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In 1930, John Maynard Keynes explored long‐term economic growth, anticipating that the economic problem of scarcity was likely to vanish in a century’s time. The Keynes’ scenario is confronted with current developments related to the growth of services and to the distributional and environmental aspects of sustainable development.

In the twenty‐first century, the forces of information technology, markets and globalization will continue to be felt and will bring about both positive and negative effects. The past century saw these forces contribute to the wealth of nations but the greatest challenge for economists in the next century and more is to understand how these forces can bring about the wealth of the world, built around the concept of sustainability (with its four pillars of economic efficiency, social equity, ecological balance, and democratic governance). This article sets an ambitious agenda for economic research along four lines: socio‐economics, mesoeconomics, technoeconomics, and foresight.

The analysis of characteristic dimensions of the mobile‐communications system has been based in the interaction between technological performance (characteristics of the different generations of mobiles), cost for the user and value‐added. These dimensions allow for the positioning of all m‐communicators services into a morphological cube. The analysis of this cube shows that the area of high value‐added services with low pricing is yet to be developed by the industry, if 3‐G (broadband mobile telecommunications) is to develop as a successful innovation in the years to come.

Practitioners of futures research think that most modelling, and especially economic modelling, is concerned with forecasting. Since it is generally agreed that futures research is not concerned with deterministic views of the future, futures researchers have turned their back on quantitative methods, relying instead on scenario methods. However, given the progress made in modelling techniques, there are no reasons to maintain the divorce between futures research and modelling, especially economic modelling. Both can provide interesting insights about the future and these insights can certainly be improved by using all available techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to apply interpretive structural modelling in the clarification of the perceptions of different individuals in a managerial group in order to improve group decision making. To limit conflict and increase shared knowledge in group decision making, there is a need to explain differences among group members at the cognitive level.

Qualitative research has suggested methods that involve personal narratives and in‐depth interviews. The effectiveness of such methods can be enhanced using the techniques of formal logic. The approach used for the case is a simulation of a strategic group decision‐making process using interpretive structural modelling. The simulation contemplates a typical business scenario. It was done using role‐play in strategic corporate problem solving: four functional managerial roles and one general managerial role were assigned. Individual and group relationships were portrayed.

After analysing the results the authors found major differences in priority orderings of the different roles. As there are differences in the perception of the priority of the issues in the different managerial roles, it would be more difficult to take a decision.

The limitations of this research are that it was done with assigned roles instead of real executives. Further research could provide ways of identifying schools of thought in decision‐making groups for strategic issues.

The practical application of this paper would be in the hypothetical decision‐making arena, improving the decision‐making process among executives working in different functional areas.

The application of formal logic methods to a decision‐making process is the prime contribution of this paper.

This paper aims to present an analysis of entrepreneurial activities that emphasises anticipation and the art of future exploration; in so doing, it identifies important aspects of entrepreneurship as aesthetic or creative activities.

After a short synthesis of the main entrepreneurial functions in terms of decision making in the financial sphere, the managerial sphere, and the “booster” sphere, the paper concentrates on the qualities required for a successful “booster” function (motivation, ambition, innovation, cooperation, proactiveness). Because proactiveness and innovation both require futures thinking and creativity, the paper presents relevant material from the literature on long‐term foresight to establish the artistic aspects of these important components of entrepreneurial activities.

The paper's linking of entrepreneurial functions to the capacity for anticipation establishes the need for entrepreneurs to acquire competencies (in the area of forecasting) that are usually associated with artistic endeavours.

There is an urgent need for university curricula to include material that is oriented towards the training of entrepreneurs. This should include specific courses on creativity and forecasting.

The recognition that key entrepreneurial functions (proactiveness and innovation) are more art than science, and that they therefore require a set of operational tools, is relatively novel in the current literature on entrepreneurial (and managerial) functions, and opens a research field in business decision making.

This article reports a wide range of complementary or antinomic insights into the multi‐layered globalizing process, in an attempt to understand its causes and significance. Different perceptions and assessments of its far‐reaching consequences all over the world are picked out. The ambiguity of the high‐technology revolution with potential transition from material to time values is contrasted with the self‐destructive bases of self‐interest policies, and the flagrant defeat of the modern economy among those excluded from planetary society. While on the surface it seems to be only a change of relations between the finance sphere and the “real economy”, the more comprehensive and penetrating cognition of recent occurrences reveals a questioning of human values. New forms of social relationships will need to be imagined to define what human worth is.

Long and short‐range‐planning helps, as in the chemical and and drug industry, with planners beating nonplanners' sales and profits by 60 percent. To start formal, integrated long‐and short‐range planning, select and appoint a planning director, teach planners about planning usage and results, create a standard view of the organization, define future goals by phases or years, select a planning site, determine future goals, run the plant by the plan, and revise planning yearly. This requires educating staff in planning's desirability, techniques, and corporate goals. It also requires economic, technological, social, political and legal, and competitive views going into the planning, to be understood. Planning should define risks, resources, and competitive advantages over rivals.