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Scenario analysis to support decision making in addressing wicked problems: Pitfalls and potential
Abstract
This paper provides a review and evaluation of the use of scenario methods from the Intuitive Logics (IL) school to address so-called ‘wicked problems’. Scenario planning has been widely advocated by its practitioners and its popularity has increased in the practice arena since the Millennium. However, some academics have described the technique as an ‘art’ that lacks theoretical and methodological rigor. Over recent years, academics have responded to this critique, drawing on both empirical and conceptual studies. This has led to a multiplicity of augmented IL scenario methods. Here, we review these developments and compare them to soft OR methods as a means of tackling wicked problems, drawing, in particular, on Churchman's moral imperative that we must address the whole problem, not merely ‘carve off’ one part. We conclude that IL scenario planning can be a useful tool in the OR practitioner's tool kit and that it can complement many of the established soft OR methods.
... To better understand the future: the act of developing scenarios provides an opportunity to bring together a wide range of stakeholders to "broaden conventional thinking, enhance understanding and generate new insights relevant to taking meaningful action in complex dynamic systems" (McBride et al., 2017: 1). Further, Franco and Montibellar argue that participating in such exercises increases commitment for implementation (Wright et al., 2019). ...
... Experts and stakeholders can have "competing needs, motivations, and cultures that must be balanced" (McBride et al., 2017: 4). Stakeholders may find it challenging to participate if their interests and strategic priorities conflict with the nature of the project or the emerging scenarios (Wright et al., 2019). Likewise, experts may make incorrect or biased assumptions based on their views and experience that could skew judgements made when creating scenarios (Wright et al., 2019). ...
... Stakeholders may find it challenging to participate if their interests and strategic priorities conflict with the nature of the project or the emerging scenarios (Wright et al., 2019). Likewise, experts may make incorrect or biased assumptions based on their views and experience that could skew judgements made when creating scenarios (Wright et al., 2019). Scenario planning processes create a healthy environment within which to tackle these challengesenabling the examination of whether strategic objectives are robust (GOS, 2017). ...
Scenario planning helps in contemplating how the future may develop and can be especially important when needing to make sense of uncertainty – something now pertinent to the transport sector.
Accordingly, scenario planning is moving from the periphery of strategic transport planning towards becoming a more normalised and integral contribution. By examining rather than ignoring a range of uncertainties about the future, scenarios can be developed that enable an exploration of different futures, in turn improving transport planning. Scenarios can be narrative based, represented quantitatively, or combine ‘storytelling and number crunching’. Both the process of creating them and of representing the scenarios, deepen an appreciation of uncertainty about the future. In turn this allows planners and policymakers to better understand potential outcomes and challenges and determine how to address these. Scenarios can also be used to identify and assess candidate measures for influencing the transport system, testing these against a range of uncertain future conditions. This helps to identify measures that together can help form a strategy that is more robust.
Drawing upon the combined experience of its authors, this paper provides insights into the development of scenarios and their use to improve decision making in transport planning. It offers advice on how to help ensure the scenario development process is credible, how to produce a coherent set of scenarios and how to ensure they are used to engage key stakeholders and to enable policymakers to confidently develop their strategic thinking and plans.
... Sin lugar a dudas la confección de escenarios ha sido sumamente utilizada no solo para los problemas de optimización, sino que se ha convertido en una poderosa herramienta para la planificación estratégica y el soporte a la toma de decisiones [27][28], un escenario se define como "La parte de la planificación estratégica que se relaciona con las herramientas y tecnologías para gestionar las incertidumbres del futuro" [29]. ...
... El uso de los escenarios para el soporte de la toma de decisiones es un tema con auge en la literatura científica [30]. En esta área del conocimiento se observan tres escuelas principales, i) lógicas intuitivas [28], ii) tendencias probabilísticas modificadas (PMT) [27], y iii) la prospectiva [30]. Los dos últimos presentan en común un enfoque en la probabilidad y la identificación de los escenarios más probables, y el uso de consultores expertos que estén familiarizados con las herramientas de modelado cuantitativo subyacentes. ...
... Los dos últimos presentan en común un enfoque en la probabilidad y la identificación de los escenarios más probables, y el uso de consultores expertos que estén familiarizados con las herramientas de modelado cuantitativo subyacentes. En contraste, el método de lógicas intuitivas es un enfoque cualitativo, basado en procesos grupales, que se enfoca en el desarrollo de múltiples escenarios que exploran los límites de posibilidad para el futuro sin tener en cuenta las cuestiones de probabilidad [28]. Estas escuelas están relacionadas, donde el principio de la lógica intuitiva, hasta cierto punto, se integra en PMT y la prospectiva y donde la perspectiva prospectiva sintetiza los principios de la PMT y luego agrega el análisis morfológico. ...
This paper aims to build a set of scenarios for its use in the solution of a stochastic two-stage optimization model for the redesign of the plastics recycling supply chain in Cuba and thus minimize the effect of uncertainty in this strategic decision-making process. The statistical information collected in the characterization of the supply chain is scarce and it is not enough to conform scenarios through the quantitative methods found in the literature. To solve this problem a diffuse inference system is used, which allows the linking of statistical information about the system and the knowledge of experts in recycling and supply chain management in a robust way. This methodology, applied to the plastics recycling in Cuba, makes it possible to increase the number of solutions of the model which, integrated to the two-stage solution method, evaluates the solutions to find the most promising ones. A total of nine scenarios are obtained and the optimization of the proposed model is carried out with which a set of 225 solutions is obtained, finding as the best, for all scenarios, the opening of three recycling plants.
... Many recent scenario-planning innovations are augmentations to the common Intuitive Logics (IL) approach (Wright et al., 2019). IL is a primarily qualitative approach and in its basic form follows a series of eight stages as captured in Table 1 (see Wright and Cairns, 2011: ch. ...
... As such, it provides a means to consider the path dependence that results in multiple failed interventions in the same place, and whether a newly conceived intervention is truly on a scale, or of a kind, to shift the locality onto an alternative path of development when many similar attempts have failed. Wright et al. (2019) review other augmentations to the IL scenario approach and their ability to assist with so-called wicked problems, which bear some of the hallmarks of ontological uncertainty. A wicked problem is one that is 'ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing' (Churchman, 1967: B141). ...
... A central requirement for tackling wicked problems is holism, implying the inadequacy of standard statistical-modelling approaches such as regression analysis, which tackle problems by breaking them into component parts, and examining the effect of each in isolation (Byrne, 2002). In reviewing scenario tools that can assist better with wicked problems, Wright et al. (2019) highlight the Critical Scenario Method (CSM; Cairns et al., 2010Cairns et al., , 2016. ...
