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The purpose of this paper is to examine how much value national governments worldwide place on political, economic, scientific, artistic, religious, legal, sportive, health-related, educational and mass media-related issues. This knowledge is critical as governments and policies are typically expected to be congruent with the importance these issues have for society.

Drawing on theories of polyphonic and multifunctional organization, the authors recoded and analyzed a US Central Intelligence Agency directory to test the cabinet portfolio of a total of 201 national governments for significant biases to the above issues.

The results suggest that governments worldwide massively over-allocate their attention to economic issues.

The authors conclude that this strong pro-economic governance-bias likely translates into dysfunctional governance and development at both the national and supra-national level.

The purpose of the paper is to present three different contributions to a general model theory which the authors think as relevant to systems research based on systems theory, cybernetics and constructivism. This also implies that the three contributions are shown to be of use both in the study of systems that operate by models, as well as in the practice of designing models.

The text is conceptual and mainly of a descriptive and referring character. Besides the sections on the three contributions to a model theory, the authors have inserted sections that relate them to systems theory. This is also achieved by the help of some simple models.

The paper also points to models as important instruments in constructing and selecting information to observing systems, and the authors hope that the text can be helpful in developing better knowledge of how models work.

The text is about observing systems that observe by models, and that is probably a somewhat new perspective. It is hoped that the paper can be inspiring to further studies on this matter.

Are entrepreneurial opportunities discovered or created? The debate around this question has crucial implications for successful organizational change management in the business world. The present conceptual paper transcends this debate by embedding the concept of the entrepreneurial opportunities within a Luhmannian systems – theoretical framework which accentuates the unique role of organization and change in the age of functional differentiation. The purpose of this paper is to show how the strategic navigation of the borders between function systems such as politics, science, education, religion, art, or, of course, economy leads to the discovery or creation new opportunities for both business and social entrepreneurship.

The paper combines Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social differentiation with Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy. The key argument is that the alternative regimes of social differentiation, such as segmentation, centralization, stratification, and functional differentiation, create distinct pools of entrepreneurial opportunities to be discovered, created, and exploited by adequate business models. (Business) Organizations, therefore, need to strategically adjust the amount of attention they devote to the different forms of social differentiation. The argument is buttressed with illustrative examples of business models related to the regime of functional differentiation.

A paradoxical finding is that the multifunctional business models which explicitly draw on the value creation potential of the most recent form of social differentiation, functional differentiation, remain little known even though they infuse business organizations with a unique capacity of new venture discovery and creation in the modern society.

Multifunctional business models have so far remained unexplored in entrepreneurship theory and practice. This paper develops a first strategic approach to the discovery or creation of both multifunctional business models and a broader framework of multifunctional organization models.

This paper aims to extend the existing views of coopetition into the broader context of open coopetition.

The authors build on the literature about open innovation cooperation between competitors in the open-source software industry, which we generalize to show that open coopetition between competitors and third parties can be observed in other industries and institutional settings.

The authors outline a research program on the management challenges of open coopetition-related and argue that open coopetition can not only be observed between business rivals but also between partners from university, industry, government and further institutional backgrounds.

The authors introduce to so-far neglected roots of the emerging research program on open coopetition and extend the prevailing business focus of open coopetition research to also systematically include open coopetition between partners from business and other spheres of society.

The literature on economic forecasting, is showing an increase in criticism, of the inaccuracy of forecasts, with major implications for economic, and fiscal policymaking. Forecasts are subject to the systemic uncertainty of human systems, considerable event-driven uncertainty, and show biases towards optimistic growth paths. The purpose of this study is to consider approaches to improve economic foresight.

This study describes the practice of economic foresight as evolving in two separate, non-overlapping branches, short-term economic forecasting, and long-term scenario analysis of development, the latter found in studies of climate change and sustainability. The unique case of Ireland is considered, a country that has experienced both steep growth and deep troughs, with uncertainty that has confounded forecasting. The challenges facing forecasts are discussed, with brief review of the drivers of growth, and of long-term economic scenarios in the global literature.

Economic forecasting seeks to manage uncertainty by improving the accuracy of quantitative point forecasts, and related models. Yet, systematic forecast failures remain, and the economy defies prediction, even in the near-term. In contrast, long-term scenario analysis eschews forecasts in favour of a set of plausible or possible alternative scenarios. Using alternative scenarios is a response to the irreducible uncertainty of complex systems, with sophisticated approaches employed to integrate qualitative and quantitative insights.

