Strategic foresight in corporate organizations: Handling the effect and response uncertainty of technology and social drivers of change

Today many companies in many industries put a lot of efforts into monitoring and investigating emerging drivers of change in their business environment, particularly in relation to new technologies and events in the social, economic, political and ecological landscapes which surround their industry. So far scholars in the literature on foresight and future studies focused on the techniques and practices for analysing the “state” uncertainty about the likely path of evolution of emerging drivers of change. Anyway, less attention was devoted to the “effect” uncertainty about the impact of drivers of change on the competitive position of the firm and to the “response” uncertainty about how to take advantage of these drivers. These are the main issues we take into account, through a field research on firms that, notwithstanding they were able to properly assess the likely evolution (state uncertainty) of relevant drivers of change in their industry, either were successful or dramatically failed in handling the effect and response uncertainty of these drivers. Moreover, we carried out multiple case studies of some large companies that have established an organizational unit dedicated to strategic foresight. Overall, the results of our research may contribute to improve the effectiveness of strategic foresight and to increase its value added to the planning process of corporate firms, while providing helpful insight to public organizations that promote foresight exercises for enhancing the competitiveness of local firms.     

How does cultural intelligence influence the relationships between potential and realised absorptive capacity and innovativeness? Evidence from Poland

Cultural intelligence underpins the interaction between firms and their cultural environments as the domain of external sources that are explored and utilised for innovation through absorptive capacity. This research seeks to answer the question of if and how cultural intelligence moderates the links between innovativeness and potential and realised absorptive capacity. We test our hypotheses based on data from 215 firms operating in Poland. We demonstrate that cultural intelligence strengthens the linkage between potential absorptive capacity and innovativeness that highlights cultural intelligence as an important enabler of exploring new and diverse external knowledge sources. We discuss cultural intelligence concept in relation to strategic management and reveal its contingent role in innovativeness.     

Foresight in corporate organisations

Strategy formulation is strictly intertwined with the analysis of the likely evolution of the business environment, in order to detect promptly the opportunities and the threats brought about by emerging trends and to deal with them properly (strategic foresight). Today many companies put much effort into strategic foresight, and also in the literature on strategy there is a growing attention to strategic foresight. However, it still seems there is a lack of a general framework of analysis that clearly defines how all the foresight activities should be carried out in a firm and should be integrated in an organic way, in order to support strategic decision makers at corporate, business and functional levels. This is the main issue we have taken into account through the study of some relevant European and US firms that have established foresight units, in order to deliver support for long term strategy formulation.     

The exploratory analysis of trade-offs in strategic planning: Lessons from Regional Infrastructure Foresight

The sustainable transformation of infrastructure sectors represents a challenge of prime importance worldwide. Due to long life times of infrastructures, strategic decision making has to explicitly consider uncertainties in context conditions, value considerations and available technological alternatives. However currently, strategic infrastructure planning is often carried out in a very narrow perspective. The present paper argues that foresight informed strategic planning, allows addressing trade-offs related to context uncertainties, value conflicts and sustainability deficits in a structured way. The paper introduces a specific procedural proposal, the Regional Infrastructure Foresight method (RIF) and illustrates its potential virtues through an application to urban water management planning in a Swiss region (Kiesental).     

Constructing and mobilising futures knowledge in an organisation: foresight as a catalyst of dynamic strategic practice

The paper discusses foresight as a dynamic strategic practice and theorises the connections of foresight and strategic management. The paper argues that organisations have a rising need to foster relevant future-oriented knowledge in a continuous process that builds on the systemic understanding of the operational environment. For this purpose, the paper outlines a conceptual framework for continuous organisational foresight practice. The framework is based on two conceptual bedrocks. The first is the idea of continuity, referring to the long-term accumulation of organisational practices. The second bedrock is the notion of discontinuity as an organisational transformation factor. Furthermore, the framework builds on the notion of four knowledge spaces in an organisation, and it is constructed through six layers depicted in detail. The paper demonstrates this framework through a case study of a Finnish research and technology organisation, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.     

