FUTURES & FORESIGHT SCIENCE最新文献

“Values” play an oversized role in strategic foresight: they help define scanning frameworks, direct scanning efforts, inform change driver and scenario development, and underpin change within various systems and domains (e.g., politics, society, etc.). And yet, values are largely understudied within foresight. They are rarely defined consistently or explored with reference to a theoretical model of how values emerge or evolve. Rather, values are researched using dissimilar methods depending on the foresight research at hand, which can lead to gaps in analysis and inconsistency between foresight projects. Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), a social psychological theory that identifies common human moral values, offers a solution. MFT describes six moral values or “foundations”—care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty—each explained through the evolutionary development of humanity and detectable across cultures. Within foresight, MFT can be applied to understand and identify shifts in the influence of different values, which can result in more novel and unexpected conclusions. With these potential benefits available, we propose adopting and adapting MFT for use within the foresight to improve the way it approaches, identifies, and utilizes values. Our article unpacks MFT into its core tenets and illustrates how it can be used to inform scanning, change driver development, and scenario construction.

Since overall image and attractiveness can play a key role in developing a destination's tourism market, the current study attempts to identify the main factors influencing Iran's overall image and attractiveness from a supply-side perspective. To reduce the uncertainties in Iran's future tourism market development, we first used factor analysis to identify factors that affect Iran's tourism market. Second, we used multiple linear regressions to examine the relationships between the identified factors and Iran's overall image and attractiveness as a destination. According to the findings, political, product, and service factors significantly affect Iran's overall image and attractiveness. Third, we provided scenarios for improving Iran's overall image and attractiveness based on cross-impact balanced analysis.

Since its introduction decades ago, the Delphi method has become a popular instrument of broad application within the field of technology foresight and for wider science, technology, and innovation policy-making. The Delphi method has also attracted interest from a methodological perspective. The literature on the Delphi method demonstrates a research gap on the issue of Delphi statements and respondents' understanding of those statements. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper examines the existing knowledge and practices in constructing Delphi statements. A key contribution of the paper is a set of practical recommendations for constructing Delphi statements for technology foresight. Furthermore, the paper suggests future research on the topic.

Designing backcasting scenarios is a powerful approach to the development of sustainable visions and pathways for governments or enterprises in the early stage of their policy-making or strategic decision-making process. To date, a number of scholars have proposed various backcasting methods, in which workshops are often used to reflect the voices of stakeholders. However, it is still a challenge to test the validity of scenarios because the process of designing backcasting scenarios is not transparent or shared among involved stakeholders. This also prevents reusing knowledge and intermediate outputs generated during the scenario design process. To solve these problems, this paper aims to develop a method for supporting a backcasting scenario design by introducing computational assistance. A scenario design support system called the sustainable society scenario (3S) simulator is used to visualize a scenario's logical sequence of the scenario in graph format. To demonstrate the proposed method, a case study for the city of Toyama, a Japanese municipality, was performed using three workshops with citizen participation. The results showed that two different scenarios, involving future visions and associated pathways, were developed by reflecting the diversified values of local citizens. The usage of the 3S simulator visualized the logical relations of the described scenarios, which consist of five blocks—problem definition, subgoals to achieve visions, measures to attain these subgoals, verification, and conclusions. This visualization is effective to increase the verifiability and reusability of the scenarios for evidence-based policy-making processes.

Averaging quantiles as a way of combining experts' judgments is studied both mathematically and empirically. Quantile averaging is equivalent to taking the harmonic mean of densities evaluated at quantile points. A variance shrinkage law is established between equal and harmonic weighting. Data from 49 post-2006 studies are extended to include harmonic weighting in addition to equal and performance-based weighting. It emerges that harmonic weighting has the highest average information and degraded statistical accuracy. The hypothesis that the quantile average is statistically accurate would be rejected at the 5% level in 28 studies and at the 0.1% level in 15 studies. For performance weighting, these numbers are 3 and 1, for equal weighting 2 and 1.

Large organizations usually spread their research and development (R&D) around the world, hindering coordination efforts when performing future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) studies. FTA is commonly used in R&D planning, especially on research prioritization. Therefore, we developed an FTA framework for large and geographically spread organizations, named Tiamat. The Tiamat framework is composed of a simplified organization model, which focuses on internal and external interactions during FTA, and an FTA process, which indicates the steps performed by the decision-maker need until the delivery of the FTA final report from the organization. Based on the Tiamat framework, we developed the Tiamat software, a modular tool that implements generic FTA using the concept of workflows of FTA methods. Thus, we describe the architecture and collaboration aspects of the Tiamat software. The Tiamat framework (i.e., model and process) and the Tiamat software were applied in real situations to evaluate its FTA support capability. Besides, we show non-FTA uses of the Tiamat software to showcase its flexibility. Among the contributions, we highlight the use of the Tiamat framework in the management of a standardized FTA process, based on the concept of workflows. The framework was developed to be easily adapted to many types of organizations, such as businesses, universities, and public institutions, either civil or military. The Tiamat software has shown to be capable to support distributed and local FTA studies, as well non-FTA studies.

This article is a rejoinder in response to commentaries written about a 25-year retrospective on Kees van der Heijden's seminal text Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation. As a means to explore the commentaries and—without irony—bring them into conversation with one another, this piece engages in a thought experiment about the impact of Scenarios as well as the book's author through the sociologically informed notion of robust action from traditional thinking about social embeddedness.

Kees van der Heijden's Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation has assuredly earned a place as a true classic in the reflective-practitioner literature pertaining to futures and foresight science. Rowland and Spaniol's (2021) extensive review of it, a quarter of a century after its initial publication, demonstrates in abundance why it has risen so deservedly to this stature. Their review documents the many powerful features of the book, skillfully interweaving scholarly and practitioner insights. Rowland and Spaniol draw on their detailed knowledge of the relevant scientific and professional literatures, combining them with the results of a series of interviews undertaken with a number of van der Heijden's “colleagues, coworkers, collaborators, students, and friends” (Rowland & Spaniol, 2021, p. 1), who they invited to offer their reflections on the first (van der Heijden, 1996) and second (van der Heijden, 2005) editions of the book. The list of colleagues they interviewed includes some of the field's most prominent scientist-practitioners. The result is an article that sets out the many achievements of a book that has contributed to the betterment of academia and practice alike, locating them in the evolutionary context of both the literature and some of the major world events that have preoccupied many of its users.

I first became aware of this book shortly before its formal publication in 1996. My colleague George Wright and I were engaged in a consulting project with the leadership team of an organization that was struggling in its efforts to break free from its (then) current strategy. It was immediately apparent that the strategic conversation in the organization concerned had become rather stale, and the process tools and insights of Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation were exactly the sorts of tools and insights that would enable us to help rejuvenate it. George and I were fortunate to have in our possession a preprint of the entire manuscript, and, with Kees van der Heijden's permission, we were able to make full use of its contents. In so doing, as so neatly encapsulated in the narrative crafted by Rowland and Spaniol (2021, p. 2), drawing in turn on the preface of van der Heijden (1996), our overriding aim was to enable the leadership team:

‘…to articulate, fully and unambiguously, their organization's unique “business idea” from their perspective and based entirely on their internal, working vocabulary. By “reperceiving” their organization through painstaking interviews, analysis, reflection, presentations, and more,” [we sought to enable] members of the client organization… [to be] better able to see their situation and themselves “in a new light” (x). And, from this “unique insight,”… [have] “the opportunity to create… distinctiveness” in their “unique offering,” and, thus, gain “competitive advantage.”’