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http://www. tandfonline. com/loi/ctas20 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations: lessons from the sociology of expectations Harro van Lente a a Department of Innovation studies, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable development, Utrecht University, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The netherlands Published online:
28 aug 2012. To cite this article: Harro van Lente (2012) Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations:
lessons from the sociology of expectations, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 24:8, 769-782, DOI: 10.1080/09537325.2012.715478 To link to this article:
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8 september 2012,769 782 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations: lessons from the sociology of expectations Harro van Lente*Department of Innovation studies, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable development, Utrecht University, 3508 TC Utrecht, The netherlands Foresight can be described as the articulation of possible futures.
research institutes and policy circles (Borup et al. 2006; Van Lente and Bakker 2010. Expectations are produced, circulated, adapted and are forceful in various ways (Berkhout 2006).
Foresight exercises, or‘formal'assessments of the future, thus, are surrounded by‘informaal assessments of the future (Salo 2001).
This particular condition will have consequences for the established foresight approaches. This paper conceptually and empirically investigates the phenomenon that socio-technical developments are shot through with informal anticipations
and discusses the implications for formal foresight exercises of science and technology. The central question of this paper is whether and howforesight exercises,
h. vanlente@uu. nl ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2012 Taylor & francis http://dx. doi. org/10.1080/09537325.2012.715478
http://www. tandfonline. com Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 770 H. van Lente out.
and policy circles (Cagnin, Loveridge, and Saritas 2011). During the last decades, dedicated foresight practices have emerged and various approaches and tools have been developed
and evaluated (Coates et al. 2001; Harper et al. 2008; Eerola and Miles 2011. Schoen et al. 2011,235) give the following definition:
Foresight can be characterized as a systemic instrument aiming at enhanced capabilities in innovation systems and their parts.
Foresight activities are seen as functions not only to identify promising technological pathways but also to engage relevant stakeholders and create common visions into action.
and the review article of Porter (2004) lists the nine families of foresight methods including quantitative and qualitative explorations and forms of stakeholder involvement.
Glenn, and Jakil 2005. Foresight exercises provide policy with better problem definitions, ensuring more involvement of stakeholders
and help to implement the policy (Harper et al. 2008). The special issue of Technology analysis & Strategic management in 2008 provides a good overview of these intended benefits.
In their review of theories and practices of foresight in Europe, Da Costa et al. 2008) list six,
what they call, ‘functions'of foresight for policy-making, see Table 1. Others cluster the intended benefits of foresight into three different objectives (Könnölä, Brummeer and Salo 2007;
Schoen et al. 2011. The first objective, priority-setting, concerns the ambition to identify a shared agenda,
including future actions and allocation of resources. Foresight helps to highlight and evaluate alternative paths.
Brummer, and Salo 2007. Apart from methods and objectives, foresight exercises also differ in the settings in which they are used.
varying from governmental agencies, funding agencies to individual research institutes or firms (Luiten, van Lente, and Blok 2006).
2011) label these settings as‘arenas 'and distinguish between (i) the arena of strategic orientation of research,
the daily production of research and innovation Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations 771 Table 1. Functions of foresight for policy-making.
2008). ) Table 2. Foresight objectives in relation to the arenas of governance. Arenas of governance Foresight objective Priority-setting Networking Building visions Strategic orientation Macro policy priority-setting National/EU level stakeholders networks Overall political
2011). ) by universities and firms, the production, diffusion and transfer of knowledge;(iii) the arena of programming,
2011) also link these arenas to the various objectives and present the following comprehensive overview (Table 2). Foresight is exercised also in firms,
where it tends to be framed in costs and benefits (Reger 2001; Rollwagen, Hofmann, and Schneider 2008.
This is the domain of strategic decision-making. Business studies have developed a set of techniques to assess the future for strategic decisionmakkin (Kappel 2001;
Van der Duin 2006. A popular technique is technology roadmapping, which has been used since the 1980s by Motorola and later by many other firms (Willyard and Mcclees 1997), like Philips (Groenveld 1997) and Lockheed martin (Houston and Turner 2001).