企业如何从绿色管理中获利:战略更新视角

绿色管理已经成为企业应对政府和公众环境关切的重要战略选择。企业如何以及在何种情况下能依靠绿色管理提高绩效成为重要研究问题。整合资源基础观和战略更新研究,构建一个被调节的中介模型,以阐明绿色管理如何通过战略更新的中介作用影响绩效,同时分析竞争强度的调节作用。基于288家企业的实证结果表明,绿色管理与企业战略更新、战略更新与企业绩效显著正相关,战略更新对绿色管理与绩效之间的关系具有完全中介作用,竞争强度正向调节战略更新对企业绩效的影响,也正向调节战略更新在绿色管理与企业绩效之间的中介作用。研究有助于从战略更新视角深化对绿色管理影响企业绩效路径机制的理解,对企业成功实施绿色转型有重要实践启示。     

Plays nice with others? Multiple ecosystems,various roles and divergent engagement models

In strategic management, the term meta-organisation is discussed as a network of firms and individuals in which members coexist, collaborate and evolve through a set of relationships and together form a larger organism. We focus on the meta-organisation form of an ecosystem in the IT industry, which often is based around a technical architecture or platform. Studies often discuss one network and selected members in such a network, but few mention that firms can work in multiple ecosystems and need to apply divergent engagement models. We study how firms engage in multiple ecosystems through three qualitative case studies. The article contributes with the following: (1) firms often operate in multiple ecosystems for which they need to dynamically adapt their engagement strategy. (2) Firms are striving to balance between strategic divergences: power versus symbiosis and a collaborative approach versus a competitive approach.     

The future of the future: Strategic foresight in Latin America

With few differences in timing, future studies in Latin America were initiated with a linear conception of reality. Orchestrated with techniques such as the Delphi, future studies were supported by mathematical principles of probability. Several countries have surpassed this stage while moving into strategic foresight. Strategic foresight analyzes the future as a multiple reality. In other words, it means thinking differently and not reading reality in a linear manner. It means accepting that there is not one future but several futures and that one question could have more than one answer.This change has demanded a shift in mentality. The presence of the disciplines in universities is of vital importance. For example, the Technological Institute of Monterrey (Mexico) and the Universidad Externado de Colombia (Bogota) offer foresight and strategy programs at the graduate level.This article describes how different individuals, groups, agencies and institutions in Latin America have emerged thanks to the support provided by the science and technology governmental agencies of each country. The author provides examples from different countries including Colombia, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Currently, strategic foresight is slowly gaining recognition and acceptance as a compass for productive sectors and as a generator of competitiveness.However, despite the contributions of strategic foresight, Latin American countries, with the exception of some of the above-mentioned countries, have struggled to take off into the future. The role of strategic foresight can become the driving force behind this awakening, if the challenge of linking global trends with local contextualization through scenarios is accepted.     

Environmental uncertainty,foresight and strategic decision making: An integrated study

This paper explores how the foresight practices and techniques that might be used for coping with environmental uncertainty are coordinated throughout large corporations and how their results are used for supporting strategic decision making. Based on an in-depth and multiple study of several companies, we analyse the main characteristics of environmental uncertainty - complexity and dynamism - that shape companies’ approaches to strategic foresight and uncertainty management. We explore the impact of growing complexity and dynamism on these approaches and the role of prediction and control in their design and implementation. We outline a conceptual framework for strategic foresight activities - and their relationships with decision making under uncertainty - as a planned learning process about the future which enables managers not to know opportunities and threats in advance, but to detect them more promptly and to react more effectively as soon as they start emerging.     

Strategic foresight and organizational learning: A survey and critical analysis

Learning phenomena are a growing concern for strategic foresight, especially with respect to the question of integration of reflection and action. Although an agreement seems to emerge between practitioners and theorists about strong ties linking strategic foresight and learning (in particular organizational learning), the true nature of this link remains ambiguous. This article seeks to shed light on this link and to analyze the cognitive dimensions of foresight through a critical survey. The investigation follows the original ambivalence between foresight attitude and activity thus underscoring not only the virtues of foresight in learning phenomena, but also the limits of the usual literature.     

