A complete summary for the course 'Strategic and Responsible Foresight', taught during the 3rd year of the Bachelor 'International Business Administration. This summary includes the lectures as well as the relevant reading materials and articles. With this summary, I got an 8.6 on the exam.
The knowledge problems of business organizations
- Business organizations have knowledge problems:
o The knowing cycle
Decision Making: what alternatives are available? How do we choose?
- But Foresight doesn’t (always) see it
What is ‘Strategic and Responsible Foresight’
- The ability to create and sustain a variety of high-quality forwards views and to apply
the emerging insights in an organizationally useful & societally responsible way
- Aims to generate anticipatory intelligence to support strategic decisions of managers,
policymakers, and societal stakeholders
- Combines economic oriented strategic foresight (90%) with reflexive and normative
responsible innovation (10%) (in sensitive areas perhaps rather (70/30)
Linking Social Responsibility to Strategic Foresight
- Why include RRI in Strategic Foresight?
o Policy and society expect a contribution from business and industry to create ‘a
better society’
- Addresses normative questions like:
o What are possible social/environmental/health impacts of a new innovative
technology? Who is affected in what way?
o How can we assess these impacts?
o What are ‘right’ impacts?
o How can right impacts be realized?
- Based on governance:
o Anticipation, reflection, engagement, acting
- Governance instruments:
o Business & industry: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate
Environmental Responsibility (CER), etc.
o Public administration: technology assessment (TA) and Ethical, Legal …
Four S&RF Core Topics/Four Classes
- 1. Foresight theory, methods & practice
- 2. Co-evolutionary dynamics of technological innovation & societal change
- 3. Responsible innovation: the governance dimension
- 4. Understanding of role of promises and expectations of new technologies
1
,Why S&RF for Business & Industry
- Today, in a fast-changing world with speeding innovation dynamics ‘anticipatory
intelligence’ is crucial to support strategic action
- Today, many markets lost their stable properties:
o Influence of global developments
o Influence of new (disruptive) technologies
o Changing political landscapes
o Controversies on sustainability
- Hence, there is urge to develop solid strategies to sustain present and future business
- Today, industry’s role in tackling grand societal challenges in a responsible way is seen
as crucial
Development of Foresight Methods in practice and theory
- Since late 1970s development foresight started
- Nowadays: established academic and professional practice
o Various forms (both quantitative and qualitative)
- Scenario Planner:
o Imagination
o Curiosity
o Open mindedness
o Reducing:
Complexity
Uncertainty
Ambiguity
- Scenario Planning Metaphors:
o Mountain
o Ocean
- Scenario Planning Methods:
o Road-Mapping
Different roads and their possible outcomes
o Backcasting
Go from vision what you want, back to present and think about how to
achieve the vision
Three roles of Foresight in Enhancing the Innovation Capacity in
Companies Paper 2
- Initiator role:
o Identify new needs/technologies/competitors’ concepts early
o Triggers innovation initiatives
o The ‘Enabler’
- Strategist role:
o Create visions
o Provide strategic guidance
2
, o Identify new business models and changes in business logic
o Directs innovation activities
o Systematic path towards vision
Create the vision
- Opponent role:
o Challenges basic assumptions
o Scan fir disruptions that might endanger current and future innovations
o Challenges ‘business as usual’ ideas
o Alternative thoughts
Performativity of Foresight: Past-Present- Future Co-shaped &
Interconnected
- Future imaginations are performative = co-shape the present/foregrounding and
backgrounding
o Aligning visions of multiple actors
o Legitimize funding
o Coordinate action of multiple stakeholders
Different types of Uncertainties for Corporate Organizations Paper 1
- Want about uncertainty, risks; be aware of ignorance; know your limits
o Uncertainty due to variability
o Uncertainty due to lack of knowledge
- State uncertainty – how components in the environment might change; i.e. new laws,
new technology, changing culture)
- Effect uncertainty – what will be the impact on the organization; i.e. existing customers
or technology
- Response uncertainty – viable responses, response choice; i.e. investments in new
technology, new customer values)
Future Scenarios: Core Drivers of Change & Uncertainty
- Key questions in Strategic Foresight are:
o What are the important drivers of change?
o What are the main (un)certainties?
o How to distil: ‘anticipatory intelligence’
- Insight into underlying dynamics:
o Sociotechnical mechanisms
o Multi-level dynamics
o New and emerging technologies are important drivers
Drivers differ for various sectors and countries, depending on core
problem definition and situated realities
3
, - Multi-Level Transformative Dynamics of Innovations
Foresight Methodology
- Foresight Approaches
o Predictive – as accurate as possible (almost never used)
Forecasting, modelling, quantitative trend analysis, delphi method
o Explorative – multiple futures, mind challenging, creative
Scenarios, qualitative trend analysis
o Normative – towards a desirable future
Roadmapping, backcasting
- Scenario methodology in 7 steps:
Step Task
Focal Issue Identify the focal issue
Actors and factors Identify and analyze
Get the whole picture
Eventually revise focal issue
Strategic Space Explore the strategic space using the
CHANGEL components
Uncertainty/relevance space Explore the uncertainty & relevance space
using the CHANGEL components
4
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