Many organizations have unlimited use licenses to particular databases that allow for thousands of records to be located
Today, major organizations are standardizing certain strategic technology and business decision processes. Stagegaat approaches set forth explicit decisions to be sequenced toward particular ends (e g.,
Furthermore, we see organizations going the next step to require specific analyses and outputs at each stage.
Our QTIP setting presumes an organization with an established FTA framework. QTIP works where we know the sort of information we need.
Imagine a scenario in which our organization is an American company initiating operations in Australia.
This counters the current arrangements in many organizations. Often, an information services unit handles all data requests.
3 Organizations access such databases various ways. For instance, Georgia Tech previously hosted key databases on its own server for access by students, staff, and faculty.
Note that much of this information is provided best to subject matter experts in our organization for their review and interpretation.
whether we want to pursue joint development efforts with another organization. Fig. 2 responds to the second question,
more specifically profiling a particular candidate Australian organization with which to partner to meet our technological needs.
12 Organizations, including Australian manufacturing, power, gas, investment & government. Low High tech Fit Tech Coverage Tech Concentration Hungry?
Fig. 1 profiles technology development activity across multiple organizations. Fig. 2 profiles one company's activity in this case for one technological development domain, SOFCS.
The initial intent was followed by establishing a project organisation. The Steering Group consisted mostly of civil servants from the top management of the funding agencies
in the expectation that different organisations would use these results in whatever ways they would see pertinent.
For instance, Finnsight synthesised consensual information about overarchiin developments that were relevant to many organisations in the R&i system (e g. universities, industrial federations, private enterprises.
technologies, institutions and organizations. London: Pinter. Eriksson, E. A. and K. M. Weber. 2008. Adaptive foresight:
or to legitimate results but more proactively to embed them in the strategies of organisations across the economy and society.
In consequence, one can observe the evolution of different configurations entailing different forms and directions of organisation, inter-organisational research collaboration, use of research policy instruments,
It is composed as a network of research funding organisations responsible for the development of national or regional plant genomics research programmes.
and goals that was developed with a broad range of stakeholders including consumer and environmental organisations (Plants for the Future 2005).
Traditional monitoring processes in most organizations are largely arbitrary depending on what concerned individuals or leaders in the organization are reading, thinking about,
and sharing informally with each other. But in today's world, arbitrary is insufficient. No foresight function can operate with confidence without a disciplined process for spotting new patterns of change
and bringing those issues into the organization for early consideration and action. This article describes the scanning process as SRIC-BI practices it, the importance of open intelligence systems,
what benefits the scanning process can provide to organizations, and what problems organizations typically run into when setting up scanning systems.
D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Scanning process; Open intelligence systems; SRIC-BI 1. The premise Predicting the future is impossible.
Most organizations fail to perform such external monitoring or open intelligence functions in a consistent or systematic way.
which organizations must now succeed or fail. Globalization, privatization, deregulation, competition, and an acceleration of the advances in science and technology all are turning traditional hierarchical or linear markets, supply chains,
and organizations into complex, interdependent, organic systems that demonstrate nonequilibrium dynamics typical of ecological systems.
badaptive organizations require, first of all, a systematic ability to search out, capture, and interpret clues about emerging and as yet unanticipated customer preferences.
The most important tools for remaining afloat and thriving in the turbulence are a constant awareness of the changes going on around your organization
competencies, and mission. 2. The promise The organizations that survive today's marketplace turbulence will be those that can adapt rapidly to change.
The organizations that thrive in today's turbulence will be those that live for change, are constantly aware of developments emerging beyond their own particular current domain,
Organizations that implement systematic and ongoing processes such as open intelligence systems to tap the external business environment continually for signals of change increase their odds of adapting successfully.
Simple awareness of signals of change is insufficient in and of itself to provide an organization with a competitive edge.
He believes that organizations should regularly expose employees to chaos 7. The procedure avoids entrainment of thinking, a condition in
and for nurturing a futures orientation more broadly in an organization. 3. The process The scanning process is necessarily a continuous one.
and interactions among all these categories (see Fig. 1). Organizations that focus on their own industries
In the first method, a cluster of several abstracts characterizes a conceptual overlay that an organization can lift off the scanning data
if participants value each other's contributions regardless of rank in the organization. The meetings can be relatively self-regulating
and knowledge for an organization can begin in earnest. Researchers and analysts will need to examine carefully the clusters of abstracts
Employees from all levels of the organization, from CEO on down, participate in the process of submitting abstracts and attending Scan meetings.
and mind-set for cultivating a future orientation in any organization. The process also provides a tonic against the entrainment of thinking that discourages innovation and adaptation.
