Organizational Foresight Research Articles

Constructing and mobilising futures knowledge in an organisation: foresight as a catalyst of dynamic strategic practice

ABSTRACTThe paper discusses foresight as a dynamic strategic practice and theorises the connections of foresight and strategic management. The paper argues that organisations have a rising need to foster relevant future-oriented knowledge in a continuous process that builds on the systemic understanding of the operational environment. For this purpose, the paper outlines a conceptual framework for continuous organisational foresight practice. The framework is based on two conceptual bedrocks. The first is the idea of continuity, referring to the long-term accumulation of organisational practices. The second bedrock is the notion of discontinuity as an organisational transformation factor. Furthermore, the framework builds on the notion of four knowledge spaces in an organisation, and it is constructed through six layers depicted in detail. The paper demonstrates this framework through a case study of a Finnish research and technology organisation, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Assessing the maturity level of foresight in Polish companies—a regional perspective

In the face of accelerated change and genuine uncertainties in the business environment as well as the need of processing and interpreting the information coming from majority of sources, foresight research in the enterprises comes into prominence. The main aim of the article is to assess foresight maturity of companies based in Podlaskie province in Poland as one of the least developed regions in Europe. The survey research is preceded by bibliometric analysis and literature review to examine current tendencies in foresight research in organisations. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of the existing works on organizational foresight are that foresight is no longer referred to only as a portfolio of methodologies through which organizations may garner a broader vision and probe the future to ascertain potential competitive landscapes but also as a human or organisational competence. Therefore, the research is based on a foresight maturity model developed by Grim (J Futur Stud 13(4):69–80, 2009). The model, besides traditionally associated foresight components such as environmental scanning, takes into consideration such aspects as leadership, collective vision building, and planning. Pilot survey research carried out among 134 production and services enterprises based in the Podlaskie region has allowed us to state that the companies are characterised by low foresight maturity levels. Hence, based on a literature review, two management concepts are suggested as means to increase the level of foresight maturity in companies.

Corporate foresight: An emerging field with a rich tradition

The goal of this introductory article to the Special Issue on Corporate Foresight is to provide an overview of the state of the art, major challenges and to identify development trajectories. We define corporate foresight as a practice that permits an organization to lay the foundation for a future competitive advantage. Historically we distinguish and discuss four main phases: 1) birth of the field (1950s), 2) the age of scenarios (1960s–1970s), 3) professionalization (1980s–1990s), and 4) organizational integration (2000–). A systematic literature search revealed 102 articles on foresight, 29 of them on corporate foresight. Based on these articles and those in this Special Issue, we identify four main themes. Two more mature themes, namely ‘organizing corporate foresight’, and ‘individual and collective cognition’, and two emerging themes ‘corporate foresight in networked organizations’, and ‘quantifying value contributions’. In the conclusion we make a plea for establishing corporate foresight as a separate research stream that can adopt various theoretical foundations from a number of general management research traditions. To help the field move forward we identify three areas in which corporate foresight research can build on theoretical notions in general management, and can contribute to such on-going debates.

Organizational Myopia: Problems of Rationality and Foresight in Organizations

Organizational Myopia: Problems of Rationality and Foresight in Organizations

Policy, planning, intelligence and foresight in government organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a low-cost, high return model for implementing a programmatic foresight function that is collaboratively integrated with the organization’s existing policy, planning and intelligence (or policy research) functions. Focusing on government agencies, especially those supporting liberal democratic governments, the purpose of the current paper is to propose a new, practical, low-cost and high-return model for implementing a programmatic strategic foresight function that is collaboratively integrated with the organization’s existing policy, planning and intelligence functions. The paper describes the relevant organizational considerations and options for structural adjustments, and suggests how the proposed model can maximize decision-making effectiveness without disrupting pre-existing structures, operations and products. The paper further discusses the necessity and involvement of a central government foresight agency and a non-hierarchical distributed network...

Facing and Making the Future: Organizational Foresight and Strategic Choices

Most scholars would agree that our understanding of organizational foresight remains inadequate, both as a conceptual construct and in terms of its relevance to managerial practice. We define organizational foresight (OrgF) as the organizational capability for comprehending the emergent organizational future. In this paper, we develop a framework of OrgF that is centrally concerned with how organizations engage with the future. The nature of this engagement is constituted jointly by two distinct temporal dimensions of the organization, namely, Future Attitude and Future Orientation. Whereas Future Orientation(Near and Distant) is generally recognized in the strategic decision making literature, it is necessary to discuss the other temporal dimension. We have termed this second dimension as Future Attitude, which is the basic way organizational decision makers perceive the flow of time in the future time segment, either passively in terms of anticipation (facing the future) or actively as an arena to acc...

Linking Organizational Change Management and Organizational Foresight

Managers and policy makers should consider using organizational foresight and twelve success factors in their attempts to improve the impact of foresight project results and steer organizational change.

‘Space of Possibles’? Legitimacy, Industry Maturity, and Organizational Foresight

The dispositions and invisible cognitive structures central to organizational foresight are more likely to emerge in young or transforming industries, which are less constrained by the need to achieve institutional legitimacy.

The relationship between organisational foresight and organisational ambidexterity

The relationship between organisational foresight and organisational ambidexterity is the focal point of this paper. Foresight is believed to be having a positive impact on triggering organisational ambidexterity, especially explorative (radical) innovation. Very little empirical research has been done so far to test the probability of this theory with higher constraint designs. This paper reports on the results of a survey involving 230 manufacturing companies in Lithuania. It confirms the importance of organisational foresight, recognising its contribution to both explorative and exploitative innovations, i.e. organisational ambidexterity. Based on a conceptual model that describes organisational foresight as a set of environmental scanning, strategic selection and integrating capabilities, this paper proposes testable measures of organisational foresight. We empirically test the model and provide evidence to the theoretical relationship between organisational foresight and organisational ambidexterity.

