Table 8 Theoretical framework about business conditions evident in interview responses

 Foresight is a set of tools that support organizational decisions with enough lead-time for preparation and response [5].

 Company recognized that in order to succeed in the future, we needed to know what the future might be (I11).

 Foresight activities focus on medium-to-long timelines using systematic processes to guide future intelligence gathering for present-day decisions and actions [20].

 Foresight is looking ahead, setting direction the company is going, and guessing beyond the current planning cycle (I09).

 Corporate foresight is a process of communication focused to build a mid- to long-term vision of future markets, customer needs, and societal challenges [45].

Foresight is part of path-finding to articulate what will be and connecting the dots, marking changes and impacts of identified future states (I08).

 Future studies refer to the science, art, and practice of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures; this may also include worldviews and myths underlying these postulations [1].

Forecast of preferred futures develop a story or mental picture of the future to describe the future space based on signals of change previously identified (I04).

 Complexity theory involves processes wherein numerous seemingly independent agents can spontaneously organize themselves into a coherent system [22].

No static business environment exists; need to look for change (past things no longer valid and what is next) (I08).

Change velocity increased; look further into future, shift from looking at the road lines to looking at the horizon (I15).

 Chaos theory states relationships in complex systems, such as markets and organizations, are nonlinear, which creates unintended and unexpected results [32].

Foresight benefits may be long-term (3–5 years. +); predicting disruptors early, so the firm can react early (I01).