Comparison of national foresight studies by integrated foresight management model

National foresight studies have become a common tool in the last decade of the 20th century. Despite the fact that a lot of comparative studies have been carried out to compare these projects, none of them has been capturing all dimensions and elements of foresight since a comprehensive definition of foresight was missing. The integrated foresight management model is an attempt to provide an integrated and holistic view about the impact of foresight on the management of the future. In this article, a checklist is proposed based on the integrated foresight management model to compare eight national foresight studies. Based on the results, the discussion about “generations” of foresight is revisited and a new definition of “generations” is proposed. The conceptual framework which is the integrated foresight management model and the derived checklist can be developed in the future by expanding the amount of data available for analysis and the number of independent experts to make this comparison.     

Strategic foresight in a high-speed environment

This paper explores how a top management team developed strategic foresight and decided to launch an Internet bank in a context of uncertainty about the future take up of e-commerce. For this purpose, a single inductive case study is used. The settings are those of the UK financial services industry, characterised by rapid change, mainly driven by the new technology. The focus of analysis is Sunshine, a stand-alone Internet bank. The study, which is part of a broader project on the management of innovation in financial services, is based on qualitative data captured from semi-structured interviews undertaken with a number of Sunshine’s directors.The case study reveals that developing strategic foresight is a learning process, which takes place within a broad vision, and enacts the future by a mechanism of probing it through cheap multiple devices. At a more general level, the data suggest that in turbulent environments the retention of the unity of the whole organisational system is a challenging task, particularly when its physical dimensions grow too quickly. In this context, the data suggest that nimbleness, visible and structured processes, extensive communication glued together by a focused and eccentric management team form an important core capability that impacts on the firm’s ability to develop strategic foresight and innovate continuously without falling apart.     

Entrepreneurship as foresight: A complex social network perspective on organisational foresight

This paper addresses the relationship between foresight and entrepreneurship. It characterises the foresight inherent in entrepreneurial activity as situated within particular discourses, or communities of practice (CoPs) in a range of structures. The argument is based on the use of complexity theory (CT) to provide insight into the dynamics of entrepreneurial activity. Complexity theories of entrepreneurship are grounded in empirical studies of entrepreneurial action. A multilevel model (MM) characterising emergent structures within the entrepreneurial domain is presented as an extension of existing CT, with entrepreneurship characterised as the practice of foresight relating to that structure. The model is grounded in two case studies of entrepreneurial ventures in high velocity business environments, airline services, and sound system accessories. An empirical model—EROS—Experiments, Reflexivity, Organising Domains, and Sensitivity—is developed to reflect entrepreneurial processes at the level of the individual, the firm, and inter-firm connections—and the interactions between them. The notion of the CoP is used to deepen the analyses, examining how the layers of the MM are constituted through the foresight inherent in entrepreneurial activity over time. As well as presenting a coherent theoretical understanding of the entrepreneurial landscape, there are practical implications for policy-makers and educators wishing to improve entrepreneurial foresight.     

Quality of data, information and knowledge in regional foresight processes

A central subcategory of futures research is technology foresight. There is a concern that today's technology foresight processes do not serve technology-political decision-making and strategy processes of companies well enough. The regional level needs to be emphasized, too, and the inclusion of a wide variety of actors and organizations. There is a danger that results of foresight processes are not absorbed into regional strategy-making processes, leading to a “black hole of interpretation and implementation of foresight knowledge”. Particularly knowledge, but also data and information are crucial concepts in foresight processes. An important issue is how to transform foresight information into future-oriented innovation knowledge. Concrete tools and institutional settings to enhance data, information and knowledge quality in foresight processes and strategy work are needed. This article investigates limitations of established foresight processes and planning approaches, limitations in practical utilization of results of foresight processes, and quality of data, information and knowledge as concrete tools and as a systematic response to limitations. The article is partly based on empirical results from a technology foresight survey undertaken in Finland in 2005. The research responds to societal and academic interest by combining the fields of (i) futures research and (ii) data, information and knowledge quality. Future-oriented considerations are not routine tasks, which makes it especially challenging and important to ensure that these processes benefit from data, information and knowledge of good quality.     

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.     

Narrative foresight

Narrative foresight focuses on the stories individuals, organizations, states and civilizations tell themselves about the future. Narrative foresight moves futures thinking from a focus on new technologies and generally to the question of what’s next, to an exploration of the worldviews and myths that underlie possible, probable and preferred futures. It is focused on transforming the current story – metaphor or myth – held to one that supports the desired future. From a theoretical account of the narrative turn, case studies are presented of the practice of narrative foresight.     

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.     

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.     

