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Article
Publication date: 12 April 2011

M. Atilla Öner and Senem Göl Beşer

The overall aim of the research is to provide an assessment of the level of the reported success of foresight project results of a multinational company in Turkey.

Abstract

Purpose

The overall aim of the research is to provide an assessment of the level of the reported success of foresight project results of a multinational company in Turkey.

Design/methodology/approach

The model of assessment is based on an integrated framework characterized by approaching foresight as a project and associating it by the redefined pitfalls in, and success factors of, corporate foresight projects in order to facilitate better conversion of their results into actual changes in corporations. A multinational company in Turkey (Siemens Turkey) is chosen for the exploratory case study. The exploratory assessment model was designed via the use of a survey questionnaire, a case study, and interviews of managers (who were involved in the corporate foresight project).

Findings

Results of the individual assessment of corporate foresight project at the company were labeled as “successful”. There needs to be given an overall attention to the process‐oriented elements of the foresight project. Pitfalls in the foundation phase accumulated the highest problem area, suggesting that the total project would eventually suffer.

Research limitations/implications

One of the limitations of the study is the use of a single case with an attempt to assess the pitfalls of the foresight projects. The exploratory study may include premature conclusions about the assessment of corporate foresight project results, yet a single case can imply generalizable insights. The authors believe this research suggests some potentially significant insights for foresight studies and their applications.

Practical implications

The study may help to support the reliability of the foresight studies as they have been implemented and might bring a new methodological challenge on the quality and success of the corporate foresight project results.

Social implications

The approach described the factors affecting the success of corporate foresight activities with respect to understanding the pitfalls of foresight projects. Taking reference to such a framework, foresight results may be better delivered and disseminated in corporations with concrete results and actual changes in organizations. The model of assessment may be used to analyze the level of the reported success of foresight project results in companies implementing foresight activities.

Originality/value

Although foresight studies within businesses has become more important and widespread with its systematic and continuous/participatory approach, based on a variety of methods, it is still a partially explored area in terms of research with mainly descriptive studies.

Details

Foresight, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 November 2017

Ludmila Kováříková, Stanislava Grosová and Dušan Baran

The presented study aims to provide an understanding of the mechanism whereby foresight is accepted by Czech companies. The results of the study can offer insights into how to…

Abstract

Purpose

The presented study aims to provide an understanding of the mechanism whereby foresight is accepted by Czech companies. The results of the study can offer insights into how to design an optimized corporate foresight tool.

Design/methodology/approach

The well-established framework of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) served as a baseline for research into key determinants of the behavioral intention to use the foresight. The proposed research model included independent variables of UTAUT2 relevant in the context of foresight. The additional variable of personal innovativeness was introduced as a potential predictor. Structural equation modeling (SmartPLS 2.0 software) was used to evaluate the data.

Findings

Performance expectancy regarding foresight was identified as the most substantial predictor of behavioral intention in line with the scientific literature. Surprisingly, the second strongest predictor was the construct of personal innovativeness, and social influence was also proven to affect behavioral intention. The results show that traditional determinants of effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation and habit did not play a significant role in relation to behavioral intention to adopt the foresight.

Research limitations/implications

The attributes of cost and intention to use could not be included in the research model, as the corporate foresight is not commonly implemented. Second, the tested sample included 103 interviewed organizations but only from Czech Republic.

Originality/value

The study primarily aims to enhance the corporate foresight theory. Secondarily, it extends the UTAUT2 theoretical framework by testing personal innovativeness as a variable explaining behavioral intention. The authors provide statistical evidence of factors impacting the adoption of corporate foresight by companies.

Details

foresight, vol. 19 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 September 2015

Konstantin Vishnevskiy, Dirk Meissner and Oleg Karasev

The aim of this paper is to develop a specific strategic foresight methodology and integrate this into roadmapping which is suitable for corporations. To date, reasonable…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to develop a specific strategic foresight methodology and integrate this into roadmapping which is suitable for corporations. To date, reasonable practical experience has been accumulated, but there is a lack of a comprehensive conceptual approach for using strategic foresight and roadmapping to solve management problems.

