The number of articles considering foresight in the refereed foresight journals, such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futures, and Journal of Futures Studies, is still increasing. A detailed account of the evolution of the corporate foresight field has been recently given by Rohrbeck et al. [1]. The main themes touched upon by the authors of the articles related to corporate foresight concern (i), innovation management in the aspect of radical innovations [2, 3] and disruptions, (ii) change management [4], (iii) scanning and the uncertainty of the environment [5], and (iv) decision taking [6] and strategic management [7]. Existing published works on foresight in enterprises use notions such as corporate foresight [8, 9], strategic foresight [10], and business foresight [11]. The terms strategic, organizational, business or corporate foresight have been used to describe futures research activities in corporations [3] or organizations. (It has been argued that these terms can be used somewhat synonymously [12]). Vecchiato and Roveda [13] use strategic foresight deliberately to emphasize the tight relationship between foresight and strategy formulation. According to Rohrbeck [9], organizational foresight is “an ability that includes any structural or cultural element that enables the company to detect continuous change early, interpret the consequences for the company, and formulate effective responses to ensure the long-term survival and success of the company”.
The potential benefits of the application of foresight in business practice embrace the following: the ability to spot and interpret environmental changes [14]; the enhancement of strategic planning processes [15]; and, the increase of innovative capabilities [16]. The confirmation of the benefits mentioned above is in the empirical research carried out by Rohrbeck and Schwartz [17] in 77 enterprises. The authors, basing their research on organizational models describing the enterprise as an interpretative system [18], prove that the formalized process of foresight increases the ability of the following:
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Unprecedented events and trends detection,
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Changes interpretation,
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Reaction to changes,
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Organizational learning, and
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Influencing the decision of co-working entities.
In the context of the three major steps of the foresight process, consisting of (1) the collection of information, (2) interpretation, and (3) utilization, a company would need relevant skills to find, filter, interpret, and use future relevant data in managerial practice and would require the access to relevant sources of information about possible futures. This understanding is echoed by Lichtenthaler [19] stating that the effectiveness of technology management is fundamentally influenced by the quality of a firm’s technology intelligence process, i.e., the acquisition and assessment of information on technological trends.
More specifically, according to Rohrbeck et al. [20], five factors can be listed that have an impact on the success of foresight. These are the following:
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Information usage, which comprises information sources and information gathering methods;
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Method sophistication, how methods are chosen and used;
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People and networks, qualities of foresight staff;
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Organisation of foresight activities within companies; and,
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Culture; how supportive is the corporate culture towards foresight activities?
Having been motivated to use foresight to aid the strategic management process, companies may follow one or combine two of the following organisational approaches [21]:
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1)
A company might introduce foresight processes internally and/or
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2)
A company might internally use the results from foresight activities performed by other actors.
The main benefit of the first approach is that it is tailor-made to the objectives of a single company in terms of foresight outcomes achieved and it provides additional value stemming from the foresight process, which, if set up on a continuous basis, may itself become another key competence and advantage of a company. The main disadvantages could be associated with greater resources (human, financial) to be committed. Also depending on internal competences, this option might require assistance from external facilitators or advisors (private foresight consultancies).
The second approach includes using data (e.g., surveys, Delphi results) from national, regional, or sectoral foresight activities for business and especially for strategic planning purposes. Since the data is more general in nature, companies must adapt them to their different uses and purposes in order to achieve the desired impact. A critical issue related to this second approach is making sure that the foresight results used by a company, the so-called “one-fits-all information package,” meet futures quality standards criteria [22, 23]. In addition, a valuable tool to evaluate the relevance of information about possible futures could be the Futures Map [24], which is defined as “the comprehensive description of the outcomes of futures research process.” It provides validity criteria (internal and external ones), which make it possible (1) to evaluate the quality of the process that produces the map and (2) to assess the information content of the map and the usefulness of the content to the customers of the map.
Considering the above, many projects have been set up by national and local governments with the aim to disseminate foresight methodology and build a foresight culture among companies. The examples include the following:
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UK Foresight Training Toolkit [25] (a set of workshops and training materials offered to SMEs) and applied in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the West Midlands,Footnote 1
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Finnish Uusimaa Employment and Economic Development Centre (EEDCFootnote 2) project [27],
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Danish Technology and Enterprise in the Future project carried out in co-operation with the Confederation of Danish Industries (Dansk Industri) and the Central Organisation of Industrial Employees in Denmark (CO-Industri) [28].
Similar projects addressed to companies are also run by private consultancies or non-profit organizations. They usually aim at helping enterprises define their strategy, assess a company’s strengths and weaknesses, make use of opportunities, and avoid threats by advising them to find and interpret trends that are applicable for their line of business. Examples of such initiatives include the initiative undertaken by SYNTENS [29], a Dutch non-profit organization, which developed a set of tools and methods (called ToekomstWijzer) that aimed to encourage and help SMEs ‘look’ into the future and make business strategies and new policy choices based on external trends and signals.
Finally, the following are some examples of national foresight projects/studies,Footnote 3 the results of which could be used on a corporate level:
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The well-grounded Japanese foresight programme [31],
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The German BMBF foresight process 2007–2009 [32], and
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The study of the radical technologies of the future commissioned by the Parliament of Finland’s Committee for the Future in 2013 [33].
Specifically, the methodological approach developed and implemented in Finland (named Radical Technology Inquirer) seems to appropriately address the needs of companies, since it lists the 100 most promising Radical Technological Solutions (RTS) in the context of the 20 Global Value Producing Networks (GVPN). A company might take the RTS from the reference list and evaluate technologies of its technology portfolio in the frame defined by the GVPNs to decide whether they are worth investing in [33].
Based on the presented conclusions and preliminary work, the rationales for this research are as follows:
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An increase in popularity as well as the confirmed effectiveness of foresight research conducted in or for companies which have been reported in key futures research journals;
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The documented beneficial influence of foresight research conducted in companies on skills improvement in the area of creating product, process and service innovations by companies, both incremental and radical;
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Support in the process of building a consistent reconfiguration of companies’ strategic resources, which determine their competitive advantage;
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The opportunity of filling the gap in assessing foresight maturity in companies based in an under-developed region in Europe; and,
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The lack of research on foresight activities in Polish companies.
The main research purpose was to assess foresight maturity of companies based in Podlaskie province in Poland as one of the least developed regions in Europe. The pilot study was carried out in 2014. One hundred thirty-four enterprises agreed to take part in the study. The selection of the researched companies was based on convenience sampling, which is a non-probability sampling technique where subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher.
The following four research questions were used to guide the research:
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What are the current tendencies of corporate foresight research?
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How does one assess foresight maturity of companies?
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What is the foresight maturity of companies based in the Podlaskie region in Poland?
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What management practices could be used to improve the foresight maturity of companies based in less developed regions?
The research process comprised six research stages.
In the first stage, a bibliometric analysis based on the SCOPUS database is carried out. Secondly a literature review on foresight in enterprises follows using EBSCO, Elsevier Science Direct, Springer and Emerald databases. In the third stage, the foresight maturity model FMM [34] is presented. The fourth stage introduces the characteristics of the Podlaskie region based on statistical data. The fifth stage is devoted to survey research with the aims of (1) determining the prevalence of foresight research in the Podlaskie region and (2) evaluating the foresight maturity level of manufacturing and service enterprises in the Podlaskie region. The final stage of the research is devoted to developing recommendations for further research.