What do we know about corporate foresight implementation in the international business domain? Is it enough? Yes, we understand that MNCs, which coincidently are an important unit of analysis in international business studies, are the most rigorous adopters of foresight and scenario planning in the business administration field. Many cases and studies soundly support this statement. Yet, the international business theory remains reluctant regarding this phenomenon in general. The place, role, distinctive features of corporate foresight implementation in the international business managerial domain remains an undiscovered mystery. Isn't it a time to break the silence?
Thank you. This is an important issue, and it is multidimensional and has manifestations.
In my opinion, it is inappropriate to focus only on technical factors for the topic of foresight in its theoretical aspects.
There are practical factors that may affect the effectiveness and efforts of multinational companies in terms of future foresight, including "grand corruption", and their ability to penetrate local agencies in countries and obtain secrete information, not only that, but also their ability to change legislation!
Regards
The average life-span of companies listed in Standard & Poor's 500 was 61 years in 1958; today, it is less than 18 years. And so, it is not a given that multinational corporations are the most rigorous adopters of foresight and scenario planning. Therefore, a fruitful query would relate to the circumstances under which various tools, methods, and approaches for framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and acting can be joined up and integrated across an organization. As things now stand, disparate sets of activities for futures thinking do take place in many types (and sizes) of organizations, not just in multinational corporations, but this within silos. Future Search, for one, has emerged as a system-wide strategic planning tool enabling diverse and potentially conflicting groups to find common ground for constructive action.
Article Future Search Conferencing
Even in an ever-changing world where everything is accelerating, where the notion of agility is becoming essential and the unpredictable happens, strategic foresight tools can be useful. In my laboratory, we regularly work on the evolution of work in the years to come, and if the possibility of an epidemic had been considered on several occasions, it would not have been a major variable.
At the time of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was however possible for us to adapt the results of previous work to this new major parameter, and this very quickly (within a few weeks). We have published a modest part of it in this form:
Article Risques professionnels dans un monde du travail post-pandémique
English translation: Article Occupational hazards in a post-pandemic world
I can provide the original works that were used for this adaptation (they are referenced in the French article and available on ResearchGate)
Thank you عبدالله البريدي Abdullah Al-Beraidi
As I see it, you touch upon a very interesting aspect of fundamental differences in perceptions of international business, explanations of MNCs' strategic behavior in host countries including corruption and legislation "hacking", and thus a variety of attitudes to the future. It's worth a second thought!
Dear Olivier Serrat
First of all, thank you for the reference to your article. We are adding it as the external reference to our on-going project on Corporate Foresight in International Business https://www.researchgate.net/project/Corporate-foresight-in-international-business
Also, if I may, I'd like to follow up on Future Search conferencing. In particular, as to your knowledge, can you share, how many organizations have adopted this approach in a manner that can be attributed to international business field? Did they measure the value created and/or corresponding performance indicators? Furthermore, how many of them apply it on the regular basis?
Michel Héry Thank you for the link to your report. From what I see, you make a strong point of how pandemia is amplifying the ongoing fourth industrial revolution. Thanks for bringing this up! In this respect, did you have any interest in it from business organizations? Do you know any of them who apply your results in their international strategy planning?
The Future Search Network, with a site at https://futuresearch.net/, advises that Future Search conferencing has since 1991 been used in thousands of communities, organizations, and businesses all over the world. Requests for information can be addressed to [email protected].
PS: I know that Drexel University, for one, once enlisted the help of the Future Search Network; some details of its experience are at https://drexel.edu/dornsifecenter/about/vision/stakeholder-planning/.
PPS: The nature of Future Search does not require that it be applied on a "regular" basis. (But, it goes without saying that what action plans people commit to will have to be monitored and evaluated.)
We had the opportunity, during the sanitary confinement period, to perform a strategic foresight work with eight big French companies via a strategic think tank (Futuribles). Given the difficult conditions in which this work was performed (four video conferences lasting each around two hours), it was not possible to build a complete system of variables and hypotheses from nothing. Consequently we used previous works as data sources.