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 772 H. van Lente Technological roadmaps basically are creative connections between expected developments in technological skills, sequences of products and potential future
markets. 3. Sociology of expectations In the last decade, the so-called sociology of expectations has studied how in scientific and technological developments actors continuously and explicitly refer to what is possible in the future:
they draw from and add to a repertoire of images, statements and prophecies and by doing
so they contribute to a particular dynamic (Van Lente 1993; Brown 2003; Borup et al. 2006;
Van Lente and Bakker 2010. This approach studies how expectations in science and technology are structured,
how they grow, gain dramatic attention or quietly disappear, and how this affects the decisions of engineers, businesses and governments.
It investigates how researchers, businesses and governments derive their agendas from their collectively created images of a promising technology
The orientation towards the future applies to the behaviour of individuals, groups, organisations and society as a whole (Konrad 2006.
but rather a change or creation of a new reality (Guice 1999). In other words, expectations are performative:
likewise, the statement‘this material promises a reduction in electrical resistance of 30%in two years'does something,
they should be able to meet this specification within two years. Van Lente (1993,2000) has argued that such transformation of a promise into a requirement is a central mechanism in the dynamics of expectations:
and will vary in level, content and modality (Konrad 2006). The level of expectations may range from encompassing, abstract sketches of the future (macro) to detailed elements (micro.
And the modalities may range from taken Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations 773 for granted statements that do not meet any resistance,
The wellknnow story of Moore's Law is used often as a prime example (Mackenzie 1990.
Gordon Moore, the director of Fairchild Semiconductor in the USA predicted in 1965 that the complexity of integrated memory chip would double every 18 months.
Three years after his prediction, in 1968, Gordon Moore founded with Robert Noyce the company Intel,
however, points to the central role that the prediction has been playing in the strategic game between the manufacturers of memory chips (Mackenzie 1990.
however, it is not easy to distinguish between the validity of a claim and the collective perception of it (Van Lente 2000;
Berkhout 2006. While the financial health of a bank can be verified in ways other than rumours,
such as the roadmaps on the hydrogen economy (Bakker, van Lente, and Meeus 2011). 3. 2. Force of expectations The case of Moore's Law is extreme,
a project or programme can be defended by referring to a promising future (Borup et al. 2006.
While the Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 774 H. van Lente current performance of a technology
and thus be granted support (Konrad 2006). Maybe it failed this time, but the next time it might succeed (Hellsten 2002).
In some cases, such as nuclear fusion, this mechanism has secured costly research during decades (e g. on the Joint European Torus and International Thermonuuclea Experimental Reactor),
when projects or programmes bring other outcomes than expected as they usually do (Geels and Smit 2000).
as introduced and used by the Gartner Advisory Group (Borup et al. 2006). They propose that a new development is accompanied by‘inflated expectations'that receive much attention and mobilise many investments,
Second, expectations provide direction to the search processes of science and technology (Rip and Kemp 1998.
Expectations thus reduce uncertainty in much the same way as heuristics do in research and development (Nelson andwinter 1982.
Finally, there is a coordination effect of expectations (Van Lente 1993; Konrad 2006. Techniica development is not solitary work,
but the work of networks of companies and research institutions. When a central control is lacking,
Rosenberg (1982) argues that expectations about rapid technologicca development may inhibit the development: when potential customers believe that, within the next few months,
an improved version is going to be available, they will postpone the purchase. Studies of financial markets have noted that investors are motivated
and Stein (1992) shows that investors tend to use the speculatiiv information that others use as well;
more sophisticated and effective health technoloogies many types of work are articulated (Van Lente 2006). The promised future situation contains sequencing of genes, characterisation of proteins, databases, dynamic models and so on.
Indeed, there are many examples of unfulfilled promises (Douthwaite, Keatinge, and Park 2001; Hedgecoe and Martin 2003.