In many domains, including geography, there can be the implicit assumption that improved data analysis and statistical modelling must lead to improved policymaking, and its perceived failure to do so can be disconcerting. Yet, this assumption overlooks the fundamental distinction between epistemological and ontological uncertainty, as discussed herein. Epistemological uncertainty describes the known and bounded inaccuracy of our knowledge about the world as now. Whereas ontological uncertainty describes the rendering completely obsolete of this present knowledge by surprises in the form of currently unknown future events, and by cascading changes to beliefs, attitudes and behaviours made by diverse actors in response to – and in anticipation of others’ responses to – new developments. This paper does the following: (a) shows that because of ontological uncertainty, improved data analysis and statistical modelling can never lead straightforwardly to improved policymaking, no matter how well implemented; (b) outlines how probability-based tools offer little assistance with ontological uncertainty because they are based on present perceptions of future possibilities; (c) urges geographers to reconcile with ontological uncertainty as a source of potentially transformational change, rather than viewing it as a problem to be overcome or something to be defended against; and (d) reviews a range of new, non-probabilistic scenario tools that, when used in combination, can assist in harnessing ontological uncertainty for transformational purposes by surfacing what is to be gained and by whom from enabling, blocking or altering intended policy outcomes, and by searching for future possibilities unconstrained by the present.
... The Intuitive Logics approach has been frequently used in scenario planning at the corporate level. It assumes that decisionmakers base their assessments on implicit mental models that represents the complex relationships among future economic, political, technological, social, cultural and environmental factors (Wright et al., 2019). The aim of the method is to base the scenarios on the most influential conditions and their complex interplays, in order to both raise awareness about and challenge these mental models. ...
... Climate change mitigation is often diagnosed as a "wicked problem", meaning that assessments and responses are bound to take place in a confusing, complex and uncertain context. Wright et al. (2019) describe and discuss "wicked problems" in detail. Key characteristics are that they involve or affect many stakeholders with diverse values and backgrounds, that decisions take place in complex and uncertain contexts, and that best or optimal resolutions will not exist, only those that are good enough. ...
This paper assesses the relevance and outcome of involving a transdisciplinary group of stakeholders in a scenario-building research project. The scenarios describe plausible external, long-term conditions with the aim to improve the knowledge basis of a national (Norwegian) government pursuing climate policy targets for 2030 and 2050 under uncertainty. The scenario process has two phases with quite different roles for the participants. In the first, the aim is to create broad engagement and participation in exploring narratives for how key external conditions might develop and form premises for the national climate strategies for Norway. The ambition in this phase is to deduce a handful of wide-ranging and distinctly different, qualitative scenarios. The second phase is devoted to translating the narratives into quantitative projections for the Norwegian economy and greenhouse gas emissions by means of linking global and national largescale models. We claim that research projects building and using scenarios have significant potential to benefit from involving a broad stakeholder group in developing qualitative narratives. The second phase involves complex quantitative simulations. In order to provide scientific rigor and credibility to the scenarios, this phase primarily calls for scholars with technical skills, knowledge on the research frontier and modelling experience. Nevertheless, later use of these scenarios in numerical policy studies can gain from resumed researcher-stakeholder interaction.
... The Intuitive Logics paradigm enables an enhanced understanding of causal processes, connections, and logical sequences of underlying events, thus revealing how the system under consideration may unfold in the future (Wright et al., 2013). It is a group-process-based approach (Wright et al., 2019) . ...
... Several recent studies suggest that the Intuitive Logic approach could be augmented to address causality between factors and drivers in a comprehensive way (Derbyshire & Wright, 2017;MacKay & Stoyanova, 2017). We used systems mapping both (i) to systematically reduce the number of the initially identified factors and cluster them for further impact and uncertainty assessment and (ii) to build the skeletons of the scenario narratives (Wright et al., 2019). Systems thinking is often considered to be a cornerstone of scenario planning (van der Heijden et al., 2002v;Chermack, 2011); systems mapping is a powerful tool to implement systems thinking in practice (Haraldsson, 2004). ...
Industrial development is often considered to be a major engine of economic growth. Kyrgyzstan is an open, small, landlocked, developing economy in Central Asia. In 2018 the Government of Kyrgyzstan decided to elaborate a new industrial development strategy that would facilitate economic growth, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign financing, and increase the welfare of inhabitants. This paper presents a set of plausible scenarios of industrial development of Kyrgyzstan to 2040. The scenarios were used as a basis for a Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Industry in Kyrgyzstan for 2019–2023, prepared by co-authors of this paper in collaboration with local experts in 2018. This strategy was officially adopted by the Government of Kyrgyzstan in September 2019. To construct scenarios, we used an approach developed by Roland Berger and Leipzig Graduate School of Management (HHL) Center for Strategy and Scenario Planning within the Intuitive Logics scenario planning paradigm. This approach relies on a systematic step-by-step scenario-building process that can be carried out when time and resources are limited. We augmented this approach by revealing and utilizing causal relationships among drivers. We also considered a denser spectrum of scenarios. The outcomes of each scenario-planning step were validated in consultations with local stakeholders. We also designed a monitoring dashboard based on well-established publicly available development indicators. These can help policymakers identify which scenario the system under consideration is tending toward, so that necessary policy interventions can be executed in a timely manner.
... The sophisticated construction of threat scenarios (overcoming simplified worst case analysis) for the digital transition, the -partly quantitative analysis-based expert judgements of losses by dTC scenarios -or judgments on the compensating effect of intervention scenarios on the organizations' key performance indicators may be taken as example. Thus, SVIDT can be considered as a comprehensive problem structuring framework which allows to utilize formal and quantitative methods of mainstream operational research (see, e.g. ( Ravindran, 2008 )) such as multicriteria decision analysis ( Masud & Ravindran, 2008 ), or scenario based decision analysis ( Klein, 2008 ;Wright, Cairns, O'Brien, & Goodwin, 2018 ). This has been done when assessing quantitative vulnerability scores, based on thoroughly constructed and selected threat and intervention scenarios, while also including the important aspect of uncertainty from a future viewpoint (see Wright et al., 2018 ). ...
... Thus, SVIDT can be considered as a comprehensive problem structuring framework which allows to utilize formal and quantitative methods of mainstream operational research (see, e.g. ( Ravindran, 2008 )) such as multicriteria decision analysis ( Masud & Ravindran, 2008 ), or scenario based decision analysis ( Klein, 2008 ;Wright, Cairns, O'Brien, & Goodwin, 2018 ). This has been done when assessing quantitative vulnerability scores, based on thoroughly constructed and selected threat and intervention scenarios, while also including the important aspect of uncertainty from a future viewpoint (see Wright et al., 2018 ). Thus, SVIDT may be seen as an example of relating soft operational methods and common methods of operational research. ...