To sustain the process beyond 6 months requires a strong commitment from the organization to make the process work
and as a means of questioning the conventional wisdom or complacency within an organization. Through the years
Traditional monitoring processes in most organizations are largely arbitrary, depending on what concerned individuals in the organization are reading, thinking about,
and sharing informally with each other. But in today's world, arbitrary is insufficient. No foresight function can operate with confidence without a disciplined process for spotting new patterns of change
and bringing those issues into the organization for early consideration and action. References 1 Mark Buchanan, Power laws and the new science of complexity management
-and-Respond Organizations, Harvard Business school Press, Boston, 1999, p. 9. 3 Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines, Penguin Books, New york, 1999, p. 103.4
Research on prioritisation practice in the world's leading research companies in the USA and Europe has indicated that corporate labs had moved away from the traditional, discipline-based organisation 16.
which sought to examine the future of‘‘Key Research actors''in the European research area encompassing civil society, researchers, small and medium enterprises, universities, research and technology organisations, multinational enterprises, national and regional governments 23.
and Kuhlmann 31, serving the function of enhancing the capability of innovation systems for self-organisation and raising the level of analysis for innovation policy to the system level.
This means that special attention must be paid to the organisation of the process and to the appropriate use of formal tools and procedures.
Exclusive Intensive stakeholder engagement in core group Extensive Cooperative idea and concept creation among stakeholders from different Nordic organisations and firms;
industry, associations and public organisations of the five Nordic countries. EU: IRRIIS scenario workd 19 Informative Identification of emerging safety and security issues in an EU project to ensure the safety of critical infrastructures.
Similar conflicting forces will affect many smaller-scale FTA ACTIVITIES, in private organisations as well as in the policy sphere. 4 DEMATEL=decision making trial and evaluation laboratory, a structural modelling technique;
the (iv) translation and (v) interpretation of this knowledge to create understanding of its implications for the future of the organisation in question (further posits.
the (vi) assimilation and (vii) evaluation of this understanding to produce a commitment to action in a particular organisation.
It uses of methods such as roadmapping and scenario development relevant to the particular organisation/stakeholder. An important point stressed in this context is the vital role that third parties can play in interpretation
Weick's influential sensemaking in organisations 32 also outlines a three-step process. In the original formulation this is not specific to FTA,
or in the organisations from which stakeholder participants have been drawn. Saritas (2007) provides a rathermore detailed account of five stages in FTA
organisation and management of an FTA programme, including, in addition to standard project management methods, approaches needed for the selection, recruitment and mobilisation of participants in the process.
Even technocratic FTA has to confront the likelihood that no single organisation will itself contain expertise on all of the matters that bear intimately on a specific set of S&t issues it will be necessary to go out to a wider set of communities.
whose numbers and organisation have grown, and who often have an almost innate suspicion of politicians that make decisions affecting them.
This reflectsawareness that it isimpossible foroneall-knowing policy organisation or level of government to grasp all of the intelligence that is needed to make sense of future challenges and opportunities.
or influential members from key organisations, engaged in the FTA PROCESS means that they can develop a much deeper understanding of the process itself,
of the implications for their own and other organisations. This is liable to gowell beyond the knowledge that can be gained from poring over a report,
butwill be carriers of this FTA knowledge into their own organisations, working to create decisions
and in designing the FTA PROCESS it may be effective to appoint very senior members of key organisations to steering or advisory committees,
with less seniormembers of the organisations embedded into panels and workshops. The senior actorswill thus be primed to receive the detailed knowledge that is gained by the more junior actors.
or at organisation, or inter-organisation levels? and the other is more epistemological is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
In fact, a spiral of several successive cycles is needed usually for innovation and FTA PROCESSES moving between so-called tacit and explicit knowledge.
