The Roles of Foresight in Leveraging the Innovativeness of Organisations

Abstract

Incorporating foresight practices into the innovation process is relevant to enhance the competitiveness of companies in dynamic and complex environments. From a systematic literature review, this paper maps three roles that foresight assumes when associated with innovation and that help leverage the innovativeness of firms: the informational role concerns monitoring weak signals that indicate future developments; the facilitation role concerns using prospective tools that stimulate collective visions of the future; and the strategic influence role deals with recommendations that support decision-making. From these roles, an integrative framework is proposed to explain the relationships among the constructs researched and that can serve as a model to be tested in the future. This study aims to present foresight practices that can leverage the innovativeness of organisations and contribute to the development of the theory that still lacks depth in relation to the impact of foresight on innovation.