Normality of the future: Trend diagnosis for strategic foresight

Foresight processes and activities are confronted with the task of making sense of the present, in particular by interpreting weak signals of change in the organizational environment. Although trends are considered to be important drivers of environmental discontinuities which may lead to strategic surprises, there is no operationalization from a strategic point of view. In this paper we are going to conceptualize trends as (socio-cultural) innovations. This leads to important implications. If the nature of innovation is taken seriously, then strategic trend diagnosis has to deal with two different aspects, invention and diffusion. First, we are going to present a framework for identifying the invention aspect of a trend (i.e., “the new”) which is based on the fact that “the new” results from a transgression of contextual boundaries. Second, we are going to operationalize the diffusion of “the new” as a threefold process of normalization - i.e., an unusual practice becomes social convention. Taken together, these two aspects provide a theoretical link between trends and market creation. In addition, by relating the above operationalizations to an entrepreneurial strategy-making framework, strategic issue diagnosis can be improved and more seamlessly linked to strategy formulation.     

Corporate foresight and innovation management: A portfolio-approach in evaluating organizational development

The transition from a traditional industry-driven economy to a knowledge-based economy requires new concepts and methods for companies to sustain competitive advantage. Here, academia has identified corporate foresight and innovation as key success factors. While, content-wise, the contribution of futures research methods to the innovation process has already been researched, this study strives to explore the status quo of organizational development stages of both concepts. To do so, we developed a portfolio-approach, the so-called ‘Future-Fitness-Portfolio’, which enables companies to qualitatively compare amongst others and identify organizational improvement potential. In addition, we conducted expert interviews to explore future organizational development trends in corporate foresight and innovation management. As our research revealed, five strategic clusters can be identified within the portfolio. Consequently, we propose specific strategies for each individual cluster. We conclude that there will be two main organizational development trends for corporate foresight and innovation management in the future: in traditional industries with conventional business models and long product-life-cycles, companies will follow a different development path than companies in dynamic industries with innovative business models and short product-life-cycles.     

Motivating innovation in newly public firms

Prior research suggests that executive option grants that do not quickly vest provide managers with better incentives to pursue long-term, instead of short-term, objectives. Previous research also suggests that the pursuit of long-term objectives could be undermined by the risk of early termination. We conjecture that these arguments jointly suggest that managers are better motivated to pursue innovation when they are given more incentive compensation with longer vesting periods for unexercised options and yet some protection from disruptive takeover threats. Our evidence for a sample of newly public firms is consistent with more innovative firms jointly choosing such a combination.     

The future according to Jesus: A Galilean model of foresight

Should futures studies situate the historical Jesus within the pre-history of their discipline? This paper proposes a first-century Galilean model, which argues that Jesus envisioned a middle-range future as a dynamic interaction of conventional, counter, and creative paths. This historical model then is compared and contrasted with 20th century frameworks of the kingdom of God, ranging from imminent, existential, inaugurated, and contextual. Suggestions are offered on how futurists might use this model to enhance their understanding of social and strategic foresight.     

Exploring the impact of technology foresight studies on innovation: Case of BRIC countries

This paper explores technology foresight activities in the BRIC countries. The article starts from recent trends in foresight research, including the generation models, methodologies, connections with innovation, and influence of globalization. The case analysis section will focus on the development of technology foresight activities in BRICs. Some common technology foresight issues and characteristics are identified and summarized for the BRICs and other emerging countries.     

Designing a foresight exercise for the future of rural communities in Romania

The paper aims to offer a good guideline for anyone who intends to do a futures or a foresight exercise for rural communities. The case presented is the one of the future of rural communities in Romania. The article begins with a brief presentation of the prevailing rural situation in Romania followed by a dialogue regarding suggestions for the possible objectives of a foresight exercise and the methods used (e.g. visioning, alternative futures, scenarios).     

Fear of foresight: Knowledge and ignorance in organizational foresight

We discuss the changes occurring in the field of organizational foresight. The analysis results from viewing foresight from two different perspectives: as centered on the future or on the present; as macroscopic analysis or microscopic practice. The combination of these factors results in four different modes of organizational foresight: strategic planning, visioning, scenario thinking and planned emergence. These different perspectives are examined. We contribute to the literature by presenting foresight as a complex process, amenable to different understandings. Foresight is often portrayed as a technical and analytic process. We discuss it as a human process permeated by a dialectic between the need to know and the fear of knowing.     