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.

Legitimacy, Industry Maturity and Organizational Foresight

The dispositions and invisible cognitive structures central to organizational foresight are more likely to emerge in young or transforming industries, which are less constrained by the need to achieve institutional legitimacy.Five key points:•Organizational foresight, conceived of as the ability to transgress boundaries and evaluate different futures, is seen as vital to an organization’s capabilities.•The roots of the awareness and perception from which organizational foresight emerge are often unconscious, being embedded in invisible cognitive structures which organize practices.•The emergence of organizational foresight is intimately linked to the institutional context of the firm, the modes of legitimacy which dominate that environment, and how balanced these conditions are with the subjective disposition of the organization.•The stability and convergence that characterize mature industries orientate organizations towards institutional legitimacy and the conservation of existing social relations and practices.•In emerging or transforming industries, there is a greater possibility for a disjuncture to occur between industry conditions and the situated practice of the organization, which may generate organizational foresight and opportunities to achieve strategic legitimacy.

Relational Pluralism: Organizational Foresight in Practice

This paper examines organizational foresight from a relational perspective. In doing this, we present relational incumbency as a transient conceptual framework to explore how the organizing social relationships and interactions of lower participants may influence organizational foresightfulness. The research employed an exploratory case-based approach with three software organisations and their four new product innovation projects serving as the empirical research sites. Drawing on the case evidence, we provide an account on how normative organizing structures, rights and authority relationships constitutively influence the creative emergence of organizational foresight in practice. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the managerial implications and some directions for future research.

Strategic foresight in corporate organizations: Handling the effect and response uncertainty of technology and social drivers of change

Today many companies in many industries put a lot of efforts into monitoring and investigating emerging drivers of change in their business environment, particularly in relation to new technologies and events in the social, economic, political and ecological landscapes which surround their industry. So far scholars in the literature on foresight and future studies focused on the techniques and practices for analysing the “state” uncertainty about the likely path of evolution of emerging drivers of change. Anyway, less attention was devoted to the “effect” uncertainty about the impact of drivers of change on the competitive position of the firm and to the “response” uncertainty about how to take advantage of these drivers. These are the main issues we take into account, through a field research on firms that, notwithstanding they were able to properly assess the likely evolution (state uncertainty) of relevant drivers of change in their industry, either were successful or dramatically failed in handling the effect and response uncertainty of these drivers. Moreover, we carried out multiple case studies of some large companies that have established an organizational unit dedicated to strategic foresight. Overall, the results of our research may contribute to improve the effectiveness of strategic foresight and to increase its value added to the planning process of corporate firms, while providing helpful insight to public organizations that promote foresight exercises for enhancing the competitiveness of local firms.

Designing insightful inquiring systems for sustainable organizational foresight

This paper contributes to the theory of collaborative problem solving and strategy design by reviewing the state of the art in the application of problem solving and dialectical methods, and then linking up with analytical and computer-aided approaches. Churchman's concept of dialectical inquiry (DI) is presented, and some major derivatives of DI are reviewed, as well as an integrative method for sustainable insightful foresight developed by the authors called comprehensive situation mapping (CSM). In addition to its dialectical process side, CSM offers computational capabilities for devising and figuring out change scenarios. The theory for the manual application of CSM is summarized; in addition, its recent computerized version is presented and likely future improvements are sketched out in light of a current spate of case studies investigating the user-friendliness of its computerization.

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.

Failures to enact the future—A social practice perspective

To be successful, organisational foresight requires a multitude of perspectives and faculties. We have adopted a social practice perspective, which we base within an interpretative world view, to better understand how organisational foresight is enacted. This offers a reading of the phenomena, of which the essential contribution is that organisational foresight is more than an organisational property; it is something that reflective people do as they engage with various inputs from the outside and as a result of the continuous interaction between activity systems and their constituting elements. A longitudinal case study illustrates the importance of understanding the construction of collective and individual meaning in working with organisational foresight. The study shows how the inherent rigidity of the existing activity system and the weak ties between these diverse subsets of the organisation may block the interaction between emerging social practices and organisational intentions resulting in ongoing failures of understanding and enactment. A model is developed to include these parameters in an augmented activity systems model. Based on this we have identified the linking of organisational levels as one of the key dimensions to be considered for which the social practice perspective holds significant explanatory strength.

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.

Time Travelling: Organisational Foresight as Temporal Reflexity

Time Travelling: Organisational Foresight as Temporal Reflexity

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.

How past becomes prologue: a sensemaking interpretation of the hindsight-foresight relationship given the circumstances of crisis

Foresight is rooted in deep understanding [ A.N. Whitehead. Lecture notes from address to the Harvard Business School, 1931]. Such understanding requires that we shall have first looked back to the past before venturing forward into the future. This paper uses Weick’s and colleagues’ sense making perspective in order to explore this critical relationship between the past and the future [ Communication Monographs 44 (1977) 171; Strategic Management Journal, 9 (1986) 559; Human Resource Management, 34(1 Spring) (1995) 27; Academy of Management Journal, 33 (1990) 286; K.E. Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd edn, Random House, Inc., New York, 1979; K.E. Weick, Sense Making in Organizations. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, 1995]. In particular, key sense making properties will be applied to a crisis, an occurrence of school-place violence that occurred in the United States in 1999. We shall then ask how this organization and its diverse external stakeholders used their understanding of this event to learn how to prevent such crises from occurring in the future. In other words, how capably was hindsight constructed and then how was it used to strengthen foresight into the future? This paper will conduct a theory-based empirical examination of a crisis event and its aftermath to understand how hindsight can be sharpened and then used to improve organizational foresight.