Jan Oliver Schwarz

Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt · Bavarian Foresight-Institute

The dynamic capabilities perspective is aimed at explaining how firms achieve and sustain competitive advantages, especially in environments that become volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). In this paper, we combine factors that explain dynamic capabilities on the firm level with factors of dynamic managerial capabilities on the indi...

The key aim of Open Strategy is to open up the process of strategy development to larger groups within and even outside an organization. Furthermore, Open Strategy aims to include broad groups of stakeholders in the various steps of the strategy process. The question at hand is how can Open Strategy be achieved? What approaches can be used? Scenari...

It has been argued that cultural products (e.g., novels or movies) can be used to develop foresight or prototypes. The rationale is that cultural products not only reflect changes in the business environment but also contribute to these changes by diffusion. Therefore, cultural products are arguably valuable. However, compared to other design think...

Many organizations use design thinking (DT) to develop future products and services. DT is often used for its ability to serve as a common “language” and platform to enable market-facing departments and technology-oriented units to cocreate innovations. DT has been shown to be a powerful tool for helping to identify and connect the needs of average...

Corporate foresight (CF) can be considered a future-oriented capability that incorporates perceiving and prospecting. Extant CF-related studies tackle the CF−innovation relationship but do not provide details on how CF relates to innovation climate. As we assume that the innovation climate of companies is a relevant antecedent to innovation, we con...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of many economies. In today's world of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity), SMEs face diverse challenges to survive and stay competitive. SMEs must prepare themselves for these challenges by practicing foresight. However, foresight, and especially corporate foresight, has...

Our study emphasizes the evolving nature and increasing relevance of corporate foresight (CF) in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. This research, therefore, contributes to the foresight literature, concerned with the antecedents and motivators of CF as it investigates how external events that are characterized by great uncertaint...

https://es.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/prospectiva-estrategica-por-que-es-importante-quien-la-hace/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/strategic-foresight-corporate-business-planning/

Visions of the future of the digital transformation in the fashion industry are formed within the framework of this paper and are ultimately investigated in greater detail from a colour management perspective. The scenario planning method is used for this purpose with the objective of outlining four plausible and internally consistent scenarios. Th...

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/03/strategic-foresight-for-business-success/

https://www.herrenknecht.com/de/newsroom/beyondunderdetail/?tx_hknewsroom_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&tx_hknewsroom_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=Teaser&tx_hknewsroom_pi1%5Bteaser%5D=119&cHash=610e379e5c70bcb6208560a38145e0b9

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/08/with-strategic-foresight-leaders-can-remain-focused-on-opportunity/

https://es.weforum.org/agenda/2023/08/como-la-prospectiva-estrategica-permite-a-los-lideres-enfocarse-en-las-oportunidades/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/06/the-world-s-top-companies-are-using-strategic-foresight-you-should-too/

Population health is a crucial determinant of human prosperity and well-being. Poor health can lead to reduced productivity, poverty, and premature death, with the COVID-19 pandemic underscoring the vulnerability of population health on a global scale. Self-learning algorithms have the potential to improve population health in a sustainable way and...

Rowland and Spaniol's (2021) in-depth piece on Kees van der Heijden's seminal text, Scenarios, cued several memories for me, sparked a bit of self-reflection on my learning journey as a scenario planner, and encouraged me to reconsider Scenarios in the context of Open Strategy.

Customer foresight is a relatively new research field. We introduce the customer foresight territory by discussing its localization between customer research and foresight research. For this purpose, we look at a variety of methods that help to understand customers and future realities. On this basis we provide an overview of customer foresight met...

Unternehmen, die restriktiv keinerlei Adaptionen innerhalb der Strukturen vornehmen, können angesichts der verschärften Wettbewerbssituation im tagtäglichen Business nicht bestehen. Warum Agilität ein geeignetes Tool für die Umsetzung einer innovativen Anpassung beschreibt und in zukunftsorientierten Unternehmen als Katalysator agiert, soll in dies...

„The fashion industry fundamentally operates in an unsustainable way and cannot carry on business as usual.“ Diese Aussage der Organisation Fashion Revolution entstand nach dem Fabrikeinsturz am 24. April 2013 in Rana Plaza, Bangladesch. Dabei kamen 1.130 Menschen ums Leben und 2.500 weitere trugen Verletzungen davon (Fashion Revolution 2015, S. 4)...

In diesem Artikel soll die Frage behandelt werden, wie sich die Modebranche in Deutschland in den nächsten zehn Jahren entwickeln könnte und welchen Herausforderungen sie sich stellen muss. Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage wird eine Szenario-Analyse durchgeführt. Dabei werden verschiedene Zukunftsszenarien erstellt, die potentielle Entwicklungen inner...

Der Erfolg des Resales in der Modebranche wird vor allem durch das starke Wachstum verdeutlicht, denn im Vergleich zum Retail wuchs dieser im vergangenen Jahr 24 Mal schneller. Eine aktuell aufstrebende Form des Verkaufs, Resale, bezeichnet den Prozess, den Produkte durchlaufen, wenn diese ein zweites Mal verkauft, das heißt aus zweiter Hand wieder...

