Doug Nash, recently published his thesis in which he share insights in the corporate foresight practices of US companies. He finds
that corporate foresight activities lead to specific actions such as:
- initiation of new research and development projects
- introduction of new products and services
- providing input to departmental plans
- initiate organizational change
He however also comments on the difficulty of identifying and validating the specific value that the foresight activity has contributed. He thus reinforcing the need for more in-depth research to advance our knowledge on that issue. Given the complexity of the relationship and the time lag between activity and outcome a longitudinal approach which utilizes a combination of quantitative and qualitative data might an interesting option.
The thesis can be accessed directly through ProQuest and the key findings are also reported in Doug’s recent article:
Mohamad S. Hammoud, Douglas P. Nash (2014) What corporations do with foresight, European Journal of Futures Research (2014) 2, 42