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.     

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.     

欧洲主权债务危机演进及对中资银行的启示

受全球金融危机的持续影响和欧元区制度问题的激化,欧洲主权债务危机呈愈演愈烈之势,逐步从边缘国家扩散至核心国家,并从主权债务危机向银行业危机演化。目前,欧元区重债国采取的财务整顿政策难以在短期发挥缩减赤字的作用,反而加大复苏风险;对重债国援助资金总量有限,其发放门槛徒增短期违约风险;欧洲央行购买国债虽有利于缓解危机恶化,但量化宽松的政策与其控制通胀的设立宗旨存在矛盾。在此背景下,中资银行应调整涉欧资产配置,进一步加强国别风险研究和管理,积极稳健地推进国际化经营,打造资产、业务和经营地域多元化的国际化银行。     

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.     

Towards an agenda for institutions of foresight

There are some 200 or 300 purpose-built institutions worldwide whose central focus is the future,¹ but remarkably little comparative knowledge exists about them. An international agenda of research and action is needed to improve understanding of these institutions of foresight (lOFs) and to promote the continued development of their symbolic power and social influence. This report, which outlines a framework for investigating the structure, function and effectiveness of the lOFs and presents some initial proposals for practical action, is intended as the first step in the creation of such an agenda.     

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     

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).     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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     

The impact of foresight on environmental science and technology policy in the Netherlands

Globalisation, high tech development and environmental issues have made policy makers aware again of the possibilities of future studies for policy making. However, the lack of systematic knowledge about their impact is a major obstruction to a proper use of future studies. Especially since future studies no longer claim to predict the future, but are seen as a strategic tool for improving strategic interaction between key actors and for anticipatory policy making, insight in the dynamics of future studies is indispensable. In this article we review four future studies in the Netherlands with an eye on their methods and related impact on research in sustainable technology. Although in content the four studies were quite similar, they were complementary in linking research strategies and policy objectives.     

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.     

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.     

Strategic foresight in public policy: Reviewing the experiences of the UK, Singapore, and the Netherlands

In an interdependent and complex world, only few public policy challenges can be confined to one particular policy area anymore. Many governments have realized that a single-issue focus is often insufficient in dealing with emerging threats and opportunities. They have therefore started to experiment with strategic foresight that deliberately cuts across the traditional boundaries of policy areas and government departments. This article reviews the foresight activities of three countries that have been at the forefront of this trend: the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the Netherlands. To this end, the article discusses the concept of strategic foresight and explains the two distinct ways in which it contributes to public policy-making: on the one hand, it informs policy by providing more systematic knowledge about relevant trends and developments in an organization's environments; on the other hand, it acts as a driver of reflexive mutual social learning processes among policy-makers that stimulate the generation of common public policy visions. The article concludes by drawing lessons with regard to the key success factors allowing strategic foresight to make an effective contribution to public policy-making.     

投资欧洲需先了解欧洲

在江泰国际合作联盟主办的2016中国企业“走出去”风险发布会暨“一带一路”风险管理论坛上,史特博律师事务所合伙人埃索·温欣格、风克集团大客户主管彼得·施耐德、裕利安怡集团高级亚洲经济学家穆罕默德·伊斯拉姆针对于中国企业投资欧洲需注意的相关问题分别提出了建议。     

Enhancing foresight between multiple agencies: Issues in the use of scenario thinking to overcome fragmentation

We critically compare two illustrative cases where local government and partner organisations sought substantive grounds for collaboration on e-government, by gaining foresight from the application of the scenario methodology. On the basis of our case analyses, we show that inter-organisational fragmentation may be attenuated by the application of scenario method—which acts to enhance inter-organisational foresight. We demonstrate that the scenario method achieves this by promoting a non-adversarial, strategic conversation that can enable new and creative insights to be gained across the participant agencies. However, on the basis of one of the cases, we propose the need for early critical consideration of the influencing role of the project sponsor/leader within such a collaborative network.