Corporate Foresight and Innovation Management

David Sarpong, Dirk Meissner, David Sarpong, Dirk Meissner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000186413
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book sheds light on what has come to be known as corporate foresight and its influence on innovation management.

Throughout the book, the contributors examine the practice of corporate foresight and how it may lead to the identification of opportunities for innovation. They also explore the complex processes and conditions that may enable (or impede) the potential of contemporary organizations to capture value from their corporate foresight exercises.

Representing an interesting mix of competing ideas and perspectives, the book offers deep insights into the interactive effects of corporate foresight and its contribution to innovation management. This book was originally published as a special issue of Technology Analysis & Strategic Management.

Corporate foresight and innovation: the effects of integrative capabilities and organisational learning

Jeewhan Yoon ^*, Youngjun Kim ^*, Nicholas S. Vonortas and Sung Won Han

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of corporate foresight for innovation management, scholars have yet to identify the organisational processes through which corporate foresight influences a company’s innovativeness. Drawing on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities theory, we developed a model and posited that the effect of corporate foresight on innovativeness is mediated by organisational learning, while the relationship between corporate foresight and organisational learning is moderated by integrative capabilities. We conducted an empirical study in the manufacturing industry and found support for the study model, in which the indirect effect of corporate foresight on innovativeness through organisational learning was conditional on the level of integrative capabilities. This study has theoretical and practical implications for a more nuanced understanding of corporate foresight and its effect on innovation management.

Introduction

In order to survive and succeed in today’s complex and volatile business environment, companies increasingly rely on corporate foresight (). Corporate foresight is an organisational resource that includes any cultural or structural element that enables the company to detect change early, identify new promising business fields, analyze the consequences to the company, and formulate effective responses to sustain innovation (). Many companies, accordingly, develop corporate foresight practices to lay the foundation for a future competitive advantage and manage the risk of technology change ().

The corporate foresight literature has generally found a positive relationship between corporate foresight and organisational outcomes such as innovation management and value creation, which can promote new product development and technology advancement (; ; ). However, scholars who have attempted to examine this positive link have frequently struggled to show exactly how and when corporate foresight can lead to innovation (). Additionally, the contextual conditions of corporate foresight in stimulating innovation are often unknown due to the theoretical and methodological complexities involved in mapping intricate routes in the connection, structure, and influence of corporate foresight on innovation management ().

Although the positive relationship between corporate foresight and innovation seems to be intuitive, how corporate foresight can contribute to the innovativeness of the organisation still depends on whether organisations are engaged in organisational learning, such as discussing alternatives, experimenting with new ideas, and solving problems to come up with the best possible way to innovate products, services, and work processes. This study proposes organisational learning as a mediator in the relationship between corporate foresight and innovativeness. The resource-based view (RBV) and organisational learning literatures suggest that organisational learning may be a core underlying mechanism that explains how corporate foresight can be leveraged when an organisation chooses among competing and alternative technological pathways to pursue its future ().

In addition, Rohrbeck and Gemünden () have argued that more research is needed to identify any boundary conditions that may influence the manifestation of innovation. Analyzing the moderating effect of organisational factors will help depict the condition under which corporate foresight is most likely to result in organisational learning, and thus innovativeness. In this study, we respond to Rohrbeck and Gemünden’s () call by investigating a contextual factor that is likely to influence the extent to which organisations with corporate foresight choose to enact organisational learning. Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, we refer to organisations’ capability to integrate knowledge from multiple, distributed sources within its boundaries and beyond as integrative capabilities. An organisation’s integrative capabilities include competence in utilising knowledge and skills from multiple sources, and these capabilities can strengthen the relationship between corporate foresight and organisational learning (). This study examines whether the relationship between corporate foresight and organisational learning is strengthened by high integrative capabilities.

The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to identify and examine specific processes through which organisations’ corporate foresight can influence their innovativeness and to determine the relevance and contribution of corporate foresight to innovation management. Specifically, drawing on RBV and dynamic capabilities theory, this paper aims to identify organisational antecedents such as organisational learning and integrative capabilities that enable the creative emergence of innovation from corporate foresight exercises. By examining a possible mediator and moderator of the relationship between corporate foresight and innovativeness, this study contributes to the understanding of the role of corporate foresight for innovation management.

Theoretical background and hypothesis development

The impact of corporate foresight on innovativeness

Studies have emphasised the importance of corporate foresight for innovation (e.g. ), with most studies suggesting a positive relationship between corporate foresight and innovation (). For example, recent studies have focused on how corporate foresight exercises can be used to better predict the promise of technologies and various business opportunities (; ; ). Yam and his colleagues () developed the innovation audit framework to investigate the determinant factors of innovation outcomes of Chinese firms. Their results showed that corporate foresight and technology capabilities had an effect on innovation.

Through an empirical investigation, Rohrbeck and Gemünden () identified specific reasons that corporate foresight can enhance the innovativeness of an organisation. First, by taking an initiator role, corporate foresight supports innovation because it identifies emerging technologies and new customer needs through various methods such as technology scouting and market surveys. Corporate foresight might also support innovation through the monitoring of competitors to analyze how they respond to changes in technology and customer needs. In addition, corporate foresight enables a company to identify external expert networks that can be used later to acquire th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Corporate foresight and innovation management
• 1 Corporate foresight and innovation: the effects of integrative capabilities and organisational learning
• 2 Corporate foresight in open laboratories – a translational approach
• 3 Competitive intelligence practices of European firms
• 4 Fading memories of the future: the dissipation of strategic foresight among middle managers
• 5 Participation in inter-organisational collaborative open foresight A matter of culture
• 6 Potentials of collaborative foresight for SMEs
• 7 Overcoming open innovation challenges: a contribution from foresight and foresight networks
• 8 The role of corporate foresight in exploring new markets – evidence from 3 case studies in the BOP markets
• 9 Back to the future of women in technology: insights from understanding the shortage of women in innovation sectors for�managing corporate foresight
• Index