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Does future thinking enhance managers’ innovative behavior? This study aims to posit that the ability to project events while considering current/future variables and their development (i.e. future thinking) – inextricably linked with the knowledge creation process – may enhance the manager’s accuracy and the number of potentially successful innovative ideas for organizations.

The authors use a between-group experiment to examine the innovation choices of 47 subjects with experience in evaluating the market potential of new products when asked to support or otherwise reject real-life innovation-related ideas. The authors test the accuracy of decisions made by participants primed to apply future thinking, practically implemented through abductive reasoning, in their decision-making.

The authors found a significant change in managers’ innovative choices, with participants primed for future thinking making significantly more accurate decisions than the control group. Those participants both correctly chose innovation-related ideas with significant future potential and rejected ideas with limited potential that ultimately failed.

This study explores how future thinking enhances managers’ innovative behavior in organizations. It provides empirical evidence on how future thinking, practiced through abductive reasoning, can work to foster innovative behavior, which is an antecedent of knowledge creation. Organizations that foster future thinking concurrently create knowledge, increasing their competitive advantage in the long run.

The purpose of this paper is to review and provide propositions about survey assessment tools of the key sustainability competencies (KSCs) of education for sustainability. UNESCO points out how education plays an important role in transforming societies towards a sustainable future and achieving the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. To plan education for sustainability, teachers need to know the students’ competencies for sustainability before they come to class. Thus, a formative assessment about student competence for sustainability is needed.

Firstly, a structured literature review of assessment tools used to measure sustainability competencies by questionnaire survey is presented. Secondly, the authors’ conceptualise how the competencies influence each other and provide propositions for future research.

The literature demonstrates that there is much ambiguity between prior research about the scales used and what they represent. A lack of validation across disciplines is apparent and an assessment tool that includes all eight KSCs could benefit education for sustainability. Future research could investigate how the competencies influence each other and which drivers are stronger for each discipline across different countries. A formative assessment tool can address this need.

The findings provide a new analysis about questionnaire assessment tools used in prior research to measure sustainability competence. The authors’ offer a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses found in prior research and propose suggestions for future research. Their conceptualisation also provides propositions for validating the KSCs presented in a recent framework.

The purpose of this study is to examine the formation of sustainable development competencies (SDCs) in future primary school teachers during English for specific purposes classes, and to assess the correlation between English proficiency and the development of SDCs, including Collaboration, Strategic thinking, Critical thinking, Modelling sustainable behaviour, Systems thinking and Future thinking.

The research experiment involved the application of content and language integrated learning and facilitation methods in three higher education institutions in Ukraine. The students’ level of English language proficiency was assessed based on the results of the online Cambridge English Language Assessment test, while the level of SDC formation was measured using research methods adapted to the Ukrainian context.

The experiment revealed positive changes in the levels of SDCs and English language proficiency through integrated learning and the application of facilitation methods.

The study established a correlation between the level of English language proficiency and the formation of competencies, such as Collaboration, Strategic thinking, Critical thinking, Modelling sustainable behaviour, Systems thinking and Future thinking, all of which are vital for sustainable development.

This systematic literature review investigates the contribution of design thinking (DT) as a process and tool to drive innovation in a sustainable built environment (SBE) and develops a new model for sustainability research integrating DT and future thinking approaches toward achieving a unified DT and foresight notion for future research and applications.

This review was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Open-access English articles published between 2000 and 2022 identified using the EBSCOhost, Emerald Insight, DOJA, JSTOR, Scopus and Taylor and Francis database searches were reviewed. The review framework deploys a previously proposed modified Ansoff matrix with an integrated innovation matrix to identify and analyze the challenges and opportunities for innovation growth in SBE. Additionally, a citation analysis was conducted to explore the impact of DT for innovation in SBE, and a proposed framework based on design by drawing on foresight theory was developed.

Research on DT for innovation in SBE faces the challenge of unanticipated impacts. According to the average number of citations per document, innovation associated with new solutions within a new context seems to become highly influential. Additionally, research gaps exist in the integration of foresight and DT into sustainability research to identify new contexts and solutions to SBE. A model of foresight design thinking (FDT) is proposed to guide future research and support the practical application of DT in sustainability.