We present a Strengths, Vulnerability, and Intervention Assessment related to Digital Threats (SVIDT) method, which provides a problem structuring and decision support for organizational vulnerability and resilience management with respect to changes of the digital transition. The method starts from (i) a multi-level actor analysis, (ii) identifies strengths and weaknesses of organizations, (iii) constructs digital threat scenarios and provides judgment-based expert assessments on the organization's vulnerability, (iv) develops intervention scenarios for tangible threat scenarios, and (v) suggests win-win action scenarios when referring to the multi actor system analysis as for strategic management. A first validation and application includes a structural analysis of the response patterns and a quantitative and qualitative appraisal of the organizations’ managers. This validation is based on an application of the method to 18 German and Austrian organizations of different types and magnitude. We show how the basic concepts of vulnerability (i.e., sensitivity, exposure adaptive capacity) can be quantitatively operationalized when constructing consistent combinations of threat and intervention scenarios. The validation approaches indicate that the method provides meaningful data and assessments and that the managers provided a positive feedback on the method and the recommendations which they received. It is further deliberated whether the assessment method supports organizations’ specified resilience management in an overly complex, systemic digital transition in a (semi) quantitative manner. In addition, we discuss needs for future research regarding practical utility of SVIDT, as well as the positioning of SVIDT in relation to soft operational methods and other methods of operational research.
... Instead the methodology was designed explicitly to identify the drivers of uncertainty in the transport planning and decision making process and eschewed the need to contribute to a "Go / No Go" decision. The method is designed to identify the factors of importance in decomposing and understanding a "wicked problem" (Rittel & Webber, 1973) and subsequent to this research, Wright, Cairns, O'Brien, and Goodwin (2018)) developed a six point framework to evaluate the capability of methods designed to assess "wicked problems". In this framework, the method developed in this research: 1) Has a sound theoretical underpinning through prior work in the structural dynamics method by Godet (2011) andVester (2012). ...
... 5) Is explicitly designed to uncover uncertainty. However, with regards to Wright et al. (2018) sixth point-identifying an aim to seek a resolution of the problem. The method described here ends with an understanding of both the problem and the influences and uncertainties contained within it. ...
Transport planning, in theory, is underpinned by rational analysis of the benefits of proposed developments. However, project outcomes do not always follow the results of that analysis and uncertainty is evident during the decision making processes. This research has devised and demonstrated a method to analyse that uncertainty, focussing on the early stages of the project lifecycle.
Stakeholders were interviewed to elicit their opinions about a normative scenario and these interviews coded using qualitative data analysis techniques. The emerging variables were analysed, using a structural dynamic model, based in complexity theory, which develops measures of connectivity to classify variables by their roles in inception and uncertainty in the project.
The case study was based on a disused railway with contradictory views on the benefits of reopening it. In the normative scenario, the rail service is re-instated in conjunction with a new sustainable urban development. The findings from this case study were that executive leadership and collaboration between Local Authorities were the most influential determinants for progress, and that the prime causes of uncertainty were the extant economic and planning policies. During the course of the project, structural governance developments have occurred in the UK that have endorsed these findings.
... Other case studies purely focus on showing soft OR benefit and are of limit educational value (Checkland and Scholes, 1999;Eden and Ackermann, 2001;Rosenhead and Mingers, 2001;Ritchey, 2006;Mingers, 2009). An overview of other examples of showcasing case studies can be found in Wright et al. (2018). These case studies tend to be written in a verbose scientific style which is difficult to follow for a non-academic . ...
... Ladner pointed out the quantitative analysis was inadequate to make that decision and that a qualitative ethnography study was required. As with our discussion, they were not arguing that qualitative methods should replace quantitative methods but should be used in a complementary manner (Evans, 2016;Wright et al., 2018). Soft OR methods help give understanding to the problem before any quantitative analysis has been conducted. ...
Soft operations research (OR) methods have the potential to provide deep qualitative insights into the complex problems that face our world. However, the propagation of soft OR has, at best, stagnated in recent years and it has been rejected from mainstream academic hard (quantitative) OR. In this paper, it is proposed that there is a need for simple educational example that actually shows the benefit of soft OR. The paper suggests that these examples should be real-world case studies that do not include convoluted graphics or verbose prose descriptions. An example case study has been included in this paper. This case study investigates the impact of beer price changes to two virtually identical restaurant-bars in the Hampton Roads region of the USA. The case study shows that a simple quantitative analysis results in erroneous conclusions which could be avoided by conducting a simple qualitative analysis.
... Other case studies purely focus on showing soft OR benefit and are of limit educational value (Checkland and Scholes, 1999;Eden and Ackermann, 2001;Rosenhead and Mingers, 2001;Ritchey, 2006;Mingers, 2009). An overview of other examples of showcasing case studies can be found in Wright et al. (2018). These case studies tend to be written in a verbose scientific style which is difficult to follow for a non-academic . ...
... Ladner pointed out the quantitative analysis was inadequate to make that decision and that a qualitative ethnography study was required. As with our discussion, they were not arguing that qualitative methods should replace quantitative methods but should be used in a complementary manner (Evans, 2016;Wright et al., 2018). Soft OR methods help give understanding to the problem before any quantitative analysis has been conducted. ...
... Teknik pendukung keputusan multikriteria ini didasarkan pada teori bahwa setiap alternatif terdiri dari sejumlah kriteria yang memiliki nilai nilai dan setiap kriteria memiliki bobot yang menggambarkan seberapa penting dibandinkan dengan kriteria lain [13]. Tahapan dalam penggunaan metode SMART menurut Goodwin dan Wright adalah sebagai berikut [14]: 1. Menentukan banyaknya kriteria. 2. Menentukan bobot kriteria setiap kriteria dengan mengunakan interaval 1-100 untuk masing-masing kriteria dengan prioritas terpenting. ...
Company competition to be the best in the current era of globalization is getting tighter. Employees at the company are one of the keys for companies to be able to compete by increasing their abilities and placing the right positions in accordance with the skills possessed by these employees. Position promotion can be done if it is done effectively and efficiently. The same is the case at PT.Fokus Jasa Mitra which carries out promotions to employees who will occupy new positions. However, the determination process is still less effective and efficient because the calculation process is still manual. Therefore, a decision support system is needed to solve the existing problems, the authors use a combination of the AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) and SMART (Simple Multi Attribute Rating Technique) methods which can produce a weighting for each criterion and the final value of the alternative that is ranked first. In this study, the results of the calculations obtained, the best value or being the first rank of the twenty alternative data is Alternative 2 with a final value of 61,784 so that this calculation can be said to be effective and efficient.
... The literature often differentiates between the process where scenarios are constructed, including the chosen scenario framework, actors involved and models used (e.g. Wright et al., 2019), and the use of the scenarios as a tool in policy planning (e.g. Cook et al., 2014). ...
