Foresight-as-Emergence: An Integrative Framework of Strategic Foresight Based on Complexity and Practice Theory

Abstract

Strategic foresight, as the capacity to recognize emerging environmental changes, is increasingly viewed as a distributed capability comprising multiple internal as well as external agents on different organizational levels. This recent turn toward more distributed and open approaches of strategic foresight, however, lacks a common theoretical foundation as scholars draw on different perspectives in their explanations. In light of this, this article conceptualizes the notion of foresight-as-emergence by drawing on and synthesizing insights from a practice lens and complexity theory. The integrative framework of foresight-as-emergence unpacks the concept of foresight space, linking the dynamics of how new insights into the future evolve from organization members’ everyday situated practices (i.e., local emergence) with the processes of how they become dispersed and adjusted throughout the organization (i.e., global emergence). In doing so, the framework provides a theoretical foundation for strategic foresight in high-velocity environments comprising both microlevels and macro levels.