This analysis was limited by the selection criteria as only certain keywords were used and English-only articles were selected. Future research should consider the use of DT for innovation in SBE using various important keywords, which would improve research findings and expand the contribution of DT to SBE.

The FDT model offers a new holistic framework for the iterative process of reframing and reperception, focusing on divergent and convergent thinking with the goal of contributing to SBE practices.

The integrated framework of DT and foresight can contribute to the study and development of sustainable innovation and a strategic shift toward a sustainable society.

The integration of DT, foresight and sustainability can broaden the horizons of sustainability research by systematically addressing future challenges related to SBE, which can be translated into feasible and innovative solutions. Thus, the FDT model complements the application of DT in sustainable innovation in this research field.

The aim of this paper is to draw on the social theory of practice to show scenario thinking as an everyday practice and how the practice could be theorised at the meso‐level.

Counterfactual analysis, scenario analysis and peripheral vision are presented as the constituting methodological triad through which scenario thinking comes into representation.

Scenario thinking is a temporally emerging everyday organizational practice. By placing emphasis on the mundane and taken for granted activities that come together to form the nexus of the practice, often deep underlying structures of organizational behaviour contributing to scenario thinking can be theorised.

The practice conceptualisation of scenario thinking inverts and challenges existing management and practitioners' conventional understanding of the practice as an episodic phenomenon in waiting to be facilitated by an expert with specific end points and conformity.

Foresight practitioners and researchers can use this as an analytical starting point for the study and theorising of scenario thinking in self organized groups.

The paper provides a new angle of vision to extend understanding of the development and theorising of scenario thinking in autonomous working groups.

The purpose of this article is to examine the nature and type of methods used in futures studies and foresight work which are explicitly concerned with creating “forward views” and/or “images of the future” (“prospective” methods).

A new analytical technique, “mode‐level analysis”, is introduced and described, based on a classification of “modes” of futures thinking and levels of “depth” of interpretive frameworks. By choosing both a set of thinking modes and a series of interpretive levels as a basis, prospective methods may be analyzed in terms of which mode(s) and what level(s) they operate with or at.

Two modes of thinking and five levels of depth are chosen for this analysis. The resulting schema is used to classify such methods as: wildcards, forecasting, “trend breaks”, visioning, backcasting, and alternative histories and counterfactuals. An analysis is also carried out on the method of “scenarios”, revealing a variety of different approaches operating at multiple levels of depth. The historical development of prospective methods is also discussed.

Mode‐level analysis can be generalized to any number of modes or levels, depending on the application, context or objectives of the analyst. It may be used by academics for interest's sake and for teaching students, and by practitioners as both a design tool and a diagnostic one.

This paper introduces a new technique for classifying prospective methods, and may help lead to ideas for the creation of new methods.

The purpose of this paper is to first suggest scanning focal areas in new product development (NPD) by comparing with design thinking and, second, to uncover what people in different occupations expect of NPD based on future scenarios.

Authors place scanning and design thinking into a matrix of product-market strategies. In addition, this study adopts several open-end-type questionnaire surveys of employees at Japanese companies who have taken part in idea generation workshops that take a medium- to long-term perspective.

Authors found that innovations generated through scanning can cover the most difficult and uncertain areas in practice compared with design thinking. This manuscript also reveals occupational categories can be divided into two groups according to different expectations of NPD: the rapid-fire NPD expectation group and late-bloomer NPD expectation group. The former group which consists of marketing and engineering experts tends to expect that NPD is simply a response to existing needs and that profit will be gained expeditiously through NPD, while the latter, which comprising design and research experts, tends to expect that NPD will realize future innovations.

This study shows some common and different points between scanning and design thinking by using a theoretical framework of product-market strategies. Also, this study reveals who will lead innovation based on foresight in business.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a classroom assessment aimed at determining the extent to which five key sustainability competencies develop in students during an introductory transdisciplinary sustainability course. University sustainability programs intend to provide integrated education that fosters the key competencies students need to solve real-world sustainability problems. Translating sustainability competencies into effective pedagogical practice in integrated academic programs is not straightforward. This work builds on a previous study by both expanding the competencies evaluated and considering additional demographic characteristics.