Rethinking tomorrow's cities: Emerging issues on city foresight

Rethinking tomorrow's cities now, builds our capacity to act with foresight and create resilient and liveable places. I use methods from the futures studies field, particularly macrohistory, to provoke our current patterns of city making. From macrohistory, the grand patterns of social change reveal some of the key systems dynamics influencing the rise and fall of cities in civilisation. The key urban system dynamics in the broadest sense provide a meta-framework of emerging issues shaping new urban challenges or opportunities for our towns and cities. The hope drawn from the past and present is to focus our urban interventions in the key areas to create future cities of wonder and purpose. The implications of the emerging issues (critical focus areas of city foresight) that arise from the macrohistorical analysis are discussed using the case study of the Maroochy 2025 community visioning project.2025 is a community driven project to develop shared visions and action plans for the Maroochy Shire¹ towards the year 2025, for the purpose of creating an empowering and community owned response to the challenges facing them locally and globally.     

The social shaping approach to technology foresight

The social shaping of technology (SST) approach has been developed as a response and extension to the ideas of techno-economic rationality and linear conceptions of technology development and its consequences. The SST approach seems especially promising in areas of technology where visions are manifold, societal interests conflicting, and applications and markets are non-existing or still under construction. The emerging high technology areas and several areas of more sustainable development like organic food production and renewable energy are examples of this kind, where techno-economic networks are unstable or under construction and social and environmental potentials and risks difficult, if not impossible to assess. The paper explores the potential of a social shaping of technology approach to technology foresight within such technology areas and presents the methodological aspects herein: structure versus contingency, actor-network approach, laboratory programmes, techno-economic networks, actor worlds, development arenas. Experiences based on a recent Danish green technology foresight project concerned with environmental risks and opportunities related to nano-, bio- and ICT-technologies and foresight activities in relation to food are used as empirical references.     

Prediction markets for foresight

To navigate turbulent business environments, organizations have to develop foresight capacities that enable them to anticipate probable futures, respond rapidly to emerging changes, and support future oriented action. However, there are remaining barriers that impede a wider implementation of foresight. In particular, the necessities to deal with the future, anticipate change, enhance participation and reduce costs and complexity call for new methods to improve current foresight activities. In this paper, we introduce prediction markets to the field of foresight. Prediction markets are a structured approach to collect and aggregate information from groups and have recently gained attention in forecasting. Prediction markets go beyond simple forecasting and can contribute to foresight by providing advantages in terms of continuous and real-time information aggregation, motivation of participation and information revelation as well as cost-efficiency and scalability. We suggest four promising fields of application for prediction markets to enhance foresight: (1) continuous forecasting and environmental scanning, (2) combining with deliberative approaches, (3) continuous idea generation and (4) expert identification. We conclude by considering prediction markets as a nascent and promising method for foresight and advocate for further research.     

Local social knowledge management: Community actors, institutions and multilevel governance in regional foresight exercises

A key question for policymakers at the regional and local level is how to provide the right conditions for generating the growth of more knowledge-intensive forms of economic activity within the context of dynamic innovation systems or learning regions. Regional foresight exercises may provide a useful instrument in helping chart their economic strategies. Successful regions must be able to engage in regional foresight exercises that identify and cultivate their assets, undertake collaborative processes to plan and implement change, and encourage a regional mindset that fosters growth. Communities and regions, like companies, need to innovate and adapt to remain competitive. As a result, successful regions must be able to engage in regional foresight exercises that identify and cultivate their assets, undertake collaborative processes to plan and implement change, and encourage a regional mindset that fosters growth. This paper provides an overview of these issues by reviewing the most important ideas in the recent literature on innovation systems, technological dynamism and local economic development. We regard regional foresight processes to be, at their most fundamental level, socially organized learning processes involving learning by individuals, by firms, and by institutions. One of our central concerns is to show how the actions of individuals to shape collective local visioning exercises interact with larger institutional structures to produce local outcomes.     

Probing the future: Mobilising foresight in multiple-product innovation firms

With rapid changes in technology and intense competition in the business environment the importance of cultivating and sustaining foresight in multiple-product innovation firms has been propelled to unprecedented heights. Yet, research on the processes through which such firms mobilise foresight in their working environment remains scarce. This paper seeks to explore the different processes through which a high-performing new product design consultancy probes into the future aiming to identify possible avenues for product development and potentially define trends in multiple industries. This inductive, theory-building study identifies seven key processes and stresses the importance of perpetual probing and learning for sustaining foresight in such high-change environments.     