Moore's law is an extreme case of a strategic game, reinforced by technology roadmaps, between manufacturers who cannot afford to lose the race.
but still forceful (Brown, Rappert, and Webster 2000). Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations 775 3. 3. Expectations
and strategies A general assumption is that expectations can play such a big role due to the inherent uncertaiint of technological development (Antonelli 1989).
Researchers, firms and governments have to make decisions about future products in future markets, about things which,
and are uncertain about their future rivals in the future battlefields (Williams and Sorensen 2002). In addition, sociologiist of science and technology point to the dynamic nature of science and technology:
According to this belief in progress, a next version of products, systems or knowledge will be available (Braun 1995.
Berkhout (2006) emphasises the distinction between private and collective expectations. The first type relates to the cognitive schemes through
Mackenzie (1990) describes in his study on guided nuclear missiles how the degree of uncertainty about the promised capabilities of the missile depends on the distance from the development itself.
but lack insight into the details that may hinder the realisation. For them, the possibilities appear as facts.
Brown and Michael (2003) describe the phenomenon of the trough of uncertainty in the study of clinical applications of biotechnology:
more data Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 776 H. van Lente and more developments (Konrad 2006.
or promoting the‘robustness'of an expectation (Sung and Hopkins 2006). This provides other opportunities for foresight and assessments.
(which includes many choice moments) with more actors, more perspectives and, in general, more reflection (Schot and Rip 1996;
Roelofsen et al. 2008. For foresight exercises, it is relevant to consider that the constructivist perspective acknowledges that others are in the same situation as those who judge the expectations (Van't Klooster and Van Asselt 2011.
In contrast, the realist perspective implies an asymmetry: others may be victims of the game of expectations,
www. gartner. com. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations 777‘niche'has been introduced to denote this protection (Vergragt 1988) and traces back to the evolutionary metaphor
of variation and selection (Nelson and Winter 1982. New technological options, as variations within a selection environment may
or guiding visions (Dierkes, Hoffmann, and Marz 1996; Sturken et al. 2004) like the‘electronic superhighway'in the 1990s or the‘hydrogen economy'of the last decade.
The idea is that a choice of the right Leitbilder will lead to a successful coordination of efforts (Grin and Grunwald 2000;
Kuusi and Meyer 2002. The criticism is that such dynamics can be traced only ex post,
and that the approach is insufficiently robust for an ex ante policy (Berkhout 2006). Eames (2006) and his colleagues have studied how the guiding vision of the hydrogen economy has lead to resistance.
They show that when the general vision is filled in with concrete projects contestations will arise.
Their example is the Clean Urban Transportation Europe project in the UK where industrial partners like Daimler-chrysler and BP,
we were taught to treat hydrogen with respect'(Financial times, September 27, 2003, cited in Eames et al. 2006).
The fact that it was supported by a European programme was an additional reason for suspicion.
and thus contribute to lock in (Jacobsson and Johnson 2000; Unruh 2000. On the other hand, foresight can be an antidote as well,
by Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 778 H. van Lente Table 3. Lessons of the sociology of expectations for Foresight objectives of foresight Lessons of sociology of expectations Expectations are drawn from repertoires Expectations
are performative Expectations enhance the strategic character of S&t priority-setting The efficacy of foresight as an antidote to lock in is limited Enhanced legitimation for selected priorities Foresight exercises
‘excessive prioritizing may decrease the diversity of options that challenge conventional approaches and dominant designs'.
an increasingly important task for foresight is to critically reflect on the available, circulating expectations (Könnölä, Brummer, and Salo 2007).
or even circumvent lock in conditions by engaging different stakeholders (Havas 2003). This may support the emergence of competing coalitions.
Such countervaailin strategy, again, is weakened by the dynamics of expectation, because stakeholders may be new, but their contribution will draw from a more general repertoire (Nahuis and Van Lente 2008).