Future-oriented technology analysis as a driver of strategy and policy

The methodology known as strategic foresight is an important tool to be used in long-term strategic planning activities and in support of the decision making process in public as well as private sectors. This article addresses the use of strategic foresight applied to the strategic management plan for an agency that deals with the funding and promotion for the development of science, technology and innovation in Brazil, and the logic that permeated its construction, promoting an alliance of the concepts of strategy and foresight. It has as key elements the long-term vision and the adoption of participatory approach and qualitative and quantitative methods. The methodological framework involved the use of different techniques, methods and tools, including, among others, web survey, diagnosis, SWOT, future timeline, interviews, workshops and strategic roadmap.     

Technology Foresight in Companies: From an Indicator to a Network and Process Perspective

Technology foresight is an important activity in companies to meet the challenges of a fast changing environment. The understanding and the concepts of technology foresight have changed during the last decades. Three generations of technology foresight are developed in this paper. In the third generation, technology foresight is an integrated part of strategic management, process-oriented, need- and value-driven and network-dominated. Although this model represents practices in companies, not all elements are included in one firm. This paper is based on interviews in large multinational corporations and a review of the literature.     

Technology Foresight in Companies: From an Indicator to a Network and Process Perspective

Technology foresight is an important activity in companies to meet the challenges of a fast changing environment. The understanding and the concepts of technology foresight have changed during the last decades. Three generations of technology foresight are developed in this paper. In the third generation, technology foresight is an integrated part of strategic management, process-oriented, need- and value-driven and network-dominated. Although this model represents practices in companies, not all elements are included in one firm. This paper is based on interviews in large multinational corporations and a review of the literature.     

数字经济与企业战略变革——基于A股上市公司的经验证据

企业战略变革是转变经济增长方式、促进产业转型升级的有效途径。在数字经济蓬勃发展的背景下,本文基于企业战略变革这一理论视角,选取2011—2021年A股上市公司数据,实证检验数字经济对企业战略变革的影响效应及其作用机制。研究发现,首先,数字经济发展程度越高,越能提升企业战略变革水平,这一结论在选取历史数据作为工具变量及稳健性检验后仍然成立;其次,当内部董事会独立性与外部媒体关注度越高时,强化了数字经济发展程度与企业战略变革之间的正向关系;进一步地,数字经济发展程度对企业战略变革的激励效应得益于企业创新能力与风险承担水平的提升,异质性分析表明在非国有和成长期、成熟期企业样本中上述关系更加明显;最后,企业战略变革能够提升企业市场价值和要素配置效率。本研究助推了战略变革动因以及数字经济赋能企业高质量发展的效应、机制和企业性质差异的理解,为更好地驱动企业战略发展提供参考建议。     

Bridge over troubled waters? problems and opportunities in interfirm research collaboration

Effective interfirm collaboration is an incresingly significant factor in technological innovation. A wide and complex range of options exists within collabotative arrangements which affect the outcome and rewards for both partners. Firms are often unaware of the strategic implications of collaborative ventures. While some large firms may be invloved in strategic alliances at the corporate level in order to establish or maintain competitiveness, many remain unaware or unconvinced of the potential for the generation of innovations through collaborations with small, flexible, 'hi-tech” firms. the pace of change and the challenge of international competition threatens Western European firms with a 'technology gap' within a 'disorganized capitalist' setting. Various forms of interfirm cooperation within and across natinal boundaires may be important responses to such uncertainty and amy ultimately provide successful strategic remedies to the situation. This article presents the findings of a recently completed research project in which 27 pairs (mostly small/large) of collaborating, innovative firms were studied in order to examine the strategic and operational issues involued in interfirm research cooperation. Whilst highlighting the advantages of collaboration, and the potential problems for both the small and the large partner, we argue that the adoption of 'cooperative game' rules id vital for successful collaborative innovation. Additionally, we attempt to posit our findings within the current debate on organized/disorganized capitalism.     

