Fading memories of the future: the dissipation of strategic foresight among middle managers

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
David Sarpong ◽  
Daniël Hartman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Managers ◽  
The Future ◽  
Strategic Foresight

scholarly journals Examination of the current and idel organisational culture and leadership elements at the municipalities of the North Great Plain region

2013 ◽  
pp. 117-125
Author(s):  
Andrea Matkó
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Goal Orientation ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Performance Orientation ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Vision ◽  
Major Emphasis

The connection between organizational culture and leadership has been examined by several researchers (Schein, Schmircik, Bass) and it is proven that there is a link between them. The leader shapes the organizational culture and at the same time the organizational culture shapes the leader too. The middle managers of local governments place the major emphasis on the dimension of goal orientation for the future. From the leadership perspective they find charismatic, goal and team oriented leadership necessary for the future. The local governments have to answer the challenges of the rapidly changing environment. Quick responses and adjustments are only possible if the leader possesses a clear future vision and not only sets short-term goals but plans for the future and estimates the necessities on the long run. It is important to have a leadership with utmost dedication to the organization and to the objectives of the organization. The leaders must raise the interests of the employees, involve them in the process of setting goals and in finding ways to meet those goals, and that the employees should no longer strive to realize their own personal ambitions but focus on the common objectives. This brought transformational leadership to light. The leader establishes and shapes the organizational culture but the individuals and teams working for the organization have impact on the organizational culture as well. This becomes apparent in the organizational culture as middle managers would place the major emphasis on performance orientation. Performance orientation is a dominant motivation based on excellence, hard work, pre-calculated risk, fore planning, goal orientation and regular feedback, which shapes the leadership too, as the leader has to change as well, in order to run the organization. Scheins’ standpoint reflects the best the relationship between the organizational culture and the leadership. Schein claims that organizational culture and leadership are interwoven phenomena, as the leader shapes the culture but after a while the organizational culture itself shapes the leader too.

A Three-Level Evaluation Process of Cultural Readiness for Strategic Foresight Projects

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-350
Author(s):  
Mateus Panizzon ◽  
Paulo Fernando Pinto Barcellos
Keyword(s):  
Future Orientation ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario ◽  
The Future ◽  
Strategic Foresight

A critical issue in Strategic Foresight approaches is the expected effect on the organizational and individual behavior change, as understanding, mapping, and influencing the desired future is a function of the group’s effort to adopt a more disruptive or conservative scenario in a long-term thinking and planning context. As a learning process, a Strategic Foresight experience, due to the nature of new knowledge co-creation, can foster mindset changes. However, at the same time, a Foresight project deals with the existing group assumptions due to national and organizational cultures, which can be more (or less) oriented to long-term or disruptive thinking, as well as the established managerial mentality about the future orientation in strategic thinking. These cultural assumptions can exert positive or negative influence in a Foresight mindset, and should be assessed and understood previously, as the overall cultural readiness can affect the performance of a Foresight project in general. Also, the analysis of the cultural aspect as an evaluation process can generate new learning, when compared a pre-assessment with a post-assessment. Thus, the posed question is, “How to assess cultural dimensions before and after Foresight projects?” Based on Hofstede National Cultural model, Cameron and Quinn Competing Values model, and Amsteus Managerial Foresight model, this article proposes to discuss the applicability of a three-level (national, organizational, and individual) evaluation process to assess the cultural environment readiness for Strategic Foresight projects and the influence of a Foresight project on participants’ perception of the future through a two-phase approach. This research contributes to Strategic Foresight methods by proposing a research agenda about the cultural perspective in Foresight assessment. Managerial contributions about the pre-assessment interpretations of the proposed three-level process to better understand the cultural profile of the participant group are also discussed in a hypothetical scenario application.

Re-imagining the Future of Happiness at the Workplace

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-494
Author(s):  
Anuradha
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Job Performance ◽  
Middle Managers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Hrm Practices ◽  
The Future

The future of work is likely to usher in dramatic changes in the form and substance of the employment contract. Technology, artificial intelligence, automation, policy changes and evolving labour market are few factors playing a vital role in workplace transformation. It is important that organisations emphasise civility in engaging with employees in the workplace to enable them to feel happy as happier people are more productive. In order to shape a happy workforce in the future, leaders, particularly, middle managers need to reinforce the spirit of well-being-oriented human resource management (HRM) practices. Organisations need to engage with employees outside the domain of work as well, as life satisfaction constitutes an important factor in determining job performance. Finally, in order to structure a happy workforce in the future, employers need to recognise that business and ethics have an intimate relationship with each other and cannot be seen as separable.

The future scorecard: combining external and internal scenarios to create strategic foresight

2005 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Fink ◽  
Bernard Marr ◽  
Andreas Siebe ◽  
Jens‐Peter Kuhle
Keyword(s):  
The Future ◽  
Strategic Foresight

Big History as a Scaffold for Futures Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Voros
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Comparable Level ◽  
The Future ◽  
Postgraduate Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Strategic Foresight ◽  
Big History

This paper does several things. First, it reports on some of the history of the Master of Strategic Foresight (MSF) at Swinburne (2001–2018) to provide some background information that, it is hoped, may be useful for others seeking to create or develop under- and postgraduate foresight courses in the future. Second, it also describes some observations made during the early years of the MSF regarding some of the characteristics of the students undertaking it—as compared with other nonforesight students also undertaking comparable-level postgraduate studies—which had a bearing on how we designed and revised the MSF over several iterations, and which, it is similarly hoped, may also be useful for foresight course designers of the future. Third, it notes that the introduction of “Big History” in 2015 at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels seems to have engendered a somewhat easier “uptake” of futures/foresight thinking by those students who were introduced to it, in contrast to cohorts of comparable students in previous years who were not. It is speculated that the Big History perspective was an important factor in this, and some related writings by other academics supporting this conjecture are sketched. It is then argued that, in particular, Big History seems to be especially well-suited to the framing of global-scale/civilizational futures. Finally, a number of remarks are made about how and why I believe Big History provides an ideal basis for engendering futures/foresight thinking, especially with regard to global/civilizational futures, as noted, as well as for framing The Anthropocene.

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