Scenarios are often used to depict the possible outcomes of alternative future developments as part of the evaluation of climate and energy policy measures. In Finland, scenarios have become a standard practice in climate-related policy planning. However, scenario planning often results in a single cohesive narrative, which lacks transparency in why certain developments and solutions are included and others left out. This article focuses on how scenarios created during the planning of Finland’s Medium-term Plan for Climate Change Policy (KAISU) were built, and how the actors involved assessed the characteristics and quality of these scenarios. We interviewed a total of 18 participants from research, administration, and policymaking domains involved in the creation of the plan and the scenarios it contains. Semi-structured interviews provided an insight into the creation and use of scenarios as part of policy formulation, as well as points of further improvement for the process. The KAISU plan was constructed as a cross-sectoral collaborative effort between policymakers, public officials, and researchers. Despite the variety of actors involved in the process, the resulting scenarios were perceived as well-executed by the participants. However, national scenario foresight could be improved in three dimensions: 1) the process where actors collaborate to build scenarios, 2) the scenario methodology, where solutions and developments are included or excluded, and 3) use of the scenarios after their construction.
Key policy insights
• The scenario approach used in Finland corresponds with needs at the political level. However, the approach could be improved without compromising this goal.
• The underlying scenario assumptions and the compatibility of the models used lack transparency. Many actors involved in the scenario process have a limited understanding of the models used and measures proposed outside their respective sector.
• Construction of more than one policy scenario would allow a larger variety of possible future trajectories to be evaluated in national policymaking. In this case, the aim and role of the scenario process would have to be adjusted and clarified accordingly.
• Communication regarding the role and applicability of foresight methods should be improved for citizens and politicians alike.
... Initially, 32 provisional projections were derived. A projection consolidation process was applied based on the following criteria: an appropriate number of elements in each projection (Salancik et al., 1971), clear descriptions of definition and concepts (Johnson, 1976;Wright et al., 2019), and elimination of conditional statements (Roßmann et al., 2018). Due to a large number of projections would decrease the probability of the completion of the questionnaire and lead to a reduced response rate (Parenté and Anderson-Parenté, 1987), the number of projections was further decreased to 23 while maintaining the breadth and depth of topics relevant to the focus of the study (Jiang et al., 2017). ...
Spurred by the emerging blockchain technology and increased interest in tokenization, this forecasting research built on extensive literature and aggregated expertise to explore the potential implementation of blockchain-enabled tokenization in infrastructure investment and development. The Delphi-based scenario analysis approach was applied to gather long-term forecasts and assessments of a research panel consisting of 39 experts in blockchain tokenization and infrastructure development on how tokenization will influence the future of infrastructure finance and identify scenarios of potential applications and impact. International experts were segregated into two groups salient to this topical area based on both experience ad self-identification: infrastructure development and blockchain tokenization. Twenty-three projections for 2035, developed from a literature review, case study analysis, and expert interviews, concerning perspectives of both the supply and demand side for the adoption of blockchain tokenization, were assessed in a two-round Delphi analysis. Regulatory, economic, social, and technological perspectives of tokenization were taken into consideration. Assessments were based on both probability and impact of occurrence. Three groups of scenarios resulted from quantitative and qualitative analysis, reflecting agreement and differentiation between both expert groups. The results of this study clearly underlined the potential of tokenization in infrastructure. Uncertainties and barriers confronting the technologies' diffusion were discussed. This study contributes to the transfer of general technical-driven blockchain-enabled tokenization knowledge to infrastructure-specific tokenization knowledge. Long-term strategic planning is supported by this study with the scenario data acting as a starting point for blockchain-related efforts in infrastructure development.
... The rapid pace and quantity of new information that continuously emerged during the first wave of the pandemic left little time for sustained strategies. As many have stated, each scenario is not considered an end in itself, but rather serves to highlight crucial uncertainties, and through the active engagement in scenario planning (that results in multiple scenarios) the quality of executive decision making can be improved (O'Brien and Meadows, 2013;Postma and Liebl, 2005;Wilson, 2000;Wright et al., 2018). Repetitive revisits to previously published scenarios help any resulting strategies keep pace with rapidly emerging knowledge and changing landscapes. ...
Hundreds of scenarios were developed across the world in 2020, aimed at generating forward-looking conversations, better understanding for COVID-19 transmission rates, trialling economic outcomes, and stress-testing existing systems in light of the developing pandemic. In response, Cairns & Wright (2020) questioned the value of these mass-produced scenarios created retroactively to existing crises. We address their concerns by evaluating 213 COVID-19 scenarios developed in the first wave of the pandemic. We use two yardsticks as guiding maps against which we plot each scenario's profile and test for values of high-quality process and content. Our analyses reveal various points of high and low qualities, in both process and content. Though most reported processes fell towards lower quality standards, and content largely carried generic applications, the prolific levels of exploratory narratives reflected a mixture of high and low-quality values. Together, our papers develop and reinforce the message that scenario interventions, especially in times of crisis, should reflect more proactive efforts and ensure powerful stakeholders, decision-makers, and affected community members are included in the development of scenarios.
... One drawback of the proposed arrangement is the additional time required to revisit multiple analytical steps adapting and extending the original system and problem definition while going through the stages. Additionally, starting from a traditional single-sector, single-hazard perspective requires special consideration to avoid a common bias of too narrow a focus on traditional siloed system/problem definition, and choices of scenarios and plausible policy options (Wright et al., 2019;Shepherd et al., 2018;Stanton and Roelich, 2021). ...
Climate change impacts are increasingly complex owing to compounding, interacting, and cascading risks across sectors. However, approaches to support Disaster Risk Management (DRM) addressing the underlying (uncertain) risk driver interactions are still lacking. We tailor the approach of Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) to DAPP-MR to design DRM pathways for complex, dynamic multi-risk in multi-sector systems. We review the recent multi-hazard and multi-sector research to identify relevant aspects of multi-risk management frameworks and illustrate the suitability of DAPP-MR using a stylized case. It is found that rearranging the analytical steps of DAPP by introducing three iteration stages can help to capture interactions, trade-offs, and synergies across hazards and sectors. We show that DAPP-MR may guide multi-sector processes to stepwise integrate knowledge toward multi-risk management. DAPP-MR can
be seen as an analytical basis and first step toward an operational, integrative, and interactive framework for short-to long-term multi-risk DRM.
... In the last 20 years, a wealth of literature has been published on strategic planning (e.g Bradfield et al. 2005., Wright et al., 2019, Tietje 2005, Ritchey 2006, Lord et al., 2016, Johansen 2018. However, to our knowledge, this part of literature has not come together with investment portfolio optimization problems. One explanation for the gap is that financial markets are considered liquid and change can be made quickly. While this is in many cases true, changes in r ...