To support economic and fiscal policymaking, it is necessary support advancement in approaches to economic foresight, to improve handling of uncertainty and related risk.

While European Union Regulation (EC) 1466/97 mandates pursuit of improved accuracy, in short-term economic forecasts, there is now a case for implementing advanced foresight approaches, for improved analysis, and more robust decision-making.

Building economic resilience and adaptability, as part of a sustainable future, requires both long-term strategic planning, and short-term policy. A 21st century policymaking process can be better supported by analysis of alternative scenarios.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the article is original in considering the application of scenario foresight approaches, in economic forecasting. The study has value in improving the baseline forecast methods, that are fundamental to contemporary economics, and in bringing the field of economics into the heart of foresight.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One way to think about the future challenges is to make benchmarking analysis, where other micro or macro level organisations are compared in relation to own activities and systems. This article includes benchmarking of all the EU‐15 countries. Authors report top 15 lists of various indicators. As a general benchmarking framework, the motivation, access and skills indicators system is used. In the study the authors perform correlation analyses of competitiveness and MAS‐indicators. A special contribution of the article is that it combines competitiveness analysis to macro level MAS framework’s social indicators analysis.

This article provides basic conceptions and visions of the regional foresight system in Finland. It includes brief information concerning foresight activities and an up‐dated description of the current regional foresight system in Finland. In the 1990s there has been a “boom” of extensive foresight and futures studies. Among the most important development projects has been the regional foresight project of Employment and Economic Development Centres (TE‐Centre). This article describes how regional foresight activities have been developed in Finland and what kind of challenges there are in the field of the Finnish regional foresight.

The purpose of this paper is to address questions related to public service delivery. Specifically, the authors note that existing research relating to public services is usually based on a number of oversimplifications, and that a novel conceptual understanding of change management practices related to public services is necessary. As such, the authors base the argument on the observation that the notion of public services has evolved into one of service systems, which call for new kinds of conceptual and theoretical approaches in order to understand this transformational shift.

This paper is intended to be inherently interdisciplinary – meaning that the authors discuss systemic governance challenges in a specific context (public service) relating this notion to a body of literature that is relevant to this context, though one which has not previously been used in this way (e.g. Modern Systems Theory, New Public Management and New Public Governance). This paper highlights the ongoing discussion on service-dominant logic and links these discussions to the framework of public services. The notion of public services is inherently under-theorised in the service science literature and thus presents a unique and important area for future inquiry.

The paper provides three main conclusions. The first concerns the new understanding of public services as an embedded part of the service economy when looking at service delivery from the organisational viewpoint – and also from the viewpoint of service users. Public service systems operate in a world of open systems which are more or less difficult to govern and manage. Second, the emergent systemic governance changes will be both pervasive and profound. These changes cannot, however, be understood only in economic terms; only by adopting a wider societal standpoint can they be fully appreciated. Such changes include, for instance, gene technology, robotics, informatics and nanotechnology and they cover various technological fields. Third, systemic adaptability requires new leadership and management styles. Future governance, leadership and management models must therefore be agile and adaptive to complex changes.

Based on this paper, potential future research topics include, analysing the role of public services as a delivery mechanism for public policies from the perspective of the coherence of public policies, to leadership models, forecasting methods and decision-making in service systems, the capacity of public service systems to adapt to systemic governance challenges, co-ordination in service organisations and service systems, service delivery mechanisms adopted at the service organisation level, touch-points between service staff and service users and the accountability functions of public service systems.

Public service systems clearly face new challenges, challenges that are not adequately addressed by the currently dominant paradigmatic approaches such as NPM and New Public Governance. The connection between the challenges posed by systemic governance and their impact on public service systems has not been adequately analysed thus far, either theoretically or empirically.

This article seeks to present approaches on the utilisation of expert information in strategic planning practices.

The article emphasises alternative scenario development for the bases of decision making. This is done through an evaluation of Delphi studies and their feasibility for scenario construction. As an application of the information processes, both narrow and broad expert information processes are presented as alternative sources for solutions in public sector strategic planning.

Basically, there are two alternative ways to utilise Delphi studies in strategic planning and decision making: a broad expert information process (BEIP) model; and a narrow expert information process (NEIP) model.

As a broad process, an example is presented of the alternative future outcomes and the argumentation around it in the share of genetically modified plant varieties in commercial farming in Finland.

This theoretical review contributes to the discussions of the linkages between the use of expert information, the scenario planning and the strategic planning processes.