O território das previsões por cliente: A previsão por cliente é um campo de pesquisa relativamente novo. Introduzimos o termo "território" da previsão por cliente para determinar sua localização, precisamente uma intersecção entre a pesquisa do cliente e a pesquisa de previsão. Para esse fim, analisamos uma variedade de métodos que ajudam a entend...

Design thinking is inherently and invariably oriented towards the future in that all design is for products, services or events that will exist in the future, and be used by people in the future. This creates an overlap between the domains of design thinking and strategic foresight. A small but significant literature has grown up in the strategic f...

Design thinking has grown into a considerable field of management theory and practical application, helping organizations renew products, services, or even business models and strategy by way of the processes which designers have traditionally used to create and innovate. Design thinking orients itself towards the future in the sense that all desig...

While design thinking appears to have been widely adopted in practice, academia seems to be lagging behind. In this research we investigate two aspects of the practice of design thinkers: How do design thinkers assess the ‘world of the customer’? How do they deal with the uncertainty associated with the future? Based on a survey of 302 design think...

The purpose of this paper is to assess if the strategy development of the fashion industry is oriented to the long or short term. Following the theory of dynamic capabilities, this paper argues that a long-term strategic orientation can be observed in corporate foresight activities. A multi-methodological research approach is chosen to answer the r...

The deliberate exploration of how the future competitive landscape may evolve is critical to uncovering threats and opportunities for firms that seek to improve their core businesses and advance to a superior position in the markets of the future. While techniques such as business wargaming can effectively support this process, such techniques can...

Form follows function? Oder doch... Function follows form? Diese Diskussion aus der Gestaltung aufgreifend, beschäftigt sich die Reihe Creative Management Thinking mit der Frage, was Design von Management lernen kann, aber vor allem was Management von Design lernen kann. Zunehmend verbreiten sich Ansätze des Design Thinkings oder agiler Managementp...

a Design thinking orients itself to the future because all design is for products, services or events that will exist and be used in the future. At the same time, in management research the emerging field of futures studies or foresight supports organizations in preparing for the future. In this paper we explore the literature on design thinking. W...

Dieser Beitrag führt anhand eines konkreten Studienbeispiels aus, wie die AUDI AG komplexe zukünftige Entwicklungen wie „autonomes Fahren“ mittels multidisziplinärer Studien analysiert. Die Autoren beschreiben, welche Insight‐ und Foresight‐Methoden dabei zum Einsatz kommen und was eine erfolgreiche Durchführung ausmacht. Dabei gehen sie insbesonde...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address a central question in foresight exercises: how to communicate derived results? Design/methodology/approach – By drawing on an empirical study, this paper presents a framework for using visualizations in foresight and illustrates its application by referring to a case study. Findings – The argument...

When developing foresight, it is essential to consider the information on which this activity is based. Weak signals, also conceptualised as trends, can be considered the most relevant input for developing foresight in an organisation. While detecting weak signals has traditionally relied on the news media, cultural products such as literature, mov...

This paper focuses on exploring the potential and empirically observable value creation of strategic foresight activities in firms. We first review the literature on strategic foresight, innovation management and strategic management in order to identify the potential value contributions. We use survey data from 77 large multinational firms to asse...

An increasingly complex and dynamic business environment requires new approaches to teaching strategy to management students. Business wargaming, a dynamic strategic simulation, is discussed as a management simulation which can respond to the contemporary challenges in management education. Reflecting on the practical use of business wargaming in t...

While the competitive dimension plays an important role in strategy, the aspect of competitors seems to be rather neglected in corporate foresight. In this paper we want to shed some more light on this underexplored field of corporate foresight. The literature review discusses approaches in corporate foresight, in particular scenario planning and b...

Science fiction prototypes (SF prototypes), narratives based on science and technology, have been identified as a means to develop new products, services, and business models in light of their potential of enhancing creativity. Drawing on various fields of theory and examples of innovations derived from the arts, this article argues that the value...

Ansoff's concept of weak signals, today more often referred to as trends, has permeated both academia and management in the past 30 years. While the relevance of dealing with trends is constantly underlined, the effects of labeling phenomena as trends and megatrends in an organizational context have not been widely discussed. In particular, the dan...

Die Zukunft ist ein elementarer Teil des Geschäfts einer Versicherung: Zum einen dient ein Versicherungsprodukt zur Absicherung gegen zukünftige Risiken, die Zukunft ist also Teil eines jeden Versicherungsprodukts. Ein Kunde oder eine Kundin schließt eine Versicherung ab, um sich gegen Schäden, die in der Zukunft auftreten könnten, abzusichern. Der...

Purpose The aim of this article is to introduce business wargaming as a tool for ex ante strategy evaluation. Reviewing criticism of other approaches, such as scenarios and computer‐based simulations, this article explores whether business wargaming is a suitable response to this criticism. Design/methodology/approach This article reviews and disc...

Foresight processes and activities are confronted with the task of making sense of the present, in particular by interpreting weak signals of change in the organizational environment. Although trends are considered to be important drivers of environmental discontinuities which may lead to strategic surprises, there is no operationalization from a s...

The development of foresight is a crucial activity for any organisation, especially in times of increasing dynamism and complexity. The aim of this article is to discuss the usefulness of developing foresight in a business wargame. Wargaming, a role-playing simulation of a dynamic situation, has been used mainly by the military, but more recently,...