Many portfolio optimization techniques rely heavily on past data and modeling assumptions. In an uncertain and ambiguous world, these techniques are prone to amplify model misspecification and therefore have poor out of sample results. Robust optimization explicitly recognizes uncertainty in model specification and performs better out of sample. The Achilles’ heel of the method is the selection of the uncertainty set. In this paper we focus on the construction of the uncertainty set around the stochastic model specification. We propose to use narratives to select the elements in the uncertainty set to avoid using a logically inconsistent or too large uncertainty set. The narratives provide useful tools in a qualitative sense to the portfolio management process.
... Entretanto, tanto como as grandes empresas, as micro e pequenas, também têm exercido um papel fundamental no desenvolvimento e na manutenção da economia nacional (LUNARDI; DOLCI; MAÇADA, 2010; SILVA; DACORSO, 2013). Segundo Wright et al. (2018), as incertezas causadas por imprevistos estão presentes onde a probabilidade atua e podem ser associadas a resultados aptos, tendo como base as prioridades de raciocínio ou de frequências práticas, ou ainda de eventos semelhantes. ...
A globalização e a turbulência de mercado exigem que as organizações busquem estratégias para a vantagem competitiva. Neste contexto, a gestão do conhecimento visa a criação, transferência e circulação do conhecimento nas organizações, bem como o investimento no capital intelectual. No entanto, a orientação para o mercado defende uma cultura orientada para o cliente, a fim de oferecer-lhes produtos de maior valor agregado de forma eficiente e efetiva. Perante o exposto, este estudo tem como objetivo analisar a influência da gestão do conhecimento e da orientação para o mercado sobre a vantagem competitiva em 426 empresas de comércio e serviços do Sul do Brasil. A metodologia utilizada tratou-se de uma pesquisa quantitativa, por meio da análise fatorial exploratória e regressão linear múltipla. Os resultados destacam que tanto a gestão do conhecimento, como a orientação para o mercado estão positivamente relacionadas com a vantagem competitiva.
... Resource Development Review, Hirschinger et al. (2015) in Journal of Supply Chain Management, Wright et al. (2019) in European Journal of Operational Research or Suddendorf and Corballis (2007) in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. A search for the exact terms "theory" AND "foresight" in Google Scholar reveals 303.000 hits indicating further valuable contributions across various disciplines and publications outlets. ...
The important role of scientific theories in social science and across all disciplines has been reflected for decades (see, e.g., Parsons, 1938). With scientific theories, researchers can link the abstract world (the world of concepts/ideas) and the concrete world (the empirical/observable world) (Chibucos et al., 2005). It is, therefore, more than appropriate to question along with Fergnani and Chermack (2021, p. 1) and colleagues, “why the field of futures and foresight has not been successful at becoming part of the social scientific establishment”? Our commentary supports the underlying observations by Fergnani and Chermack (2021) by adopting a brief bibliometric lens on 50 years of cumulative scholarship (1973–January 2021) in 22 selected journals. These 22 journals include a total of 47,049 articles that were scanned. Based on our search criteria, we found 151 article matches (only 0.32 percent), of which a subset of 28 articles applied scientific theories from different disciplines.
... Warren et al. (2019) provided a bibliometric meta-analysis of the use of SSM. Wright et al. (2019) performed a review about the use of scenarios from the Intuitive Logics School to address wicked problems. ...
The Problem Structuring Methods (PSMs) are a set of interactive and participatory modeling approaches for dealing with unstructured complex problems, which are characterized by the existence of multiple actors, with differing perspectives and conflicting interests, trying to identify alternatives for solving a problematic situation in an environment with uncertainties. In this paper, we provide a literature review about PSMs over the last decade (2010-2020), focusing on verifying the distribution of papers according to year, journals, countries, and authors; to identify the most frequent PSMs and areas of application; and to present methodological and theoretical advances, and emerging topics. The content analysis technique was used to analyze the papers. From 2015 on there was a significant increase in the number of studies that address the PSMs and the years 2018 and 2019 concentrate around one-third of the number of papers. Most of the papers present applications of PSM in different areas that were classified into five categories: business management; environmental management; healthcare sector; social issues; and other areas. Regardless of the application area, the Soft System Methodology (SSM) is the most frequently used PSM and a discussion is provoked about this finding. The paper also presents the theoretical and methodological advances and emerging topics in this discipline.
... The equation below is used to establish the relative importance of the criteria (Drejeris & Oželienė, 2019): Figure 2. The decision reliability dependence on number of experts (Wright et al., 2019). ...
Sustainable development is playing an increasingly important role in today’s society, and it is essential for companies seeking to meet the needs of the market to pay increasing attention to the application of sustainable development principles in their operations. The enterprise logistics system is one of the essential activities ensuring the company’s competitiveness, which ensures timely production and quality of customer service. However, in order to integrate the principles of sustainable development into the company’s logistics system, it is necessary to develop a model that identifies the impact of sustainability on each factor of the logistics system. The paper analyses the impact of sustainable development on distribution logistics to determine which activities in distribution logistics are most responsive to sustainable development and can help determine the level of corporate sustainability. The main purpose of the model, presented in the paper, is to help the business sector integrate sustainable development principles effectively in distribution logistics, taking into account the significance of ongoing factors in the system for sustainability.
... These approaches may, therefore, be inadequate for handling uncertainty in a structured and meaningful way when dealing with challenges such as HHR planning, which may well fit within the wicked problems category given its overarching implications and complexity [12] . Foresight, and specifically scenario planning, have been recalled to support decision making in addressing wicked problems and is considered "a useful tool in the OR practitioner's tool kit and that it can complement many of the established soft OR methods" [13,14] . Given the challenges of dealing with uncertainty within mathematical programming, we propose the use of scenario planning concepts to enhance mathematical programming models in an integrated way, while also avoiding the difficulties found in existing scenario-based methods. ...
Achieving a balanced healthcare workforce requires health planners to adjust the supply of health human resources (HHR). Mathematical programming models have been widely used to assist such planning, but the way uncertainty is usually considered in these models entails methodological and practical issues and often disregards radical yet plausible changes to the future. This study proposes a new socio-technical methodology to factor in uncertainty over the future within mathematical programming modelling. The methodological approach makes use of foresight and scenario planning concepts to build tailor-made scenarios and scenario fit input parameters, which are then used within mathematical programming models. Health stakeholders and experts are engaged in the scenario building process. Causal map modelling and morphological analysis are adopted to digest stakeholders and experts’ information about the future and give origin to contrasting and meaningful scenarios describing plausible future. These scenarios are then adjusted and validated by stakeholders and experts, who then elicit their best quantitative estimates for coherent combinations of input parameters for the mathematical programming model under each scenario. These sets of parameters for each scenario are then fed to the mathematical programming model to obtain optimal solutions that can be interpreted in light of the meaning of the scenario. The proposed methodology has been applied to a case study involving HHR planning in Portugal, but its scope far extends HHR planning, being especially suited for addressing strategic and policy planning problems that are sensitive to input parameters.