Design/methodology/approach

This approach integrates corporate strategic foresight and roadmapping in several stages. During the foresight phase, the authors create scenarios of long-term development determined by long-term macro trends and challenges to identify “points of growth” and system of priorities for company growth. A strategic roadmap enables the company to form a “corridor” for specific projects and create a long-term action plan to implement the priorities identified in the first phase. Using a project roadmap makes it possible to ensure the implementation of a specific project, defining a system of goals, the necessary measures, their timing and financing, as well as indicators to assess their effectiveness.

Findings

The core result of the suggested methodology is a set of possible trajectories of innovation development, reflecting the whole technological chain involving R & D – technology – product – market. Each path involves a sequence of organizational actions and key decision-making points that are necessary to be taken to introduce new technological solutions and develop innovation products with new features to the customer/user. These routes support decision-making in such fields as the choice of the product line, establishment of new partnerships with developers of innovation technologies, decisions regarding “insourcing-outsourcing” and the requirements for relevant scientific and technological breakthroughs. It allows corporations to create strategies for commercializing innovation products.

Originality/value

The methodology proposes to integrate the results of foresight studies and in roadmaps and finally in business planning, adopting innovative strategies and management decisions. It contributes to the development of common principles and approaches to the subject, while taking account of company-specific features that can significantly affect the decision-making mechanism. The methodology is applicable to foreign and Russian companies when creating innovative strategies and management decisions based on the results of foresight.

Details

Foresight, vol. 17 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 November 2017

Mahdi Joneidi Jafari and Seyed Akbar NiliPourTabataba’i

This paper aims to examine the capability of corporate foresight in the organizations and its impacts on innovation, quality of managers’ strategic decision-making and…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the capability of corporate foresight in the organizations and its impacts on innovation, quality of managers’ strategic decision-making and organizational performance in the banking industry of Iran.

Design/methodology/approach

In the first part, upon introducing corporate foresight from the two process and content perspectives, influential elements in this construct are discussed. Then, corporate foresight’s relationship with innovation and strategic decision-making is examined and its effect on organizational performance is analyzed within a structural model. Using interview and questionnaire, the data research were collected from the banking industry of Iran including 30 banks (state-commercial banks, specialist-state banks, interest-free loan funds and private banks). Through descriptive, inferential statistical analyses and structural equation modeling using SPSS and Smart PLS software, reliability of the measurement model with 576 samples was confirmed.

Findings

The results show that the corporate foresight playing three roles of initiator, strategist, and opponent affects the innovation. Moreover, the research results suggest that using the data from the foresight and identifying the weak signals, we can reduce the uncertainty and issue prior warnings in order to enhance the quality of manager’s strategic decision making and promote the organizational performance.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the articles from the sources of the doctoral thesis of Futures Studies as “The relationship between knowledge absorption capacity, corporate foresight and its effect on the performance of the banking industry in Iran”.

Details

foresight, vol. 19 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 March 2018

Jari Roy Lee Kaivo-oja and Iris Theresa Lauraeus

Under current market conditions of corporate foresight, turbulence is a key element of the business landscape. Turbulence can be summarised using the trendy managerial acronym…

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Abstract

Purpose

Under current market conditions of corporate foresight, turbulence is a key element of the business landscape. Turbulence can be summarised using the trendy managerial acronym “VUCA”: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. This paper aims to combine, for the first time, scientific discussion of technological disruption with the VUCA approach. Gartner Hype Cycle is used as a case example of technological turbulence and “vucability”.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the authors present the key concepts of technological disruption and radical innovation. Both these concepts are highly relevant for modern corporate foresight. Second, the authors discuss the key elements of current technological transformation and summarise it to create a bigger picture. Third, the authors link this discussion to the VUCA approach. Fourth, the authors present the new corporate foresight framework, which is highly relevant for corporations and takes current technological transformation more seriously than previous proposals, which expect more stable business and a technological landscape.

