Open Foresight: Exploiting Information from External Sources

Ehls, Daniel; Korreck, Sabrina; Jahn, Reimo; Zeng, Michael; Heuschneider, Sara; Herstatt, Cornelius; Koller, Hans; Spaeth, Sebastian

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2764208

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Insights gained through on-going interaction with external knowledge sources drove firms constantly to renew and re-configure their routines, practices, knowledge bases and structures, in order to prepare for future competition. CSF enabled both firms to achieve unforeseen novel combinations of knowledge, which could in turn lead to radical and incremental discoveries (Ehls, et al, 2016;Pittaway et al, 2004). On the one hand, this supports the participative communication point of view of the foresight process (Daheim and Uerz, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the focal firm can use different approaches at different points in time to manage the paradox of exploration and exploitation (Maclean et al, 2020) while knowing competing priorities in innovation enabled by CSF; hence CSF fosters organisational ambidexterity (Paliokaite and Pacesa, 2015;Rohrbeck and Gemunden 2011). Overall, CSF has the potential to significantly boost collaborating firms' innovation output and overall competitiveness (Ehls et al, 2016;Pittaway et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collaborative Strategic Foresight and New Product Development in Chinese Pharmaceutical Firms

Sarpong

Wang

2022

IEEE Trans. Eng. Manage.

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We integrate insights from open innovation and collaborative strategic foresight (CSF) to theorise collaborative innovation practice. Adopting a case-based approach, we draw qualitative insights from two Chinese pharmaceutical firms -one private and one state-owned, both engaged in new product development (NPD) projects. Focusing on how firms leverage CSF to support their NPD, we offer an interpretive account of how the two firms take different approaches to orchestrating their strategic partnerships to identify, explore and exploit opportunities for innovation. Our study sheds light on how focal firms, through SF practices of perceiving, prospecting, and probing, translate ideas and insights gained from collaborating partners into action to support their innovation processes. Expanding and shifting the focus of traditional strategic foresight from an inward-looking orientation to an outward-looking CSF, we show how focal firms could tap into distributed knowledge embedded in sources located beyond the theoretical boundaries of the firm. We argue that appropriately managed CSF at different stages of NPD could help companies to better sense, seize and integrate potentialities and limits otherwise overlooked by their competitors. We reveal that the type of ownership, an unexplored factor, explains a firm's different CSF approaches (explorative vs exploitative) in innovation for NPD.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative Strategic Foresight and New Product Development in Chinese Pharmaceutical Firms

Sarpong

Wang

2022

IEEE Trans. Eng. Manage.

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“…Instead, a broad variety of different definitions or similar expressions exist, which often denote different activities in firms (Reger, 2001;Amsteus, 2008). Ehls et al (2016) give an overview of definitions and point out that the concept has so far been referred to as a tool, a process, or an ability. Horton (1999) outlines that foresight involves gathering relevant information about possible future events and developments that may possibly affect the organization in the medium-to-long term.…”

Section: Moving From Foresight To Open Foresightmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Miemis et al (2012) refers to open foresight as a "process for analyzing complex issues in an open and collaborative way" (p. 92). Ehls et al (2016) identify three defining elements, which include (1) the systematic use of distributed information sources in order to anticipate the future corporate business environment, (2) which is institutionalized within the organization and often conducted with outside actors, and (3) draws especially on insights and methods from the open and user innovation research. Wiener et al (2018) and Wiener (2018) focus on the necessary organizational context and culture, which is are an important precondition for a company's openness towards external sources.…”

Section: Moving From Foresight To Open Foresightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opening up Corporate Foresight: What Can We Learn from Open and User Innovation?

Korreck

2018

jim

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Organizations find themselves in a fast-paced and increasingly complex and uncertain environment. Hence, they engage in foresight to understand weak signals and developments that may affect them in the medium to long run and build up "strategic preparedness". Literature on open and user innovation has described methods to tap into external knowledge sources and some have potential to enhance foresight results, but research has not yet fully benefitted from these insights. Thus, the aim of this article is to synthesize findings from both literatures and explain why users and user collectives are a valuable knowledge source for foresight. The contributions of the paper are twofold. First, the paper provides a typology of methods, which are suitable for drawing on user knowledge. Second, the identified methods are compared with regard to their advantages, disadvantages and boundary conditions.

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“…A similar trend can be identified in the larger field of knowledge search, where a shift to external search and "decoupled search" has taken place in recent years. Among contributions to the expanding domain of open foresight (e.g., [12]), several studies have explored how specific social media platforms can be used for the purpose of open foresight. In light of these studies, however, it is presently unclear how multiplatform approaches across the social media landscape can be employed and how platforms differ with regards to their foresight potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Media Analytics as an Enabler for External Search and Open Foresight—The Case of Tesla's Autopilot and Regulatory Scrutiny of Autonomous Driving

Laurell¹,

Sandström²

2022

IEEE Trans. Eng. Manage.

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External search for knowledge and foresight have become strategically important activities for firms in an increasingly uncertain and complex business environment. Novel methods to monitor development are therefore essential for both firms and scholars. This article illustrates how firms can apply one such novel method called Social Media Analytics, a multiplatform approach incorporating multiple external sources drawn from Web 2.0, that enable external search for knowledge but simultaneously avoid information overload. To illustrate the potential of the method, this article draws upon a dataset spanning 36 months from August 2016 to August 2019 and 100 283 publicly posted user-generated contents concerning Tesla to analyze their autopilot and the controversies surrounding autonomous driving. The results show that indications of the regulatory scrutiny Tesla's driverless technology faced in 2019 could be seen in the data across several platforms at an early point and that these signals became stronger over time, especially on blogs and Facebook which exhibited strong indications of future regulatory scrutiny in contrast to Twitter and Instagram. Our results underscore the potential of the Social Media Analytics for external search for knowledge and open foresight that enable firms to tune in to weak signals and scan the periphery.

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Open Foresight: Exploiting Information from External Sources

Cited by 9 publications

References 67 publications

Collaborative Strategic Foresight and New Product Development in Chinese Pharmaceutical Firms

Collaborative Strategic Foresight and New Product Development in Chinese Pharmaceutical Firms

Opening up Corporate Foresight: What Can We Learn from Open and User Innovation?

Social Media Analytics as an Enabler for External Search and Open Foresight—The Case of Tesla's Autopilot and Regulatory Scrutiny of Autonomous Driving

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