A matter of foresight: How practices enable (or impede) organizational foresightfulness

Abstract

Emphasizing practice as the site of the emergence of strategic foresight, this paper draws on the contemporary turn to 'practice' to examine how the organizing practices of members positioned further down the organization may facilitate (or constrain) their ability to enact foresightful actions. Adopting a case-based approach, three software companies engaged in four new product development projects served as our empirical research sites. With emphasis placed on their innovation teams' everyday practices, data for the empirical inquiry were collected using the qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews, ethnographical observation and project archival documents. Explicating the observed foresightful practices and their underlying activities under the general rubrics of organizing architecture and social coordination , we identified overcompartmentalization, over-determinism and (in)congruence-of-values as quintessentially embedded organizing practices, that constitutively enable (or impede) organizational foresightfulness. We conclude the paper with a discussion of the managerial implications and some limitations of our research.

A unified framework for incorporating decision making into explanations of business failure

“…It has been suggested that lack of "foresightfulness" leads to ineffective response in the face of environmental change and thereby creates conditions for decline and eventual failure to occur (see Sarpong et al, 2013). This line of research suggests that the decision-makers suffer from inability to identify and take the correct course of action.…”

“…Anchored in the upper echelons' perspective (Hambrick and Mason, 1984), a line of research has suggested strategic foresight as an important characteristic of the decision-makers (see Sarpong et al, 2013). It has been suggested that lack of "foresightfulness" leads to ineffective response in the face of environmental change and thereby creates conditions for decline and eventual failure to occur (see Sarpong et al, 2013).…”

Middle Managers’ Engagement in Autonomous Strategic Actions: Does It Really Matter How Top Managers Use Budgets?

“…Such shared values pull individuals' actions to the yet-to-be realized innovations (e.g., [53]). Moreover, they influence managers' perception of reality, thus giving a meaning to the strategic choices (e.g., [53], [54]).…”

“…Such shared values pull individuals' actions to the yet-to-be realized innovations (e.g., [53]). Moreover, they influence managers' perception of reality, thus giving a meaning to the strategic choices (e.g., [53], [54]). Boundary systems, in turn, "delineate the acceptable domain of activity for organizational participants" [18, p. 39] and serve "to set limits on opportunity-seeking behavior" [18, p. 7].…”

“…Besides top management support, belief systems and boundary systems as described by Simons [18] seem to refer to two additional aspects of an organization's strategic context. They influence managers' perception of reality, thus giving a meaning to the strategic choices (e.g., [53], [54]), and "delineate the acceptable domain of activity for organizational participants" [18, p. 39]. In fact, Simons' idea of boundary systems resonates well with the emphasis put in strategic entrepreneurship literature on "organizational boundaries" [55, p. 261], such as precise explanations of outcomes expected from organizational work as another important antecedent to middle managers' entrepreneurial behavior (e.g., [32], [55]).…”