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.     

Sectoral innovation system foresight in practice: Nordic facilities management foresight

A number of studies have explored the interconnection between the foresight literature and the innovation system literature. This paper adds to these studies by investigating how theoretical elements of the innovation system approach can contribute to the design and practice of foresight processes. The paper originates in a foresight project in the Nordic facilities management sector. The goal of the foresight project was to identify the possible futures of the facilities management sector in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden) and, based on the findings, to establish a proposal for a common Nordic facilities management research agenda. The paper finds that three elements of the innovation system literature are of particular interest for the practice of foresight: innovation systems and context dependency, learning and user–producer interactions, and the role of knowledge and knowledge production. These elements are embedded into a simple sectoral innovation system model (including actors, knowledge flows, and the strategic environment).     

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.     

Public Investment in Europe: Evolution and Determinants in perspective*

We describe the evolution of public investment and public capital stocks in Europe over the past three decades. Against this background, we analyse the macroeconomic determinants of public investment, with a special focus on its long‐term trend. We find that public investment has been determined by national income, the stance of budgetary policies and fiscal sustainability considerations. Neither the cost of financing nor the fiscal rules embodied in EMU have had a systemic impact on public investment. The significant downtrend that characterises the evolution of public investment in non‐cohesion countries is chiefly determined by drawn‐out episodes of fiscal consolidation, unrelated to EMU.     

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.     

The epistemological relevance of the arts in foresight and futures studies

In this paper, we argue that the arts in its various forms have a genuine epistemological relevance to the theory and practice of foresight. To this end, we draw on the work of Ernst Bloch to advance the ‘disclosive’ role of graffiti art in contributing to futures becoming and the understanding of peoples’ subjective experiences and shared social theories about inarticulate social currents that may bring to life possibilities and potentialities in the realisation of some modest utopian visions.     

Framework foresight: Exploring futures the Houston way

Over the last several years, the University of Houston developed and codified a method for teaching students how to carry out foresight projects. This development represented a philosophical shift from a neutral presentation of methods without particular advocacy for one or the other. The challenge that this neutral approach presented is that each method is somewhat different and especially for those new to foresight, it became challenging to find common ground, distinguish them, or to know when to use one or the other. Our experience is that our initial wariness of promoting a standard method and thus a “one-right-way” of doing foresight proved unfounded. Not only does it not detract from the teaching of other methods, in fact it has made it easier. Framework Foresight was deliberately built to accommodate and incorporate other methods and approaches. It provides a basis of comparison of how various practitioners and methods do the work, enabling them to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each. Framework Foresight thus could be viewed as a meta-method in that it is a modular approach that accommodates a substitution of, or supplementation from, other methods or techniques at various steps. As students became practitioners and used the method in their practice, they have provided useful feedback and have generally reported back good results. Thus, Framework Foresight is offered to the foresight community as a method for carrying out foresight projects     

National foresight in science and technology strategy development

The paper is concerned with the national foresight exercises in Thailand to devise the key science and technology (S&T) strategies. The Thai government, through the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), has used the foresight processes to influence policy making and create national foresight programmes. The foresight exercise, covering the period from 2000 to 2020, aims to examine the potential of the Thai industry and investigate a set of development policies necessary to make the Thai industry successful by the year 2020. Three rounds of strategic conferences comprising 2677 people were set up to create a vision for the future of the industry. The results of the foresight process provide a comprehensive overview of the trends of the Thai industry. The study contributes towards the formulation of feasible technological and industrial policies, which would enhance the country's ability to improve the competitive position for tomorrow.     

Balance-of-payments crises in a perfect foresight optimizing model

The paper extends the literature on balance-of-payments crises by treating the issue in a generalized equilibrium framework. Investors maximize a non-separble utility function, defined over consumption and real money balances, under the threat of a future collapse of the fixed exchange rate regime. The paper obtains real effects in the form of current account adjustments when agents realize that the fixed regime is not indefinitely viable. New information regarding official foreign lending can cause attacks at the central bank in the form of sudden shifts by investors out of domestic money into foreign bonds.     

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     

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.     

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.     

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.