In the Nordic H2 energy foresight, the appropriation of the knowledge from the foresight process into various stakeholder organisations was seen as being accomplished through such activities as pilot projects
and strategy development within these organisations. Eerola's account of the various steps and procedures of the Nordic H2 energy foresight are located in terms of the SECI model in Fig. 2
Through most of the exercise's life, some members of stakeholder organisations were engaging with the foresight activity
relating these to the interests and goals of their organisations. The boundaries between the phases of the SECI knowledge cycle may
This might include material such as a SWOT analysis related to the area of concern (how a country or organisation stands in relation to it
and linking the discussion of posits to practical actions in their own organisations. It is common for a scenario workshop to conclude with some effort at defining key actions
and another differentiation between KM strategies emphasising codification (these are centred ON IT systems, with extensive organisation of data and information resources,
A Framework for Learning in Organizations, Institutions and Culture, Routledge, London, 1995.18 M. H. Boisot, Knowledge Asset:
Training Programme on Technology foresight, UNIDO Regional Initiative on Technology foresight for Central and Eastern europe and the Newly Independent States, Gebze, Turkey, 19 23 november 2007.32 K. E. Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations
http://www. is. njit. edu/pubs/delphibook/delphibook. pdf (accessed 29/07/09)).35 C. W. Choo, The Knowing Organization:
How Organizations Use Information to Construct Meaning. Create Knowledge and Make Decisions, Oxford university Press, Oxford, 1999.36 J. Naisbitt, Megatrends, Warner Books, New york, 1982.37 L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper, M. Keenan,
both organisations introduced rules for technological assessment, although with less formal attempts to assess the social accounting cum auditing of business activity.
and civil society organisations to the public or those who will be affected by decisions taken and consequent actions,
measuring the impact or effect of sustainability on the reporting organisation. The indicators have emerged from the combination of the GRI
Companies and other organisations create value in multiple dimensions. In business this is summarised as the triple bottom line or the creation of shared value through reconciling economic
it requires adjustments in organisation, reporting relationships, and incentives. Few companies have engaged operating management in processes that identify and prioritise social issues, based on their salience to business operations and their importance to the company's competitive context 29.
The organisation of industry on this principle with the waste products of some branches of industry providing raw material for others means in effect using natural processes as a model,
which depends on an organisations willingness to invest in the face of real and anticipated risks
organizations or even nations cannot do much to change them they are larger than the power of individual organizations
Taleb 10 has derived also a series of principles for organizations governments to try to avoid he kinds of disruptions that Black swan events tend to cause.
when assessing their significance in an organization or a field concerned and analysing how the phenomena reflected by the weak signals should be reacted on. 4 There remains some confusion about the definition of weak signal by various researchers and consultants.
which aims to collect weak signals inside of an organization. The tool is developed by the Finnish company Fountain Park. 5 Another tool for using weak signals in organizations is called the Futures Windows 5, in
which images of weak signals are shown in organization facilities. All the employees in the organization can send their images about weak signals to this tool.
The purpose of that tool is to disseminate weak signals in organizations easily and increase futures thinking
and innovating in the organization. In general weak signals are messages and signs usually associated with early developments in technologies, societal innovations, conflicts, origins of conflicts, etc. that while not easily verifiable from a present day perspective.
In conclusion regarding definitions, weak signals refer to the early signs of possible but not confirmed changes that may later become more significant indicators of critical forces for development, threats, business and technical innovation.
They represent the first signs of paradigm shifts, or future trends, drivers or discontinuities. Weak signal examples In the 1980s the first mention was made of global warming and climate change;
3. Affiliation-type of organization represented. Then, the in the second part, the respondents were asked to identify a list of trends, drivers of change, wild cards/shocks, weak signals and discontinuities.
If it is sponsored by an organisation that is out of favour then regardless of the quality of the foresight work there may be little impact.
and enable both organizations and individuals to anticipate, adapt and respond pro-actively to grand challenges.
were developed originally for use in commercial organisations, and are used because they deliver useful insights However,
as well as with other ministries and public organisations. Also a large group of experts from research institutes, private companies,
He has worked on a number of futures-oriented research and development projects with several Finnish ministries and security organisations and in several EU-funded research projects.
Some organizations ventilate their concerns on this topic and a few research programs have been initiated to address these issues.
By striving to play an active role in the 15 The first dedicated technology assessment organisation was the Office of Technology assessment (OTA)( founded in 1972.
and was involved in various consultancy projects on innovation and organisation. His current research focuses on prospective studies of nanotechnology.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001. However, the reciprocal relations that may develop between the sustainable development paradigm
This model requires a strong set of management skills in all public organisations to guide participation and coordination actions.
