Approaching the future: Blueprinting and Wayfinding in corporate foresight enactment

Abstract

Corporate foresight has predominantly been conceptualized as an organizational capability, especially in the context of organizational transformation. Therefore, it is viewed as something that firms either have or do not have rather than as something people do. Consequently, the literature on corporate foresight contains surprisingly little insights about how such corporate foresight is enacted by people within organizations through distinct "future-making" practices. So how do organizations undergoing technology driven transformation enact corporate foresight using distinct "future-making" practices? Our paper addresses this question by undertaking a twenty-month long field study on corporate foresight enactment using scenario planning at ProRail B.V. We find two novel and distinct modes of corporate foresight enactment that we call blueprinting and wayfinding. Blue-printing is a response to 'state' uncertainty. It is characterised by rational planning, belief encoding, forward-looking cognitive-based choice processes and pre-conception that allow participants to preview the future. Wayfinding, by contrast, is a response to 'effect' and 'response' uncertainty. It involves bounded rational muddling , belief updating, feedback based experiential processes and anticipation that allow participants to foresee the future. Blueprinting and Wayfinding are therefore two distinct modes of "future-making" practices for corporate foresight enactment within organizational transformation.