very different domains. However, out of that re-conceptualization of the relation between futures studies and management, a new direction for an integrated praxis arises. In an empirical case study, we show that by means of an intelligent process-design and professional balancing of several key-dilemmas, futures studies can be connected to management processes and organizational development. The future can be brought back into the everyday practice of management. However, in order to do so, the futures field needs to set aside some of its methodological claims and move towards the field of strategic management. Not because futurists need to abandon their specific knowledge and expertise, but to make the most of it.     

Eco-logical education for the long emergency

In its inadvertent creation of multiple ecological crises including climate change, humanity as a whole appears caught in a lemmings loop, racing toward a probable future identified as The Long Emergency. One might think that even the possibility of this future scenario should be sufficient to effect a revolution in education. Yet overall there appears to be insufficient depth of respons-ability in this regard, of taking heed of ecological educational discourse. The paper advocates a deeply ecological education through identifying the significance of ecoliteracy as involving a critical contrast between two worldviews (modernism and a prospective ecological worldview). The paper advances futures of ecological thinking through a deep interpretation of ecology and related terms including ecosystem and eco-logics. The complex integrative character of conceptual ecology is foregrounded and extended through associating it with transdisciplinarity, integralism and critical realism under the overarching orientation of Boyer's scholarship of integration.     

The role of speculation in international futures markets on commodity prices

The role of futures contracts on spot prices has been one of the key focus areas of research since the recent surge in commodity prices and increase in the volatility of commodity returns. However, no consensus arises from this literature, and hence it is difficult to link the use of futures contracts in agricultural commodities by non-hedgers and the growing food insecurity within developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to highlight causal relationships from futures contracts to spot prices of underlying assets, namely agricultural commodities. As research that focus on exchange-traded funds do not provide any clear conclusions, we focus on the imbalance between short- and long-open positions, this imbalance being caused by the exchange traded funds’ participation in futures markets. In this paper, we estimate relationships between financial variables including indicators for speculation in futures markets and the returns of cocoa, corn, soybean, wheat, coffee, rice, and sugar on a weekly basis from 1998 to 2013. Significant results lead to Granger-causality tests that in turn validate the hypothesis of a positive impact of speculation in futures markets to returns on the underlying commodities.     

Globally scanning for “Megatrends of the Mind”: Potential futures of futures thinking

This paper focuses on emergent signs of evolutionary change in human thinking that run parallel with many of the exponential changes manifesting in the external world. Weak signals are identified from the early 20th century indicating the emergence of new knowledge patterns. These signals have strengthened in the last 40 years. The paper first identifies new ways of thinking within several disciplines such as science, philosophy, religion and education. New knowledge patterns are then identified in discourses that traverse disciplinary boundaries through transdisciplinary approaches such as futures studies and planetary/global studies. The paper then discusses evolution of consciousness, identifying research that theorises new ways of thinking as being related to individual psychological development and/or socio-cultural evolution. Finally, evolutionary concepts are discussed that attempt to meta-cohere the new knowledge patterns via the terms postformal, integral and planetary. Notably, academic research on “futures of thinking,” “evolution of consciousness” and/or “global mindset change” has been, until now, largely ignored by mainstream academic discourse on evolution, consciousness and futures studies.     

Adoption of activity management practices in public sector organizations

This paper examines the extent to which activity management practices are adopted by Australian public sector organizations at each of Gosselin's (1997) levels of Activity Analysis, Activity Cost Analysis, and Activity‐based Costing. The present paper replicates Baird et al. (2004), thereby enabling a comparison of the extent of adoption of activity management in the public sector with that reported in the private sector in Baird et al. (2004). The results reveal that the adoption of higher level activity management practices (Activity Cost Analysis and Activity‐based Costing) is less prevalent in public sector organizations, whereas they adopt Activity Analysis to the same extent as the private sector.