B Build a social fortress based on family networks and Third Sector organizations to survive in a tough economic context.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2001), Les lignes directrices du CAD Strate'gies de de'veloppement durable, Organisation for Economic Co
He has been a consultant for the European commission, the PAGE 334 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 Inter-American Development Bank and the United nations Industrial Development Organization.
and management and organisation science. They believe‘‘t hese will provide a variety of interpretative lenses that offer the possibility to expand our conceptualisation of FTA,
regional organizations emerge as a key part of developing legal borders. 3. The Legal Internet Scenario:
complementing ex ante evaluations (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2003. Ex ante impact assessment is required to check all possible impact dimensions
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2003),‘Regulatory performance: ex post evaluation of regulatory policies'',Proceedings of the OECD Expert Meeting, September, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris. Porter, A l. and Cunningham, S w. 2005
), Tech Mining: Exploiting New technologies for Competitive advantage, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Rader, M. 2001),‘Monitoring of technology assessment activities'',report by the European Science and Technology observatory Network, Seville.
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1112 1121 1113 Most funding organisations or contract awarders require valid, scientifically sound, knowledge-based, often quantitative,
and planning in organisations that depend on and participate in the development of science and/or technology. 4. 2. Roadmapping as a precursor of a TA process for specific nanotechnology applications The situation described above rather broad and largely unstructured field of investigation, mostly enabling technologies at early stages of development,
nanomaterials experts and knowledge transfer organisations will build branch specific roadmaps for three different industrial sectors on
and the issues it brings to prominence need to catalyse major innovations in organisations and governance',
'building on the argument that existing governnanc structures and organisations need to better adapt to the scale and nature of current Grand challenges.
He looks at corporate organisations that recently faced major changes and increasing turbulence in their external environment in order to explore how decision makeer select
The objective of the framework is to help organisations create a tailored, as well as a common strategy in their network of relationships, with support of FTA,
Ahlqvist, Halonen, Eerola, Kivisaari, Kohl, Koivisto, Myllyoja and Wessberg look at the role of research and technology organisations (RTOS),
partial structural openness enabling flexibility in organisation, and an anticipatory culture that builds on an anticipatory agency, that is, a proactive participatory approach that leads to action.
In this regard, there is no difference between, for example, business organisations and biological organisms. Profitability may be a boundary condition for survival for business firms in modern capitalism,
Real organisations live in environments where the environment and the focal firm co-evolve and mutually define each other
Community, system, or organization? In The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology, ed. W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes,
Self-organization in nonequilibrium systems: From dissipative structures to order through fluctuations. Newyork: Johnwiley & Sons. Nishida, K. 1987.
Theory and practice of intelligent organizations. Helsinki: Metaxis. Tuomi, I. 2002. Networks of innovation: Change and meaning in the age of the Internet.
The orientation towards the future applies to the behaviour of individuals, groups, organisations and society as a whole (Konrad 2006.
and semipublic organisations such as Transport for London were involved. The starting idea that hydrogen is a sustainable and green solution to the mobility problem in London remained uncontested until stations for hydrogen were to be implemented.
In companies, public organisations and in ministries foresight exercises are conducted for many reasons and with different effects.
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.
How organizations talk about the future. Journal of Product innovation Management 18, no. 1: 39 50. Könnölä, T.,V. Brummer,
Our research is based on a multiple-case study of corporate organisations that recently faced major changes in their external environment and increasing turbulence.
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.
A broad range of heuristic approaches to coping with uncertainty have been developed in corporrat organisations: today, the term‘strategic foresight'is used widely to designate the activities
Hambrick 1982) and to investigate their likely evolution and impact on the organisation (foresight techniques:
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;
2 furthermore, so far only a limited number of papers on anticipatory studies in corporate organisations have been hosted by leading academic journals.
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,
when managers lack accurate information Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 Strategic foresight 785 about organisations, activities,
and refers to managers'inability to predict what the consequences of drivers of change will be on their organisations (e g. will customers switch from a traditional product fuel-based car to an innovative one hybrid car?).