An example here is that public participation in new technologies often does not lead to new and heterodox insights;
instead of new coalitions, old partisan oppositions tend to be reproduced (Rip and Talma 1998. The second lesson is that statements about futures are not innocent descriptions
thus, are not to be seen as descriptive statements that may or may not be true. Once they are voiced
where companies Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations 779
referring to the efforts other governments have planned (Berube 2006. 5. Conclusion Foresight exercises can be seen as formal articulations of possible futures,
This involves studies of technology Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 780 H. van Lente assessment, foresight, intermediary organisations, politics of knowledge production and philosophy of technology.
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28 aug 2012. To cite this article: Riccardo Vecchiato (2012) Strategic foresight: matching environmental uncertainty, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 24:8, 783-796, DOI:
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8 september 2012,783 796 Strategic foresight: matching environmental uncertainty Riccardo Vecchiato*Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy This paper explores how strategic decision-makers select
Teece 2007) and the organisation theory literature (Dill 1958; Thompson 1967) have emphasised long the role of the environment as a major source of uncertainty for strategic decision-makers in charge of coping with emerging opportunities and threats.
and processes that assist decision-makers in the task of charting the company's future course of action (Coates, Durance, and Godet 2010;
Martin 1995; Roveda and Vecchiato 2008. The main goal of strategic foresight is to select promptly drivers of change in the company's outside environment (environmental scanning:
see Day and Schoemaker 2006; Hambrick 1982) and to investigate their likely evolution and impact on the organisation (foresight techniques:
see Porter et al. 2004. So far, strategic foresight has uneven success and popularity. On the one hand, scholars have shown that in the last two decades a significant number of leading firms of such diverse sectoor as energy, automotive, telecommunications,
and information technology have been regularly applying foresight techniques (Daheim and Uerz 2008; Reger 2001; Rollwagen, Hofmann, and*Email:
riccardo. vecchiato@polimi. it ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2012 Taylor & francis http://dx. doi. org/10.1080/09537325.2012.715487 http
://www. tandfonline. com Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 784 R. Vecchiato Schneider 2008;
Vecchiato and Roveda 2010a. The wide interest in foresight seems to be confirmed by the growing number of consulting companies and networks in the field. 1 On the other hand,
scholars have failed to clearly define the value added of foresight and to provide empirical evidence of its contribution to sustain the advantage of the firm over time.
The most relevant example concerning the impact of foresight on the success of the organisation still remains the case of Shell scenarios and its anticipation of the forthcoming 1973 oil crisis (van der Heijden 1996;
Wack 1985. In this context, some scepticism arose in the academic community regarding the reliability of foresight efforts and their soundness and appropriateness for supporting strategic decision-making (Bradley Mackay and Costanzo 2009;
Grant 2003; Wiltbank et al. 2006. The major evidence of this scepticism may be the fact that today foresight is addressed not specifically by most MBA curricula;
2 furthermore, so far only a limited number of papers on anticipatory studies in corporate organisations have been hosted by leading academic journals.
Scholars and practitioners in the field generally respond to such concern about the reliability of foresight by arguing that its role is not so much to predict the future,
but to prepare the firm for the future (van der Heyden et al. 2002; Tsoukas and Shepherd 2004.
However, scholars omitted to investigate thoroughly what kind of foresight techniques and practices should a firm adopt
in order to match uncertainty in its business environment and thus prepare at its best for the future.
because the role of anticipatory actions is a key issue in literature on strategic management (Ansoff 1991;
Mintzberg 1990; Wiltbank et al. 2006. In order to explore the relationships between environmental uncertainty, foresight, and strategic decision-making, we performed a multiple-case study of corporate organisations.
In this paper, we focus on BASF in the chemical industry, Daimler in the automotive industry, Philips in the consumer electronics industry,
and the main drivers of change in each industry of our sample firms since the early 1990s.
Environmental uncertainty and strategic foresight Conceptualisation of environmental uncertainty Early conceptualisations of uncertainty go back to pioneering management scholars such as Knight (1921) and March and Simon (1958),
when managers lack accurate information Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 785 about organisations, activities,
Milliken (1987) distinguishes between three types of uncertainty that act together to determine the overall uncertainty faced by strategic decision-makers.
will new laws be enacted in the next 10 years? If so, how strict will these be?.
and today are referred commonly to as the business macro environment (Fahey and Randall 1998). Strategic foresight:
such approaches are grouped commonly under the label‘strategic foresight'(Coates, Durance, and Godet 2010; Vecchiato and Roveda 2010b.
the first regards environmental scanning and the detection of new events and drivers of change (Mendonça and Sapio 2009.