Findings

Key issues in modern VUCA management are agility (response to volatility), information and knowledge management (response to uncertainty), restructuring (response to complexity) and experimentation (response to ambiguity). Useful foresight tools are challenging tools, decision-making tools, aligning tools, learning tools and the ability to combine these management tools in the practices of corporate foresight and management systems. The VUCA approach is a key solution concept to technological disruption.

Practical implications

The authors present the new corporate foresight framework and management tool based on foresight, which help leaders to manage VUCA – especially under the conditions of hyper-competition and technological disruption.

Originality/value

Corporate leaders should reinvent the strategic planning framework and adjust it to the VUCA conditions and simply be more strategic. Traps and typical failures of foresight are adopting it too early, giving up too soon, adapting too late and hanging on too long. In particular, technological transformation with disruptive technologies is changing and challenging many basic assumptions of business management and strategic planning. Our comparative analysis with Gartner Hype Cycle (fast technological changes from 2008 to 2016) verifies this important aspect of technological disruption.

Article
Publication date: 16 September 2013

Sven Hirsch, Paul Burggraf and Cornelia Daheim

This paper makes a case for the benefits of quantified scenarios as a foresight tool for strategic planning. First it aims to set the context of quantification approaches for

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper makes a case for the benefits of quantified scenarios as a foresight tool for strategic planning. First it aims to set the context of quantification approaches for strategic planning in foresight. Within world models, qualitative scenarios allow for a contingency perspective of the future, however their potential to be linked to strategic planning in corporate foresight is limited. In contrast to complex world models, forecasts on key indicators are easily applied to strategy processes, but lack the necessary capability to recognise uncertainty and decision points. The paper seeks to argue for a new participative and pragmatic approach in order to bridge the gap between the opposing approaches and aims to show how this quantification approach can be integrated with scenario construction on an operational level.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors discuss a quantitative scenario process and argue for its suitability to corporate foresight. They then describe a range of leanings from various foresight projects that have successfully applied quantified scenarios to strategic planning.

Findings

Quantified scenarios can increase the impact foresight thinking has on corporate strategic planning.

Research limitations/implications

The paper outlines the methods and tools of quantified corporate foresight, it does not include empirical evidence or concrete case studies.

Practical implications

The approach outlined here can be used in corporate foresight projects in order to improve the use of scenario planning for strategy.

Originality/value

This paper is the first one to outline a process for scenario quantification within corporate foresight.

Details

Foresight, vol. 15 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 January 2022

Anna Sokolova and Konstantin Vishnevskiy

The purpose of this study is to develop an integrated approach to evaluating corporate foresight (CF) studies at all stages of its implementation and to test this approach using…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop an integrated approach to evaluating corporate foresight (CF) studies at all stages of its implementation and to test this approach using the example of a Russian state-owned corporation.

Design/methodology/approach

The use of foresight by companies as a part of their strategic activities is growing but still rather limited. To increase the effectiveness of foresight at the corporate level and ensure its justification, special approaches and criteria for its evaluation should be developed. To develop the approach to evaluation of CF which would be useful at all stages of foresight realization, at first, the authors focused the authors’ attention on identification of main challenges, problem and barriers, which arise during foresight process on the one hand, and exploring success factors and lessons learnt from different case studies on the other hand. On the basis of this literature analysis, the authors have formed a long list of evaluation criteria, which reflect accumulated experience in the field and all-important aspects to make foresight project successful and effective. On the next step, the authors related these criteria with stages of foresight realization and evaluation category. For pilot testing of this methodology, the authors used a case of Russian state-owned corporation.

Findings

This paper has presented an integrated approach to the evaluation of CF projects. The logic of the evaluation process of CF at all stages of its implementation is proposed; key evaluation topics (concept, objectives, project team, design of the project, project methodology, stakeholders, implementation, resources, results and its dissemination, effects and impact and barriers) are identified, and the corresponding sets of criteria are formed.

Originality/value

The originality of the work lies in using a wide experience of national foresight studies evaluation for corporations. The suggested approach could be used as a framework for CF evaluation. It was tested on the Russian state-owned company RussX.

