Managing the Future

Haridimos Tsoukas is the George D. Mavros Research Professor of Organization and Management at the Athens Laboratory of Business Administration (ALBA), Greece and Professor of Organization Studies, Warwick Business School, UK. He has published widely in several leading academic journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Studies, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, and Human Relations. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies, serves on the Editorial Board of several journals and is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory: Meta-theoretical Perspectives (OUP, 2003). Jill Shepherd is Assistant Professor of Management at the Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, and co-organizer of the First International Conference on Organizational Foresight in the Knowledge Economy. Her research interests centre around the use of evolutionary theory, particularly a branch called memetics, to investigate knowledge creation and innovation within corporates, high tech firms and clusters. Prior to becoming an academic, Jill worked in industry both in an international corporate setting and in a ‘dot.com’ and operated as an international management consultant for a number of years.

• Figures. Tables.Notes on the Contributors.Foreword: Foresight Matters (Spyros Makridakis).1. Introduction: Organizations and The Future, From Forecasting To Foresight (Haridimos Tsoukas And Jill Shepherd).Part I: Making Sense Of Organizational Foresight.2. Re-Educating Attention: What Is Foresight And How Is It Cultivated (Robert Chia).3. Invention And Navigation As Contrasting Metaphors Of The Pathways To The Future (V.K. Narayan And Liam Fahey).4. Strategy And Time: Really Recognizing The Future (T.K. Das).Part II: Foresight And Organizational Learning.5. Foresight Or Foreseeing? A Social Action Explanation Of Complex Collective Knowing (David R. Schwandt And Margaret Gorman).6. Retrospective Sensemaking And Foresight: Studying The Past To Prepare For The Future (Raanan Lipshitz, Neta Ron & Micha Popper).7. Can Illusion Of Control Destroy A Firm’s Competence? The Case Of Forecasting Ability (Rudolph Durand).Part III: Developing Foresightful Organizations.8. Time Travelling: Organizational Foresight As Temporal Reflexivity (Miguel Pina E. Cunha).9. The Concept Of "Weak Signals" Revisited: A Re-Description From A Constructivist Perspective (David Seidl).10. Meta-Rules For Entrepreneurial Foresight (Ted Fuller, Paul Argyle and Paul Moran).11. Autopoietic Limitations Of Probing The Future (Deborah Blackman And Steven Henderson).Afterword: Insights Into Foresight (Kees van der Heijden).Index

"This is a fascinating book, placing contemporary techniques for managerial foresight within a rich and challenging theoretical context. It is recommended equally for thinking practitioners and for practice-sensitive teachers and researchers."—Richard Whittington, Said Business School"This timely book adds a new dimension to the strategy debate and sources of competitive advantage. Its topic, strategic foresight, is most crucial in turbulent environments, in which change is frequent and disruptive. The authors show that not so much a superior vision, appropriate plan, generic strategy, innovative culture or unique resource-pool, but rather strategic foresight differentiates successful firms from failing firms. In fact, unlearning and relearning may be one of the most important outcomes."—Professor Henk W Volberda, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University"Strategic foresight is central to managing the future, yet it is one of the least understood areas of management. Tsoukas and Shepherd offer a collection of readings that serve to deepen our understanding of what organizational foresight is, and what it takes to do it well. Designed for the reader who seeks more than a superficial overview, it offers jewels of insight and a variety of frameworks that serve to challenge and enrich our mental maps about developing organizational foresight."—Mary Crossan, University of Western Ontario"Hari Tsoukas, Jill Sherpherd and the other contributors of this book provide a compelling vision as to why the 'future could be ours to manage.' This is a thought-provoking book that offers ways by which individuals can develop foresight."—Raghu Garud, New York University"This is really good material, from good scholars, on this emerging field. It will attract a wide audience."—Colin Eden, University of Strathclyde"This book brings together different perspectives on an increasingly challenging question: just how might managers cope with the bewildering changes that are occurring in the world around them. The book raises more questions that it answers perhaps; but that is for the good: they are questions that need to be raised to inform a research agenda that is, and will increasingly become, central to management needs."—Gerry Johnson, Strathclyde University