... Scenarios may denote normative futures, such as what we should do to achieve a desired future situation, or may be exploratory, through reconnoitring a variety of possible future developments (B€ orjeson et al., 2006). Scenarios have been found useful for understanding intractable problems (Wright et al., 2019), for formulating strategic responses and decisions (Van Der Heijden, 2000), for gaining situational understanding (Cairns and Wright, 2017) and for improving organisational integration, communication and learning (Wright et al., 2013). ...
Purpose
Integrated care presents health workforce planners with significant uncertainty. This results from: (1) these workforces are likely in the future to be different from the present, (2) integrated care's variable definitions and (3) workforce policy and planning is not familiar with addressing such challenges. One means to deal with uncertainty is scenario analysis. In this study we reveal some integration-supportive workforce governance and planning policies that were derived from the application of scenario analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a mixed methods design that applies content analysis, scenario construction and the policy Delphi method, we analysed a set of New Zealand's older persons health sector workforce scenarios. Developed from data gathered from workforce documents and studies, the scenarios were evaluated by a suitably qualified panel, and derived policy statements were assessed for desirability and feasibility.
Findings
One scenario was found to be most favourable, based on its broad focus, inclusion of prevention and references to patient dignity, although funding changes were indicated as necessary for its realisation. The integration-supportive policies are based on promoting network-based care models, patient-centric funding that promotes collaboration and the enhancement of interprofessional education and educator involvement.
Originality/value
Scenario analysis for policy production is rare in health workforce planning. We show how it is possible to identify policies to address an integrated care workforce's development using this method. The article provides value for planners and decision-makers by identifying the pros and cons of future situations and offers guidance on how to reduce uncertainty through policy rehearsal and reflection.
... The effect of this scientific "anguish" has become a relatively simple tool, supporting decision-makers in making 7 of 25 complex decisions [48]. In addition to numerous recommendations from other researchers [49,50,51,52], as well as flexibility and universality, this very advantage of the AHP method and the possibility of author's adaptation to the specific test conditions, decided on its choice for the purposes of this study. ...
Forestry and the wood-based sector, including the wood industry, which is an important element of economic systems and a source of budget revenues for many countries in the world, found itself in the first quarter of 2020 in a situation of a serious threat of a prolonged crisis as a consequence of the pandemic. In this perspective, it is necessary to review existing sector strategies and look for new solutions to ensure first survival, then functioning and finally development of entities forming the wood market. In the scientific research, which is the subject of this work, an attempt was made to multi-criteria analysis of the selection of the optimal anti-crisis strategy for actors from forestry and the wood-based sector in the face of a pandemic. Preparatory studies were conducted on the example of Poland, where both forestry and the wood industry belong to the dominant sectors of the economy, conducting them at the turn of March and April 2020. The research was referred to the primary wood raw material market in Poland, which is the main link in the value chain, created first by the dominant owner: Państwowe Gospodarstwo Leśne "Lasy Państwowe" - the “State Forests” National Forest Holding (SFNFH), and then forest service entrepreneurs, to entities representing the wood industry. The work uses a concept modified for the purposes of the author's research scenario, based on the method of multi-criteria hierarchical analysis AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). The best possible decision was to be searched that would allow the selection of the optimal anti-crisis strategy for enterprises - actors of the sector concerned. Based on the collected results and their expert discussion, recommendations for sectoral policy for forestry and the wood-based sector were then formulated. The proposed solutions are located against the background of a dispute between the concept of institutional intervention and a model taking into account the effects of market factors. The work is both cognitive (optimization and adaptation of the research method) and practical up-to-date. An accurate development strategy for forestry and the wood-based sector is urgently needed and necessary to implement as quickly as possible.
... The exploratory scenarios set the framework in which the prospects of blue and green hydrogen are explored, while the PESTEL analysis provide an overview of the driving forces that could underpin the developments of the future environment in which the energy export regime in Norway operates. The PESTEL analysis consists of an in-depth literature review to categorize the factors into six dimensions: political (P), economics (E), social parameters (S), technology (T), the natural environment (E) and legal structures (L) (Walsh, 2005;Wright, Cairns, O'Brien, & Goodwin, 2019). With the factors identified, this thesis then takes the MLP as a starting point to deductively fit the information gathered in the PESTEL framework within each scenario to construct the storylines at the three levels: ...
As the threat of climate change impacts looms, with global temperatures rising to 1.5oC as early as 2030, the need for rapid low-carbon energy transition is more urgent than ever. As a global leader in climate change negotiations, the EU has committed to become carbon neutral by 2050 and hydrogen is set to play a critical role in decarbonising sectors which are difficult to electrify such as freight transport, energy-intensive industries required high-grade heat and power generation sectors. This offers an opportunity for Norway to mitigate the risk of declining demand and supply of its fossil-fuel based energy exports. This thesis provides an overview of the key drivers and barriers that could affect the prospects of blue and green hydrogen export in Norway. Given that transitions, in general, do not follow a linear-process, the thesis uses exploratory scenarios as a framework to enhance the understanding of how the interplay of these drivers could affect the trajectories of the pathways of blue and green hydrogen developments in Norway. The findings and analysis show that Norway is well-positioned in terms of natural resources availability, existing compatible infrastructure and technological expertise for the development of both types of hydrogen and has a great potential for becoming a market leader in the export of hydrogen. As its natural gas reserves deplete, the role of green hydrogen in a low-carbon energy system is likely grow more significantly. Therefore, it is critical for policymakers to consider the eventual phase-out of blue hydrogen and scaling up of green hydrogen in its strategy as early as possible. Overall, blue hydrogen should be viewed as a short-term solution to enable a rapid hydrogen transition, but green hydrogen would offer better prospects for a more sustainable economy for Norway.