Details

foresight, vol. 25 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 January 2020

Jonathan Calof, Dirk Meissner and Konstantin Vishnevskiy

This paper aims to provide a detailed case study of a corporate foresight for innovation (CFI) project done by the Higher School of Economics’ (HSE) (Moscow, Russia) corporate

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a detailed case study of a corporate foresight for innovation (CFI) project done by the Higher School of Economics’ (HSE) (Moscow, Russia) corporate foresight (CF) unit for a large state-owned Russian service company. It demonstrates how CFI methods lead to recommendations and how these recommendations result in decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing from being part of the project team, review of the project documents and interviews, the case describes a multi-phased CFI project which incorporated several CF methods. Techniques used for the project itself included grand challenges and trend analysis, analysis of best practices through use of benchmarking and horizon scanning, interviews, expert panels, wild card and weak signals analysis, cross impact analysis, SWOT and backcasting. The project used a broad-base of secondary information, expert panels consisting of company experts and HSE CF team personnel, interviews with senior management and an extensive literature review using HSE’s propriety iFORA system.

Findings

In all 17 CFI recommendation and over 100 implementation recommendations were made; 94 per cent of the CFI recommendations were accepted with most implemented at the time this case was written. The case also identifies five enabling factors that collectively both helped the CFI project and led to a high rate of recommendation acceptance and one factor that hindered CFI project success.

Practical implications

The case study provides detailed information and insight that can help others in conducting CF for innovation projects and establishes a link between CF methods and innovation-based recommendations and subsequent decisions.

Originality/value

In-depth case studies that show academe and practitioners how CFI leads to recommendations and is linked to subsequent decisions have been identified as a gap in the literature. This paper therefore seeks to address this need by presenting a detailed CF case for a corporate innovation project.

Details

foresight, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 February 2008

Markus Will

This paper aims to try to link sustainable development, small business management and strategy setting with corporate foresight. Corporate foresight aims to transfer…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to try to link sustainable development, small business management and strategy setting with corporate foresight. Corporate foresight aims to transfer methodological sound instruments of future and technology analysis to (small) business contexts and can be described as an information‐based communication process aiming in vision‐building on future markets, changes in society and customer needs.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on a literature research and on the results of an interdisciplinary expert workshop and is part of an ongoing case study.

Findings

The paper finds that sustainable development is widely acknowledged as key concept for humanities future. Sustainability calls for balancing short‐term business interest and long‐term development of both the society and the company itself. Regardless of whether a business manager is committed to an ethical fundament of sustainable development (normative attempt), there is also a rational basis for taking (voluntary) actions for corporate sustainability. Notably, regarding the development of commodity prices in the last years (e.g. steel, copper, coal) or the long‐term preservation of value brands, there is a call for strategic response. Corporate foresight may support this strategy‐setting process.

Originality/value

Although foresight procedures are not new in management literature, there is a lack in implementation in small businesses. The paper presents a step‐by‐step approach on corporate foresight to be adopted in small businesses.

Details

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7835

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 August 2012

Riccardo Vecchiato

The main purpose of this article is to promote further systematic inquiry into the field of strategic foresight. It carefully aims to re‐examine the notion of environmental

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Abstract

Purpose

The main purpose of this article is to promote further systematic inquiry into the field of strategic foresight. It carefully aims to re‐examine the notion of environmental uncertainty, the main theoretical approaches advanced by literature on strategy to cope with uncertainty, and foresight activities in corporate organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This article is theoretical in nature. However, its insights are significantly based on empirical analysis: the author has been involved in the past ten years in in‐depth investigation of foresight practices in several international firms of different industries.

Findings

Several important issues and research questions on strategic foresight have remained largely unresolved from both an academic and managerial perspective. This paper outlines such questions.

Originality/value

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it links the work on strategic foresight to a wide range of related literature streams, thus revealing new connections and issues to be explored. Second, it develops a research agenda that may inspire further theoretical and empirical work on the nature and effects of strategic foresight efforts.

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