Roadmaps, 3 scenarios, 4 and strategic options (Dixit and Pindyck 1994) are by far the most popular foresight techniques (Becker 2002;
Cuhls and Johnston 2008. But there are many others: for example, Delphi, relevance trees, trend-impact analysis, cross-impact analysis, systems dynamics,
and game theory (Glenn 1999; Porter et al. 2004; Roveda et al. 2007. However, strategic foresight had uneven success. Rigby (2001) found that only 21.5%of North american executives used scenario planning in 1999, approximately 50%fewer than in 1994.
Increasing criticism has pointed to the unreliability of anticipatory studies: while relatively accuraat in the short term, forecasting accuracy diminishes in the medium and long terms as political, economic, social,
and technological drivers of change interact in novel and unforeseeable ways. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 786 R. Vecchiato Prominent scholars supported the idea that the best way to handle an uncertain future is to ignore it
and emphasised an‘adaptive approach'based on strategic flexibility (Hamel 2000; Mintzberg 1990. Foresight practitioners and scholars generally respond to such criticism by arguing that the role of foresight
and its value added does not lie in predicting the future, but in preparing to deal with the future by means of a learning process that helps the organisation to remain matched to its changing environment (van der Heijden et al. 2002;
Tsoukas and Shepherd 2004. In this vein, scholars focused on methodological issues regarding how to implement a large number of foresight practices and techniques.
However, they generally omitted to clarify whether and under what conditions of environmental uncertainty a given practice
or technique is more appropriate and effective than others. Extant research streams of environmental uncertainty and strategic foresight are aligned not seamlessly.
The following issue in particular remains largely unexplored: how do managers design their strategic foresight approach in different environments and thus under different conditions of uncertainty?
and Siemens. 5 Given the inadequate analysis in the literature and the open-ended nature of our questions, we felt that this methodological approach would be the most useful for theory building (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007;
Yin 2003. Table 1 provides an overview of our empirical setting. The cases of these firms are extremely explanatory:
on the one hand, throughout the 2000s, BASF, Daimler, Philips, and Siemens operated in different industries that underwent considerably different (kinds of) drivers of change and conditions of uncertainty.
Firm Business Foresight activities started Philips Consumer electronics Early 1990s BASF Chemicals Mid-1990s Daimler Automotive Late 1970s Siemens Consumer Products,
ICT Mid-1990s Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 787 The unit of analysis was twofold.
since they started their foresight efforts and in particular throughout the 2000s. On the other hand we analysed the foresight activities of each firm in relation to uncertainty and drivers of change in its business environment and the use of strategic foresight in decision-making.
and lasted from 1 h to half a day. Data analysis was highly iterative and used traditional approaches for inductive research (Eisenhardt 1989;
Yin 2003. Analysis began with detailed written accounts and schematic representtation of the historical evolution of the industry of each firm.
After constructing the case histories, we conducted a within-case analysis, whichwas the basis for developing early constructs and hypotheses.
Since the 1990s, the demand for chemicals has been characterised by low growth and considerable cyclicality Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 788 R. Vecchiato
(which is likely to increase in the near future). Capacity cannot be adjusted easily, so there is a constant danger of overcapacity.
Strategic foresight activities at BASF started in the mid-1990s, when the company realised that the chemical industry was going through major structural changes
The time frame is usually 10 15 years for Global Scenarios, but much shorter for sector and business scenarios.
and response options to drivers of change (Ruff 2006). Such system aims at encompassing and integrating analyses of future changes in the macro environment into market and product issues.
and mobility business and are carried out at a global level or for a specific region over a 10 15-year perspective.