Evaluating technology disruptiveness in a strategic corporate context: A case study

This study examines how firms interpret new, potentially disruptive technologies in their own strategic context. The study uses a propositional framework for evaluating the amount of radical change in the companies' business models with two middle variables, the disruptiveness potential of a new technology, and the strategic importance of a new technology to a firm. The framework is used in a cross-case analysis of four potentially disruptive technologies or technical operating models: Bluetooth, WLAN, Grid computing and Mobile Peer-to-peer paradigm. The technologies were investigated from the perspective of three mobile operators, a device manufacturer and a software company in the ICT industry.The data was gathered in group-discussion sessions in each company. The results of each case analysis were brought together to evaluate, how firms interpret the potential disruptiveness in terms of changes in product characteristics and added value, technology and market uncertainty, changes in product-market positions, possible competence disruption and changes in value network positions. The results indicate that the perceived disruptiveness in terms of product characteristics does not necessarily translate into strategic importance. In addition, firms did not see the new technologies as a threat in terms of potential competence disruption.     

Innovation strategies of industrial groups in the global crisis: Rationalization and new paths

In the on-going context of globalization, the strategy of multinational enterprises combines the aims of constant supply renewal (through technological, but also organizational and commercial innovation) and of production rationalization (reduction of production costs). The financial dimension is narrowly linked to these strategies, as the financial deregulation has generated a strong pressure on enterprises, aimed at increasing the shareholder value. In this paper, we study the impacts of the current financial and economic crisis on the strategy and the management of innovation in big industrial firms. We present the result of an enquiry that has been achieved in France in 2009 and 2010 in companies such as Renault, Thales, General Electric, Lesieur, PSA, Saint-Gobain, Valeo, and ArcelorMittal. We show that firms rationalize their R&D expenses, accentuate their open innovation strategies, develop a strategic use of IPRs and try to implement new innovation paths, oriented toward the exploitation (low cost strategies) and the accumulation (clean technologies) of their knowledge-capital.     

UNCERTAINTY AND THE COST OF ACID RAIN CONTROL

This paper uses a utility capacity planning and dispatch model to examine the robustness of acid rain mitigation policies. The model meets electricity demand at the lowest economic cost while it responds to price or quantity signals for controlling emissions. The model is unique since it is couched in a risk analysis framework that captures the uncertainty in other economic parameters determining the utility's strategic choices–e.g., demand level and fuel prices. This permits one to compare various institutional settings for pollution control for both a world with perfect foresight and one with imperfect foresight. This exercise provides quantitative results on the cost of pollution control with price and quantity controls. It also provides a measure of the response of these cost functions to the uncertainty in other key parameters.
Exploring the performance of various pollution control mechanisms has led to three findings: (i) that the performance of a price control mechanism is dependent on the level of emission reductions that one seeks, (ii) that regionally traded emission permits and emission fees are equally efficient regardless of the level of foresight, and (Hi) that emission fees lead to more stable electricity generation prices. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of the results under imperfect foresight suggest that uncertainties in the level of demand and load management success play an important role in determining future pollution control costs.     

高成长企业主导逻辑与价值共创适配演化——小米纵向案例研究

在创业和战略研究领域，关于高成长企业如何在动荡竞争环境下通过不断调整策略扩大规模并维持快速增长这一问题，学者们具有不同的洞见。采用纵向单案例研究方法，以北京小米科技有限责任公司为研究对象，基于企业成长过程视角，探索高成长企业在不确定性环境下通过互动合作与资源整合实现主导逻辑转变、追求独特成长模式的过程。结果发现：①机会窗口和成长压力驱动企业高成长，其主导逻辑经历从爆品逻辑、平台逻辑到生态逻辑的演化过程；②高成长企业成长过程中，历经个体、组织和生态间价值共创，具体表现为从交互式价值共创到赋能式价值共创最终转变为开放式价值共创；③基于“认知—行为”逻辑，高成长企业主导逻辑、价值共创方式与成长轨迹存在适配关系，爆品逻辑依靠交互式价值共创突破资源约束，平台逻辑通过赋能式价值共创激活冗余资源，生态逻辑利用开放式价值共创摆脱资源依赖。结论有助于拓展高成长企业发展理论，促进高成长过程中企业认知与行为匹配。