Abstract
We discuss the changes occurring in the field of organizational foresight. The analysis results from viewing foresight from two different perspectives: as centered on the future or on the present; as macroscopic analysis or microscopic practice. The combination of these factors results in four different modes of organizational foresight: strategic planning, visioning, scenario thinking and planned emergence. These different perspectives are examined. We contribute to the literature by presenting foresight as a complex process, amenable to different understandings. Foresight is often portrayed as a technical and analytic process. We discuss it as a human process permeated by a dialectic between the need to know and the fear of knowing.
| Original language | English |
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| Pages (from-to) | 942-955 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Futures |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2006 |