投资跟着创新走,未来的主要方向

创新:未来20年的投资风向 IFC东亚太平洋局局长Vivek Pathak从银行的角度表达了IFC助力全球经济进一步发展的意向.他指出:创新一定是在未来20年的经济发展中处于核心地位的元素,IFC要投资于创新,道理非常简单,首先,IFC的投资更关注于发展,比如就业的机会.这些创新型的企业能够创造非常多的就业岗位,例如滴滴等等,而很多国有企业的员工面临着下岗的问题.     

Exploitation versus exploration in multinational firms: Implications for the future of international business

Given the economic weight of multinational corporations and their privileged access to resources, many different scenarios can be built about the future of international business and about the future impact of international business on economic, technological, and social development. In this paper, we argue that multinationals do not form a uniform organisational population, and we provide empirical evidence of the existence of traditional, rigid entities seeking benefits from low-risk exploitative strategies on one hand, and of flexible multinationals seeking higher performance levels by balancing the trade-offs between exploration and exploitation on the other hand. As these two sub-populations compete with one another for resources, we use a population ecology perspective to study likely ecological scenarios for the future. Our conclusion is that traditional multinationals tend to prevail over flexible multinationals, and the conditions required for a future society to allow a genuine growth of flexible multinationals are unlikely. This implies that multinationals remain primarily exploitative, and that as such, they will only be associated with marginal economic, technological, and social developments in the future. Other organisational forms, such as entrepreneurial small business and communities of practices are shown to be much more likely vehicles through which society can progress and innovate.     

Product innovation, budgetary control, and the financial performance of firms

Organizations are increasingly calling for greater budgetary oversight of the product innovation process. A major focus of their concern is the costs associated with product innovation together with their need to enhance their financial performance through these endeavours. However, the literature has raised a number of issues arising from such budgetary proposals, suggesting that the creativity of those involved in product innovation should not be constrained by cost concerns, that the use of management control systems is incompatible with product innovation, and that budgets may stifle innovation. It is argued in this paper that the extent to which product innovation has a positive impact on the financial performance of firms is dependent on the manner in which budgets are used in organizations. If budgets are used predominantly as a planning mechanism, then such budget planning facilitates product innovation resulting in enhanced performance. In contrast, if budgets are used primarily as a control mechanism, then it is unlikely that product innovation will contribute to financial performance. The results of the study are consistent with these expectations. This paper makes a contribution to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the impact of budgets in the context of product innovation.     

Judicial foresight in the Hawaii judiciary

This report describes the process and the products of the 1991 Hawaii Judicial Foresight Congress, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, 6–8 January 1991. The report aims both to contribute to the dialogue on how to have an appropriate futures conferences and to present futures thinking on the US courts.     

Technological trajectories and R&D for environmental innovation in UK firms

This article reports results of a 1993 questionnaire survey of how UK companies have been innovating technologically in response to environmental pressures. The survey sought to identify factors stimulating UK firms to innovate more environmentally friendly products and processes, and to investigate the changes in R&D activity they have undertaken to facilitate such innovation. In devising the questionnaire and interpreting the results, we have been strongly influenced by the theoretical frameworks developed over the past 15 years which describe technological developments in terms of ‘selection environments’ and ‘technological trajectories’. Useful though such frameworks are, we conclude that they need to be supplemented by concepts derived from the sociology of technology and from studies of corporate strategies.     

Transformative foresight: Universiti Sains Malaysia leads the way

This article describes Universiti Sains Malaysia's foresight journey. It begins by exploring five alternative scenarios of higher education: (1) The A’ la Carte University, (2) The Invisible University, (3) The Corporate University, (4) The State University, and (5) The University in The Garden. These scenarios are followed by Universiti Sains Malaysia's preferred vision of the future. It then examines the journey towards the preferred visión by articulating four stages of transformation: visioning, contesting, dynamic equilibrium, and self-direction/externalisation. The article concludes with an analysis of USM's current position, in transition between the contestation and dynamic equilibrium stages.     

Insider trading and future stock returns in firms with concentrated ownership levels

We investigate the relationship between insider trading and stock returns in firms with concentrated ownership. To this end, we employ data from East Asian countries which span the period January 2003 to May 2012. Consistent with the previous literature, we find a significantly negative relation between the selling activity of insiders and stock returns. However, contrary to studies which focus on highly developed markets, we find that the buying activity of insiders is also inversely related to future stock returns. Our analysis shows that top directors with higher ownership levels drive this result, suggesting that the trading activity of insiders is not always associated with profit-making motives and can be explained by their level of ownership. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a trading strategy which focuses solely on purchases made by top directors with high ownership levels yields negative returns. The paper has important implications for outside investors who mimic the trading activity of insiders with the aim to realise profits.     