The subject of this work was : work organizations in France in 2025. And the sources we used were:
Book Prospective INRS - Utilisation des robots d'assistance physi...
(no English translation available)Book Modes et méthodes de production en France en 2040 : quelles ...
(English translation of the synthesis:Book Modes and methods of production in France in 2040
)Book Synthèse : Plateformisation 2027 - Conséquences de l'uberisa...
(English translation of the synthesis:Book Preview: Platformisation 2027
)Fot that performed with the eight companies, two articles in French will be published next year. And a third one in English should be writen by the end of the year and submitted to a peer review journal.
Taras, you have raised an important issue here. Although you have highlighted the extent to which strategic foresight has received attention within the MNE domain, much research work is yet to be conducted on what happens with the same issue on SMEs. You may wish to have a look at some of my work on related issues within SMEs as follows:
Mendy, J. (2019) ‘Demystifying Misted Mirrors to Investigate Emerging People Issues in SMEs: Implications for Strategic Change’ Strategic Change Journal Special Issue on ‘Supporting Creating Shared Value’ (expected publication date – January 2020) – Vol. 29 No. 2 May 2019 ISSN 1099-1697
Mendy, J. (2019) ‘Supporting Creating Shared Value: Including Local and Global Clusters of Staff Resistance to Strategic SME Restructuring’, Strategic Change Journal Special Issue on ‘Supporting Creating Shared Value’, DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2257, Vol. 28, No 2, pp. 157 – 161 March 2019 ISSN 1099-1697
Rahman, M. and Mendy, J. (2018) ‘Evaluating People-related Resilience and Non-Resilience Barriers of SMEs’ Internationalisation: A developing country perspective’, International Journal of Organisational Analysis, 27, 2, pp. 225 – 240, doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-02, ISSN 1934 – 8835
Mendy, J. & Rahman, M. (2018) ‘Application of HRM’s Universal Model: an examination of People vs Institutions as Barriers of Internationalization for SMEs in a Small Developing Country’, Thunderbird International Business Review, DOI: 10.1002/tie.21985; Vol. 61, 2, pp. 363 – 374, ISSN: 1520-6874.
Interesting debate and discussion here.
A major factor in sound foresight and strategic forecasting is leaders' knowledge of their own organization's phronesis, tacit know-how, and ingenuity of the staff with which they may succeed/fail with whatever strategy they may choose. Recent works found that successful ones are phronetic transforming leaders who get these intangible resources from staff due to trustful relationships with it out of trust-creating vulnerable involvement in subordinates' deliberations. See my attached (submitted for publication) paper.
According to my experience, the companies international development projects remain largely opportunity-based. No real strategies built on data analysis but very often something like ... I met someone at the pub who told me that he has good connections in Sierra Leone, so... let's try Sierra Leone. Then you contract an esteemed consulting agency to prove that Sierra Leone is the best choice for you.
In the field of corporate foresight, I have a deep investigation from the bio-management method, specifically it is called immunological management. You can find this topic in my book, biomanagement: organizational genetic leap (recommended, the second edition that has the latest advances). If you are interested, we can talk to bring you the ebook at a very special price. Best regards.
As far as I know Shell (shell.com) goes on with his scenario planning method and publishes his findings, it´s very interesting. Also, as many past scenarios are now present, it is a very good way of seeing how accurate their results are. GBN does not exist any more although Peter Schwartz has some books published rather recently. MNC froma the oil business are queen to make forecast because the business needs long periods of time to have return.
Regards.
The industrial and commercial reports are classified by the business domain for daily study, review, and trend analysis, which will be helpful to proactive action in management, such as BB ratio, LME website, etc.
Pienso las empresas internacionales tienen mas conocimientos que las micro, pequeñas empresas, a nivel internacional son las que se llevan la mayor parte de la torta económica porque la mayoría de las empresas corporativas con cadenas y se proyectan a la competitividad, pero nos conduce al mundo del consumismo,...
Thank you to all for your valuable inputs in our discussion. Your responses highlight different dimensions relevant to my question.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Econ
- Business Economics
- Business