The paper summarizes previously identified key sustainability competencies and describes teaching methodologies used to foster these competencies in students. Development of competencies in students during a semester-long course is assessed using a pre-/post-test based on two case studies. The implications of the findings for teaching practice and overall program structure are discussed.

Based on the assessment methods used here, four of the five sustainability competencies evaluated in this study developed differently in students according to gender, disciplinary affiliation and age. Females improved interpersonal competence more than males. Systems thinking competence improved for students associated with the three disciplinary affiliations considered in this study: sustainability major, sustainability minor and business major. Anticipatory competence improved for sustainability and business majors only, but not for students minoring in sustainability and majoring in other disciplines. Finally, normative competence improved for younger students only.

Insights for teaching practice and overall program structure are based on assessment of one introductory transdisciplinary sustainability course. Much additional work is needed to draw strong conclusions about general teaching practices and program structure for sustainability education. This study provides a flexible and field-tested rubric for further evaluative work in other sustainability courses or degree programs.

Universities incorporate sustainability into their undergraduate curricula in many ways, ranging from certificates to entire degree programs focused on sustainability. The results of this study suggest that educators pay attention to gender diversity, classroom teaching practices, disciplinary perspectives and student attitudes and developmental stages as they figure out how to make sustainability part of undergraduate education. This information may help create more effective sustainability courses and academic programs, which may maintain the viability of current sustainability programs and promote the institutionalization of sustainability in higher education.

This research contributes to undergraduate sustainability education by providing insight into how sustainability education might thoughtfully be integrated into academic programs. It also offers an assessment approach for use by other sustainability educators to evaluate effectiveness of teaching practice and overall program structure based on five key sustainability competencies commonly cited in the literature.

The aim of this paper is to discuss key factors of long-term (sustainable) development and prosperity. There are three basic guidelines that seek explanation: dependence theory, the influence of geographical and environmental factors and cultural determinism. But there are perhaps three other important factors for successful development: education, caring for public space and future oriented thinking.

Why are some nations poor and some are rich? The answer might lie somewhere else other than in the known theories of development. Or rather, maybe every development theory has some truth in itself, but what we need is to create some inventive synthesis. To formulate such synthesis, calculation of future oriented thinking index can help us to understand better why some communities and nations are poor and some are rich. Perhaps future oriented thinking is the main key to prosperity and success.

If future oriented thinking is an important factor to prosperity and success, then an instrument is needed to measure it – the Future Oriented Thinking Index (FOTI). Future Oriented Thinking Index is by methodological approach close to the State of the Future Index (SOFI) developed by Theodore J. Gordon and the Millennium Project. But FOTI should focus more on identifying how people are able to take into account future challenges and behave according to them, less on “state of the future“ (measuring whether a situation will improve or deteriorate). Tentatively 23 indicators are proposed to calculate FOTI.

Many economists, environmentalists and other experts have long been cooperating in designing an alternative indicator to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) capable of better capturing the long-term development of society and not just economic performance in a narrow sense. Future Oriented Thinking Index calculated for individual countries as an arithmetical average of 23 selected variables (individual indicators, all available from publicly accessible sources) is a new approach to complement such indexes as the Gross Domestic Product, the Human Development Index, the Environmental Sustainability Index, or the State of the Future Index.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a holistic set of thinking or cognitive skills for professionals, managers, and executives to stay relevant in a digital economy.

The viewpoint is based on more than 20 years of experience gained working with multinational companies and public sector organizations across various industries in Asia.

To stay relevant in a digital economy, there is a need to develop a holistic set of cognitive skills such as design thinking, process thinking, systems thinking, futures thinking, and creative thinking that complements technical and people skills.

The paper provides senior human resources practitioners with suggestions on a holistic set of thinking skills that complements technical and people skills to help manage organizational capabilities and develop talents to stay relevant in a digital economy.

The paper provides senior human resources practitioners with suggestions on a holistic set of thinking skills that complements technical and people skills to help manage organizational capabilities and develop talents to stay relevant in a digital economy.

This paper contributes to the existing literature on human resource development by providing insights on a holistic set of thinking skills that are needed in a digital economy.