Extending foresight: The case for and nature of Foresight 2.0

This a programmatic paper with all of the frustrations thereof [1]. We point beyond the well-tilled ground of foresight as commonly practiced (called Foresight 1.0) to an emerging understanding of the work and character of foresight (called Foresight 2.0). By definition, as of today, this new territory is not well mapped, much less carefully worked-over. The question that drives this commitment to Foresight 2.0 was the heart of the 2007 Strathclyde Organizational Foresight Conference—Learning the Future Faster: “Can foresight as commonly practiced enable us to learn the future fast enough to meet and deal with the unique strategic challenges of the 21st Century?” The view taken is that Foresight 1.0 cannot meet this challenge; that it leads to small victories and major disasters. An explanation is offered: Foresight 1.0 was developed, and is still largely practiced, with the eyes and mind of management, whereas sustained success in the unique conditions of the 21st Century requires Foresight 2.0—seeing, thinking and acting with the eyes and mind of Leadership. This distinction is explained. Evidence is offered that futures research and foresight are slowly moving towards this new practice. The hope is expressed that, if we grasp the need for it, the nature of it and have explicit mental maps of the journey to it, we who are professional foresight researchers and practitioners will move faster and more effectively to develop Foresight 2.0. Several steps towards this end are outlined.     

Towards better participatory processes in technology foresight: How to link participatory foresight research to the methodological machinery of qualitative research and phenomenology?

Technological progress does not happen in a social vacuum. Shaping of tomorrow is not possible without qualitative analyses. Therefore, the social and psychological dimensions of reality form an important part of technology foresight. Qualitative research will be needed to understand superficial and deep structures of social realities. So called push and pull factors are always linked to social behaviour. People's relationship to the use of technologies and the utilization of technologies is a complex and not a one-dimensional or monological issue. Monological methodological approaches can be harmful and confusing in the field of participatory foresight. We can conclude that the cycles of deductive and inductive logic are needed in science and in participatory foresight studies. Experts of the FTA community must have a higher level of methodological know-how in this research field and they should use qualitative methods in multi-faceted (external and internal) ways in foresight studies. Still the qualitative parts of many studies are quite monological and these studies can be quite problematic, even confusing. More critical methodological approaches should be taken into serious consideration. As a methodological approach, the principle of triangulation should be used more in the fields of participatory foresight studies and technology foresight.The key focus of this article in the use of qualitative and phenomenological approaches in the fields of FTA and foresight. The aim of this theoretically oriented discussion is to promote the professional use of qualitative methods in foresight and FTA studies. The strength of qualitative analyses is linked to deeper understanding of social change and social patterns and structures. Actually people create and constitute the markets, networks, and crowds where technologies are applied and used.Internal systemic understanding of social realities is an important part of foresight activities, especially in participatory foresight studies. Internal and external analyses can be seen as complementary approaches, like qualitative and quantitative approaches. The use of qualitative methods is a conventional part of the research process in participatory foresight projects. A typical problem may be that the use of methods is not planned carefully enough and people are unaware of the underlying key assumptions of applied methods. Experimenting with phenomenology is not a simple task in foresight research. Therefore, the views and informative platforms expressed and presented in this article may be useful for foresight practitioners.     

Organizing strategic foresight: A contextual practice of ‘way finding’

Strategic foresight as a derived outcome of corporate foresight exercises has led to the dominant discourse on strategic foresight as an episodic intervention encompassing a proliferation of organizational foresight methodologies. We argue that such an approach is flawed, consigning strategic foresight to a narrow function in a planning perspective. To move the field into more fertile pastures for research, we draw on the practice theoretical lens to provide an alternative viewpoint on strategic foresight as a bundle of everyday organizing practices. In keeping with the practice approach to strategic foresight, we delineate strategic foresight as a continuous and contextual practice of ‘wayfinding’, that manifest in everyday situated organizing. We offer an integrating framework that contributes to the ongoing discussions about alternative approaches to theorizing strategic foresight.     

Causes and consequences of the lack of strategic foresight in the decisions of multinational enterprises to enter China

Strategic foresight, in the sense of ‘understanding the future’ [R.A. Slaughter. Futures studies as an intellectual and applied discipline. American Behavioral Scientist 42(3) (1998) 372-385; A.N. Whitehead. Modes of Thought. Free Press, New York, 1966], can play a significant role in the long term success, or failure, of business corporations. However, in understanding the development and management of strategic foresight within business enterprises, instances where lack of foresight was exhibited, can be equally instructive, especially when these business organizations are some of the world’s largest multinational corporations and they are faced with a situation they had met before: new market entry.By drawing on 42 in depth interviews, conducted by one of the authors with executives from Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) currently operating in China, this paper identifies the causes and consequences in the lack of foresight exhibited by many MNEs in their China-market entry strategies. In this way the foresight failure is distilled into two factors: Failure of understanding, and Failure of anticipation.     

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