Corporate Foresight: Its Three Roles in Enhancing the Innovation Capacity of a Firm
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 78, No. 2, pp. 231-243
31 Pages Posted: 31 May 2010 Last revised: 15 Jan 2011
Date Written: Feb 1, 2011
Abstract
Although in the last three decades much knowledge has been produced on how best to conduct foresight exercises, but little is known on how foresight should be integrated with the innovation effort of a company. Drawing on empirical evidence from 19 case studies and 107 interviews, we identify three roles that corporate foresight should play to maximize the innovation capacity of a firm: (1) the strategist role, which explores new business fields; (2) the initiator role, which increases the number of innovation concepts and ideas; and (3) the opponent role, which challenges innovation projects to increase the quality of their output.
Keywords: corporate foresight, innovation management, technology intelligence, competitive intelligence, best practices, dynamic capabilities
JEL Classification: E17, M1, M19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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