Handbook of Research on Strategy and Foresight (original) (raw)

Exploring strategy context with foresight

European Management Review, 2004

Strategic management literatures have contributed significantly to our understanding of strategic decision-making, strategy formulation, strategy content and process. However, research into strategy context has been spasmodic, less interrogative and non-systemic. Hence, the relationship between context and both the content and process dimensions is not well understood. Recently, many organizations have been turning to scenario thinking methodologies to explore, facilitate and foster a linkage that enables better strategy content to develop. Scenario thinking has enhanced environmental sense-making in many organizations. But, such processes have come under increasing criticism for missing weak signals and emerging patterns in the underlying drivers of future change. This paper examines the reasons for these flaws by reference to recent developments in the cognitive psychology literature. It then investigates the strengths and weaknesses of using counterfactual reasoning as a tool for reducing the main biases that lead to foresightful thinking failures.

Developing and Applying Strategic Foresight

2002

Most organisations operate primarily on the basis of priorities and principles laid down in the past, within a taken-for-granted worldview. They modify their underlying past-orientation with inputs from the current environment such as market information, economic signals and government regulations. But few attempt to bring these factors from the past and present into a coherent relationship with the forward view. Since the latter remains a collective blind spot this article concentrates on the construction, maintenance and uses of the forward view.

Thinking Futures: Strategy at the Edge of Complexity and Uncertainty

2016

Today’s society is facing challenges of an unprecedented global scale. Economic shifts, ageing population, migration flows and climate change – to name only a few – will provide both new problems and new opportunities. Analyses, instruments and methods that were used in the past to prepare for the future no longer work. How can decision and policy-makers cope with all this? This book offers insight into a new approach. ‘Future(s) thinking or strategic foresight thinking’ is a powerful and research-based method of interpreting an unpredictable, changing and complex environment. It can be applied in a range of domains, from political policy and business strategy to innovation and entrepreneurship. In all of these domains, the disciplined application of future thinking can offer a distinct and sustainable competitive advantage. "Thinking Futures" is a valuable guide to anyone concerned for our future: from politicians to CEOs, from policymakers to youngsters and from diplomat...

Special issue on ‘corporate foresight and innovation management’

Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 2018

This special issue examines corporate foresight and innovation management in contemporary organising. Contributing to a growing body of research on the other-centeredness and interconnectedness of foresight and innovation, the papers in the issue examine the practice of corporate foresight, how it may lead to the identification of opportunities for innovation, and the complex processes and conditions that enable (or impede) the capture of value from corporate foresight. Representing an interesting mix of empirical, conceptual, qualitative, and quantitative methodologies, the papers offer innovative theorising to extend our understanding of the logics of corporate foresight, their interactive effects and contribution to innovation management. Emphasising anticipation and prescience, corporate foresight is an organising practice involving the creative identification, exploration, and exploitation of opportunities and limits otherwise glossed over by competitors. In fast moving business environments characterised by ambiguity and change, the practice of corporate foresight has become an annual ritual in many forward looking firms (Hodgkinson and Healey 2008; Vecchiato 2015). Following the logic that more of it will lead to companies finding a path that leads to the future, the practice is increasingly conceptualised as a learning process rather than an episodic intervention tool (Bootz 2010; Cunha, Palma, and da Costa 2006). In this regard, a plethora of firms now treat corporate foresight as an everyday practice of combining relevant past, present and future insights into meaningful, future-oriented knowledge (Wright and Cairns 2011; Sarpong and Maclean 2016). This shift has not only altered how firms views and organise in the present to compete in the future. It has led to firms investing in a variety of corporate foresight methodologies ranging from scenario planning, road mapping, competitive intelligence, and business war gaming (Rohrbeck, Battistella, and Huizingh 2015; Daheim and Uerz 2008). Developed and advertised by practitioners, consultants, and researchers as a strategic process of handling the effect and response uncertainty of technology and social drivers of change (Rohrbeck and Gemünden 2011; Vecchiato and Roveda 2010), decision makers are frequently called upon to integrate these exercises into their organisational processes. In response, many organisations now support and conduct scenario planning but continue to struggle to measure their effectiveness or know what kind of future they sometimes want for themselves (Mietzner and Reger 2005). An expansive view of the corporate foresight 'playing field' now points to inter-organisational collaboration as a strategic means to managing the future. This new turn to participatory foresight projects in clusters and innovation networks seek to mobilise and harness the differential visions of potential competitors and partners to detecting discontinuous changes and interpreting their

Challenges for corporate foresight: towards strategic prospective through scenario thinking

foresight, 2006

Every few hundred years there occurs, in Western history, a sharp 'transformation'. Within a few short decades, a society rearranges itself-its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later there is a new world. The birth of the European city in the thirteenth century; Gutenburg's invention in 1455 of printing with movable type; and the perfection of the steam engine along with the American Revolution and Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations', all in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, mark three such transformations [Drucker, 1993]. We currently live in just such a period of transformation. It is creating the 'Post Capitalist Society'. In some areas, basic shifts in society and structure have already happened. With virtual certainty it can be said that the new society will be nonsocialist, post-capitalist, discontinuous and organisationally pluralist. Information will lead to knowledge, and hopefully knowledge to wisdom. Regulation, likewise, will give way to awareness, and awareness in turn to responsibility. The one thing we can be sure of is that the world that will emerge from the present rearrangement of values, of beliefs, of social and economic structures, of political concepts and systems, indeed of world views, will all be different from anything anyone today imagines [ibid]. Everything is in flux, which is why it is also the time to shape the future now. This is the 'grand challenge' for society at large-and for corporations in particular. A New Mindset A new mindset is required by corporate organisations to anticipate and prepare for the future. A mindset that embraces individualism, collaboration and innovation. A mindset that addresses societal and environmental, as well as economic, imperatives. Above all, however, a mindset that can tackle complexity, uncertainty and change. In other words, corporate management, in the post-capitalist era demands a total strategic commitment based, as Tom Peters [1988] would say: "on entirely new ways of thinking about organisations". This implies a mindset that is oriented to process rather than to structure; that is ecologically driven rather than hierarchically driven; that is value-added rather than competitive; that is holistic rather than functional; and that is collaborative and innovative rather than adversarial and derivative. A futures orientation, with strong foresighting capability and capacity, founded on flexible and adaptable systems, is the secret of success.

The Imperative of Strategic Foresight to Strategic Thinking

Journal of Futures Studies, 2008

An apparent gap in mainstream strategy literature points to questions relating to the role and competencies of leaders in strategy making. An initial investigation reveals that turbulent change and growing environmental uncertainty demands leadership intuition and skills that are able to anticipate aspects of the future, provide enabling environments significantly different to the recent past and to provide direction for a dynamic 'living organisational strategy'. The paper explores the relation between neuroses of thinking about the future, the roles of leaders, strategic foresight and their connectedness to expanding bottom line measures of organisational performance. These are seen as indicators of leadership skills required to embrace the future and the possible foundations of an imperative for strategic foresight education in leadership development.

The future isn’t what it used to be: Here's how strategic foresight can help

The future isn’t what it used to be: Here's how strategic foresight can help, 2023

The future isn’t what it used to be: Here's how strategic foresight can help As Foresight becomes more and more important at an organisational and individual level, it's important to understand and learn its basic principles, concepts, tools and frameworks. This is a PDF version published in Compass, April 2023, a publication from the Association of Professional Futurists - APF. A special word to Stephen Dupont, APR, Fellow PRSA for the editing work of the article. You can also read the article in the World Economic Forum forum website: https://lnkd.in/djxh2T8K