Tracing the progress of scenario research in business and management

Abstract

Business and management research on scenarios has been highly productive over the decades but led to a complex literature that is hard to oversee. To organize the field and identify distinguishable research clusters, we conducted a co‐citation analysis focusing on the long‐term history of research. We compare our findings with a previously published bibliographic coupling, focusing on the more recent research to trace its development over time. Our study revealed six research clusters: (1) Planning the Future with Scenarios, (2) Scenario Planning in Strategic Management, (3) Reinforcing the Scenario Technique, (4) Integration of Scenario Planning and MCDA, (5) Combination of Different Methods, and (6) Decision‐making through Stochastic Programming, whereas the bibliographic coupling generated 11 clusters. Some former research clusters were divided into separate new clusters, while others were united. Additionally, completely new clusters emerged. Future research on scenarios is expected (1) to further differentiate into strategy and operations, (2) to be based on “behavioral futures” or “behavioral foresight” as a new research stream, (3) to advance the scenario technique methodically and include new specific scenario generation methods, and (4) to put forth new application areas.

Behavioral strategy: A systematic literature review and research framework

“…However, oftentimes, strategy is still limited to a view of “the future”. Strategic foresight stresses the importance to take multiple future scenarios into account (Jashari et al. , 2022; Tiberius et al.…”

“…However, oftentimes, strategy is still limited to a view of "the future". Strategic foresight stresses the importance to take multiple future scenarios into account (Jashari et al, 2022;Tiberius et al, 2020). However, the behavioral implications of this increased ambiguity are largely unclear and should be subject to future research.…”

Scenario planning: Reflecting on cases of actionable knowledge

“…Furthermore, since the creation of future scenarios relies on creative thinking and intuition, the issue of human psychology and cognition comes into play in terms of how participants (and facilitators) process data, frame scenarios, address subjectivity and bias, group think, and relative stakeholder power in the creation and evaluation of strategic options (Cairns & Wright, 2019; Nestik, 2018; Rowland & Spaniol, 2021; Schirrmeister et al, 2020; Schoemaker, 1993). Interestingly, Jashari et al (2022) speculate that research on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of the scenario process will increase in the future in the form of “behavioral futures” or “behavioral foresight” to provide a more nuanced understanding of what is essentially a process of social interaction between participants.…”

Supporting distributed and integrated execution of future‐oriented technology analysis

“…Any method can provide support information when formulating scenarios. According to Jashari et al (2021), advances in scenario technique, combining it with other methods tends to intensify.…”