Priorities for future innovation: Russian S&T Foresight 2030

Under the transition to a market economy Russian science, technology and innovation (STI) has changed dramatically. After the crisis of late 1990s, the government declared science and technology (S&T) as one of national priorities and started increasingly investing in this sector but it has not led to the tangible output like a bigger volume of high-tech exports or a higher share of international publications. A number of policy instruments have been introduced to increase the efficiency of STI policies. One of them is S&T Foresight.The activities aimed at identification of national S&T priorities and series of Foresight studies have helped to understand which areas are most promising for sustaining existing competitive advantages and building new ones via gradual shift from the resource-based economy towards the technology-oriented one.The paper presents the design and organisation of a large-scale Russian S&T Foresight exercise as a fully-fledged instrument of the national STI policy and discusses the achieved results and their use for policies at different levels.     

Evolution in the rationales of foresight in Europe

The traditional mechanistic approach to Strategic Thinking influenced the rationales and consequently the early experiences of Technology Forecasting in Europe. On the other hand, the more recent dynamic non-linear approaches to Strategic Thinking and a gradual regionalization of the innovation policy have favoured the replacement of Forecasting with Foresight and, more recently, with Regional Foresight, where the complexity of phenomena is taken into greater account. In fact, during the last few decades, a transition has occurred from a mainly hierarchic capitalism to a flexible one. At micro-economic level, this has caused a gradual transition from hierarchical organisational models with tangible assets to network organisational models, which are knowledge-based and face complex and unsettled scenarios.

This paper tries to demonstrate that the concepts of Forecasting and Foresight cannot be considered outside of this context and of changes that have occurred in Strategic Thinking, where the needs for more global and interdisciplinary views of problems are striving to integrate Strategic management and Entrepreneurship into the new concept of Strategic Entrepreneurship.

In order to demonstrate this evolution in the rationales of foresight and in its applications, this work analyses and compares some among the more significant experiences of transition towards Regional Foresight in Europe.     

How foresight creates unforeseen futures: the role of doubting

This paper defines foresight as being a mental model about the future and considers the role of foresight in shaping actions and events reflected in imperious, heroic, tragic and chaotic futures (defined within the paper). The paper contends that success in foresight is not about acquiring knowledge or using it to build pictures about the future. Rather, it is the expectations that come with such processes that cause organisational closure, and thus chaotic and tragic futures. The argument is made that firms need to doubt much more than they do.Two processes of doubting are described: the first (single loop doubting) shows how differences between expectations and perception cause doubt that (whenever the underlying mental model is sufficiently plastic) is accommodated by social processes without change. The second process, called double loop doubting, is based on genuine attempts to refute, rather than confirm, mental models about the future. The contention is that such processes would lower expectations and certainty, thereby opening the organisation and enabling mental models to be more accurate.

“I fear there can be no possible doubt about the matter”.

Jack in The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde     

On the nurturing of strategic foresight: The Ubuntu perspective

We draw on ideas from the African humanistic philosophy of Ubuntu with existing approaches to propose alternative ways of nurturing strategic foresight in practice. Delineating Ubuntu as a transient organizing philosophy, we show how the integration of Ubuntu in everyday organizing could enhance relational pluralism, and in-turn strategic foresight. Embarking on some mild speculative expedition based on ideas from Ubuntu, we also outline some activities and organizing routines of team leaders that may contribute to encouraging employees to enact ‘foresightful’ actions in their situated practice. We conclude with implications of our study for organizing and some directions for futureresearch.     

The role of hindsight in foresight: refining strategic reasoning

The purpose of this paper is to deepen understanding of the role that hindsight plays in foresight. The authors argue that the past is not an isolated static state, but one that is intimately connected with the future. However, there are several biases that influence our perceptions and conceptions of the past. These biases act as constraints on our ability to understand the driving forces that emerge from the past, play out through the present and become the critical uncertainties in the future. They could result in misperceptions about events or processes and so may impair foresight methodologies, such as scenario thinking. Such a foresight bias is characterized by a combination of hindsight biases, creeping determinism and searching for information that corresponds to people’s views about both the past and the future.The cognitive linkages between past, present and future are discussed and the role of counter-to-factual analysis is emphasized as an antidote to the foresight bias. Counter-to-factual analysis is both a cognitive process and an analytical reasoning tool applied to the analysis of historical data. Using insights generated from the explorations of counter-to-factual reasoning, the authors present a hindsight-foresight paragon that fortifies current foresight enhancing techniques with counter-to-factual analysis.

Two Roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

To where it bent in the undergrowth…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Men’s curiosity searches past and future

And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend

The point of intersection of the timeless

With time, is an occupation for the saint—

T. S. Eliot, from The Dry Salvages