Objetivo: nesta pesquisa buscou-se analisar a contribuição do planejamento de cenários na tomada de decisão em pequenas empresas do Distrito Federal. Assim, procurou-se explorar uma lacuna nesta área de conhecimento onde poucos estudos empíricos foram desenvolvidos, no Brasil, em empresas deste porte. Método: foi desenvolvida uma pesquisa participante, de natureza qualitativa, com seis pequenas empresas do setor de comércio e serviços, aplicando o método da Global Business Network (GBN) de planejamento de cenários. Os resultados foram aferidos por entrevistas com os participantes, agregados à percepção do pesquisador durante as etapas deste planejamento. Resultados: verificou-se uma preocupação com a situação econômica do país em todos os cenários construídos com os sujeitos de pesquisa. Todas as empresas alcançaram narrativas sobre o futuro, sendo que em quatro delas constataram-se tomadas de decisão melhores e a concepção de ideias inovadoras. Contudo, apenas em uma foi observada determinada mudança de modelo mental, principal finalidade deste tipo de planejamento, segundo autores neste tema. Questões como barreiras cognitivas e preocupações com situações do presente comprometeram o trabalho de explorar possibilidades futuras. Conclusões: o planejamento de cenários pode trazer maior racionalidade à tomada de decisão em pequenas empresas, como verificado em metade das empresas participantes. Isto é capaz de auxiliá-las a contornar o alto índice de mortalidade que enfrentam em seus primeiros anos de atividade, bem como a melhor lidar com incertezas futuras.
The COVID-19 crisis has fundamentally transformed the way we live our lives and how organizations work. The business sector needed to understand what is the better approach to continue their activity, this leads to formulating and forecasting different scenarios associated with the impact of the pandemic on its suppliers, customers, and employees. This paper aims to investigate possible scenarios in small businesses in a post-pandemic era and how small businesses are preparing for the return of their activity maintenance. In addition, a theoretical contribution throughout dynamic capabilities perspective. An
exploratory study with in-depth inquiries based on a quantitative methodologywith small business owners as a sample identifying possible scenarios and what is the future direction of small businesses. Also, a bibliometric analysis was applied and focused on scenario planning, strategy, post-pandemic, and dynamic capabilities. Indexed journals were used to validate the study and VOSviewer software to perform a keyword analysis on co occurrence and counting. A scenario planning framework for small businesses gives an understanding of what could be the possible outlines for the organization and acquire a better comprehension of what strategies can be used as a supplement to surpass the recent crisis. For last, the conceptualization of the theme relates to dynamic capabilities, scenarios, and the behaviour of small businesses.
Uncertainties in environmental decisions are large, but resolving them is costly. We provide a framework for value of information (VoI) analysis to identify key predictive uncertainties in a decision model. The approach addresses characteristics that complicate this analysis in environmental management: dependencies in the probability distributions of predictions, trade-offs between multiple objectives, and divergent stakeholder perspectives. For a coral reef fisheries case, we predict ecosystem and fisheries trajectories given different management alternatives with an agent-based model. We evaluate the uncertain predictions with preference models based on utility theory to find optimal alternatives for stakeholders. Using the expected value of partially perfect information (EVPPI), we measure how relevant resolving uncertainty for various decision attributes is. The VoI depends on the stakeholder preferences, but not directly on the width of an attribute’s probability distribution. Our approach helps reduce costs in structured decision-making processes by prioritizing data collection efforts.
Il s’agit de la synthèse d’une thèse de prospective qui a pour titre original « Knowing and Governing Super-Wicked Problems: A Social Analysis of Low-Carbon Scenarios ». Celle-ci a été réalisée entre octobre 2014 et avril 2019 sous la direction du Prof. Tom Bauler au sein du Centre d’Études du Développement Durable de l’Université libre de Bruxelles grâce à un financement du Fonds national de la recherche scientifique (FRS-FNRS).
Cette synthèse a été soumise le 15 juillet 2022 dans le cadre de l’appel à candidatures de l'édition 2022 du Prix de thèses francophones de prospective organisé par la Fondation 2100 et l’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie.
Scenario methodology is complex, with numerous derivative approaches and variations. Although, its multiple techniques and tools make it possible to analyze problems considered ‘wicked’ – of low probability and high impact. Given this, our theoretical-methodological essay initially describes the premises and compares the features of the scenario Schools: Intuitive-Logics, Probabilistic Modified Trends, and La Prospective. The interfaces and complementarities among the methods applied for the scenarios and the approach of sociotechnical systems (STS) are made explicit in order to highlight their theoretical contributions to qualify the rigorous operationalisation of the definition of scenarios, considering the particularities of each School. Our effort provides insights that enhance the use of the scenario methodology to contextualise scientific investigations in a complex, uncertain, and dynamic environment, characteristic of contemporary society, in which disruptive technological innovations encourage the occurrence of phenomena that find theoretical support in the approach of sociotechnical transitions.
Sustainable development is playing an increasingly important role in today’s society, and it is essential for companies seeking to meet the needs of the market to pay increasing attention to the application of sustainable development principles in their operations. The enterprise food distribution system is one of the essential activities ensuring the company’s competitiveness in food sector, which ensures timely production and quality of customer service. Nevertheless, the compliance of the company’s distribution system with the principles of sustainable development is a major challenge for most companies. The company’s goal of sustainable development must not forget the main goal - the pursuit of profit; therefore, it is necessary to clearly define the main strategic activities, criteria and evaluation system that would help identify the most suitable solutions for the company to meet both sustainability and profitability expectations. To this end, it is necessary to integrate the institutional dimension and to analyze the food distribution system at the strategic level. The paper analyses the impact of sustainable development on food distribution system to determine which activities are most responsive to sustainable development and company’s goals. The main purpose of the model, presented in the paper, is to help the business sector integrate sustainable development principles effectively in food distribution system, considering the significance of ongoing factors in the system for sustainable development. As study result presented evaluation of international company food distribution system in the context of sustainability according to institutional dimension by identifying value of criteria’s and evaluation main activities in a company distribution system.
This paper introduces a novel methodology to the transport sector to foster dialogue between actors holding different perspectives on issues pertinent to the future of mobility that might be termed ‘wicked’. The case of driverless cars is considered. The paper points to a dearth of interaction between actors holding different and sometimes polar opposite views on what driverless cars could mean for the future of transport and society. It examines the role of bringing diverse perspectives together in a collaborative setting to address this wicked problem. The importance of creating task conflict is highlighted in the facilitation of engagement and achievement of shared learning.
The Emulsion Methodology brings together into constructive dialogue (the emulsion) people with alternative perspectives on driverless cars (evangelists, opponents and agnostics) that may not typically mix (oil and water). The one-day workshop format (the emulsifier) involves co-creation, in mixed-perspective groups, of plausible utopias and plausible dystopias for a driverless cars future in 2050. The Three Horizons method is then used to identify significant issues at play in the transition to such futures. In turn, this enables guiding principles for present day policy to be identified. Application of the methodology to driverless cars resulted in new learning, changed perspectives and specific insights of relevance to policymaking.
This commentary revisits an early book review by the author of Kees van der Heijden's influential book, Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation, highlighting the continuing neglect of the role of forecasting in scenario construction. In addition, there still remains considerable ambiguity as to whether scenarios offer more than plausible stories. The review highlights the need to resolve these ambiguities in the scenario research literature through a better understanding of the links between forecasting and scenario construction. The benefit of success would be a greater understanding of long-term uncertainty.