(and divestment) decisions for Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 789 expanding
throughout the 2000s were rather dynamic. The growing pace of technology developmment and the continuous emergence of disruptive changes in customer needs have contributed together to greatly increased dynamism in these industries and for these firms.
A corporate unit (Philips Design) established in the 1990s delivers innovative design concepts and services for the company main businesses.
Within Philips Design, the‘Trends and Strategy'team has been devoted to the Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 790 R. Vecchiato investigation of three axes‘Society'‘
A specific initiative the‘Probes Program'has been established recently as a long-run (10-year time horizon) research project intended to present‘provocations'about new lifestyle patterns,
Foresight activities usually cover a 10-year time horizon, while emerging trend investigations are scheduled yearly to fit in with the annual strategy calendar.
In the case of the consumer products and ICT businesses, the time horizon is 5 years.
Since the late 1990s, foresight activities have played a key role in redefining the company mission, as it focused its value proposition on the‘Sense and Simplicity'concept.
it is allocated to the‘Siemens Technology Accelerator'(part of the Corporate Technology Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 791 division),
and the consumer electronics and ICT businesses, on the other hand, are suited well to illustrate what types of uncertainty a firm may face in its external environment
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 792 R. Vecchiato On the other hand, drivers of change in the consumer electronics business of Philips (or the broader ICT business in the case of Siemens) affected the identity of the main components of the micro environment itself and thus brought about‘boundary'uncertainty.
operating in the consumer electronic business in the 2000s could be compared to the case of a player who still has to learn both the rules of the game
Discontiinuou drivers of change are typically disruptive technologies (Christensen 1997) and new customer needs stemming from emerging or growing industries.
Managers at BASF and Daimler could be quite confident about the key decisions they would have to make in the next 20 years or even more
see Schwartz 1991) could be used directly for handling state, effect, and response uncertainty. First, these techniques allowed managers to think about the alternative evolutions of drivers of change (state uncertainty) in an organic and systematic way.
Scenarios provided an organic framework for thinking about how these forces could develop in the next 10 or 20 years.
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 793 On the other hand as they were facing discontinuous drivers of change,
and‘continuous'and‘discontinuous'drivers of change and we thus improve our understanding of the different kinds of uncertainty a firm may face in its business environment.
Second, we provide empirical evidence on the ways major companies designed their strategic foresight approaches to handling uncertainty and supporting long-range planning (Cassingena Harper et al. 2008;
Da Costa et al. 2008. We argue that boundary uncertainty is something different from state, effect,
which so far have been the main focus of strategic scholars (Milliken 1987). Boundary uncertainty entails strong implications for foresight efforts:
and start-ups) in order to identify the new components of the industry (see, for instance, Mendonça and Sapio 2009).
That might Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 794 R. Vecchiato be the case in the medium/long-term future of the automotive industry itself,
which previous scholars have suggested as the main contribution of foresight to strategic decision-making (van der Hejden et al. 2002;
Tsoukas and Shepherd 2004. Data collection and data analyses were designed in order to improve the construct and internna validity of our conceptual framework.
and managerial cognition (Tripsas and Gavetti 2000) for investigating how to identify discontinuous drivers and how to renew managerial beliefs about the boundaries of their business.
illustrating the temporal and causal relationships between nodes (Kostoff and Schaller 2001). 4. Scenarios are focused descriptions of fundamentally different futures presented in a coherent script-like or narrative fashion.
but rather credible and coherent stories that describe different paths leading to alternative futures (Fahey and Randall 1998;
Schwartz 1991. 5. Siemens is a conglomerate company which operates in a wide range of different businesses (e g. automation, building, energy, health, and mobility).
Wild cards are low-probability, high-impact events (Mendonça et al. 2004. Continuous and discontinuous drivers might have either low or high probability and either high impact or low impact:
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 795 Notes on contributor Riccardo Vecchiato is Assistant professor at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of Politecnico di Milano
In 2005, he was a visiting researcher at the Manchester Business school, University of Manchester. His main research fields are foresight methodologies and strategic management of technology and innovation.
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