Finally,‘response'uncertainty is associated with attempts to understand what response options are available to the organisation and
According to the organisation theory, the task environment has been defined initially to include the sectors of competitors, suppliers, customers, and regulatory bodies.
and implementation of appropriate techniques for anticipating the likely evolution of drivers of change (state uncertainty), their consequences on the organisation (effect uncertainty),
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;
and how they might affect the organisation. Macro forces and their likely evolution are described in BASF‘Global economy Scenarios',where econometric models elaborate basic data in both qualitative and quantitative terms,
and criticism within the organisation (a recent example concerned clothing and electronic tattoos that reveal the emotional state of their wearers).
Foresight and decision-making The main goal of strategic foresight at Philips is to drive the renewal of the organisation by figuring out how to exploit the new market opportunities enabled by emerging technologies or in response to changing customer needs.
The key drivers of change for example, rise of new rivals from emerging countries and financial crisis had relevant consequeence on the evolution of the main components of the business (micro) environment and thus on the organisation.
and response uncertainty evolution of the key components of the industry, effect on the organisation,
they were able to directly address uncertainty regarding the evolution of the main components of the business and the impact on the organisation (effect uncertainty) and the best options for coping with these drivers (response uncertainty).
In this context, the key decisions themselves to be tackled by the organisation for future growth were not clear.
Discussion Our work relates to several fields of research in strategy and organisation. First, we define the concepts of‘boundary'uncertainty
Organization and environment. Boston, MA: Harvard university Press. March, J. G, . and H. A. Simon. 1958.
Organizations. Newyork: Mcgraw-hill. Martin, B. 1995. Foresight in science and technology. Technology analysis & Strategic management 7, no. 2: 139 68.
Organizations in action. Newyork: Mcgraw-hill. Tripsas, M, . and G. Gavetti. 2000. Capabilities, cognition, and inertia:
Organization and the future, from forecasting to foresight. In Managing the future: Foresight in the knowledge economy, ed. H. Tsoukas and J. Shepherd, 1 19.
Foresight in corporate organizations. Technology analysis & Strategic management 22, no. 1: 99 112. Vecchiato, R, . and C. Roveda. 2010b.
Strategic foresight in corporate organizations: Assessing the effect and response uncertainty of technology and social drivers of change.
The objective is to help organisations create a tailored as well as a common strategy in their network of relationships
and D. Loveridge Sustainability can be defined as the capability of an organisation to persist into the long-term future:
first, in a group of critical principles that need to be internalised into the core of the organisation's operations to shape the route towards sustainable development and, second,
and values that should mould an organisation's behaviour and how these are translated into activities able to shape specific actions according to its context in individual,
shaped by a firm's individual context and culture, will offer different and clear possibilities to implement the organisation's (network) vision of sustainable development.
The continuous improvement cycle found in the PDCA is the key process for driving learning and innovation in an organisation.
which describes the necessary capabilities needed to transform our organisations and ourselves to achieve quantum organisations.
These are assumed to be critical to a business's sustainable Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:04 03 december 2014 802 C. Cagnin and D. Loveridge development,
Moreover, it should link the activities that need to be performed at each stage to build an organisation's ability to know itself (how things are done in the present),
and enable its own evolution following the organisation's and its networks'progress towards the common vision of sustainable development.
and strategy to a long-term common vision of where an organisation wants to position itself within possible alternative futures.
firm's self-organising capability-Cooperative sustainabiliit net-Network's self-organisation-Continuous learning/adaptation-Creativity in decisionmakkin Operations-Focus on understanding
which characterise the fundamental principles of any organism, organisation or complex system, as well as of evolution and nature.
Cagnin 2000) can be linked with Losada's notions of high-performance teams and organisations: individuaal and corporations should have the ability to respect each other.
Comparatively, this indicates that an organisation can progress towards sustainable development more efficiently and responsibly by integrating the six dimensions of sustainability into its core operations.
Putting sustainable development into practice a guide for organisations. London: Published by BSI for the SIGMA project.
Creating the high performance organization. Newyork: Harper Business. Könnölä, T.,A. Salo, C. Cagnin, V. Carabias,
Match your change strategy to your organization's maturity. Nonprofit World 21, no. 5: 19 20.
which will guide the organisation in the long run to achieve its desired vision of sustainable development and gain sustainable competitive advantages Communication The ability to document
It becomes essential to compare the actual results (the way it is now as it is) with the expected ones (the way the organisation wishes to be as it ought to be), through a feedback process,
This will enable the organisation to make an assessment about whether what it had hoped originally to accomplish was achieved actually (gap analysis)
From the single individual, passing through the organisation and its relationships, seeking to consider the overall society.
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