In a dynamic and complex world, scenario methods are useful tools to understand
potential future developments and to support shaping the future. After their
inception in the defense sector in the 1960s, scenario methodology has been taken
up by a variety of sectors and adapted to suit a wide range of needs, which resulted
in variations and combinations of scenario methods. Based on an extensive review
of literature and years of practical experience, we analyze the status quo of research
and applications. We identify purposes for practitioners to understand how to best
utilize the method and for which purposes. We distinguish five purpose categories
associated with scenarios. We develop a process model that brings together
previous approaches. We deal with the concrete design of the sub-steps of the
process (method variants), with combinations of methods and alternative methods.
Furthermore, we identify success factors and potential pitfalls. Finally, open
(research) questions are formulated that can contribute to systematization, quality
assurance and evaluation on the basis of the presented status review, e.g. through a
decision support concept for process optimization including method selection.
When making long-term strategic decisions, organizations may benefit from characterizing their future operational environment with a set of scenarios. These scenarios can be built based on combinations of levels of uncertainty factors describing, e.g., alternative political or technological developments. However, the number of such combinations grows exponentially in the number of the uncertainty factors, whereby the selection of a few combinations to work as a basis for scenario development can be difficult. In this paper, we develop a method for identifying a small but diverse set of plausible combinations of uncertainty factor levels. The method filters an exponentially large set of possible combinations to a smaller set of most plausible combinations, as assessed by the consistencies of the pairs of uncertainty factor levels in the combinations. To support the selection of the final set of combinations from the most consistent ones, we formulate a weighted set cover problem, the solution to which gives the smallest number of maximally consistent combinations that together cover all uncertainty factor levels. Moreover, we develop an interactive software tool utilizing Multiple Correspondence Analysis to visualize the consistency and diversity of the combinations, thus improving the transparency and communicability of the methods. This paper also presents a real case in which our method was used to identify a set of plausible scenarios for the Finnish National Emergency Supply Organization to support their strategic decision making.
Deciding how and when to adapt to climate change is a difficult problem, involving multiple actors and problem frames, deep uncertainty, and contested goals. Numerous decision-making strategies have been developed to reduce uncertainty, evaluate options under multiple future scenarios, or create decision pathways in an effort to overcome barriers that prevent adaptation decision-making from being a ‘rational’ process: a careful and objective evaluation of how alternative options perform under future conditions. Other fields, such as cognitive science, economics, and psychology, have explored alternatives to rational decision-making such as heuristics, and applied adaptation research has illustrated the role of context in shaping decision-making. This article reviews recent research on adaptation decision-making strategies and highlights gaps that future research should address to inform practice. While decision-making methods and tools have proliferated, there is still a lack of research on how adaptation strategies are selected in practice and a need for research on the meta-decision-making question: How should decision-makers choose which decision-making process to use?
The article is devoted to predictive and analytical studies of possible directions of sustainable socio-economic development of the Samara-Tolyatti agglomeration on the horizon of 2019–2035. The research was carried out in order to design the future of the Samara-Tolyatti agglomeration, balanced in terms of goals and resources, based on a comprehensive analysis of statistical data from previous years and an expert vision of development alternatives, taking into account the unstable external environment. A digital agglomeration model has been created that allows calculating the values of national project targets and performance indicators for senior officials.
Conflict analysis as one of the most challenging and demanding issues within different fields of nowadays world, is generally characterized by two types of complexities: structural and behavioral. Therefore, scholars worldwide to tackle the mentioned complexities welcome a multi-methodology intervention. Consequently, this study focuses on the development and application of multi-methodological intervention benefiting from the advantages of Soft OR and Game theory to deal more effectively with the complex nature of a real-world problem. Accordingly, the paper contributes to JOURNEY making methodology through developing new concepts, making it richer information-wise, and thus more reliable. Moreover, it applied the proposed model for the Saudi-led war on Yemen, where the latter faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. In addition, a stability analysis considered investigating stable scenarios (equilibrium) for all parties. Ultimately, findings indicate that only one stable scenario can stop the war and resolve one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
This paper carries out an interdisciplinary literature review to develop an updated framework that integrates all aspects of decision-making. It proposes a framework that combines the evolutionary perspective with the complexity theory to integrate the ontological communalities between the examined disciplines (operational research, psychology and management). Decision-making is regarded as a systemic, multi-tiered information-based process, founded on the interaction of the decision-maker with the environment in a sort of learning path which co-evolves through variation–selection–retention mechanisms nourished by environmental feedback.
Such a complex-coevolutionary perspective provides valuable insights concerning some as-yet-unexplored aspects of decision-making, such as inter- and intra-individual differences in decision-making, as well as the interaction of ‘rational’ and ‘intuitive’ processes or some contradictory evidence (regarding ‘fractionated expertise’ and ‘escalation of commitment’).
Practical implications on management education are highlighted, as well as methodological limitations and needs for further studies. The journey is not yet over and probably never will be, but, from an evolutionary perspective, it is the journey, not the arrival, that matters.
Although scenario planning and the Delphi survey are widely used in long-term strategy planning, their combinations have not received enough attention, especially in the improvement of efficacy in scenario planning. The crucial step of scenario planning is the effective identification of the uncertain and most influential drivers and key factors. This paper integrates the Delphi survey into scenario planning. It proposes a four-step analytical procedure of Delphi survey-based scenario planning: identifying the key ingredients from Delphi results, establishing the causal relationships among key ingredients, scenario development, and scenario description. The integrated method has been adopted in the planning practice for the renewable energy development strategy towards 2030 in China. Based on the three uncertain and most influential drivers, “technology development,” “ecological awareness,” and “national energy pricing,” most possibly influencing the renewable energy development towards 2030 in China, a novel three-dimensional scenario analytical framework composed of eight future scenarios is constructed. Considering the possibility in China's practice, five scenarios are selected as possible development scenarios of China's renewable energy towards 2030. This paper develops possible policy choices for each selected scenario.
Background:
A goal of health workforce planning is to have the most appropriate workforce available to meet prevailing needs. However, this is a difficult task when considering integrated care, as future workforces may require different numbers, roles and skill mixes than those at present. With this uncertainty and large variations in what constitutes integrated care, current health workforce policy and planning processes are poorly placed to respond. In order to address this issue, we present a scenario-based workforce planning approach.
Methods:
We propose a novel mixed methods design, incorporating content analysis, scenario methods and scenario analysis through the use of a policy Delphi. The design prescribes that data be gathered from workforce documents and studies that are used to develop scenarios, which are then assessed by a panel of suitably qualified people. Assessment consists of evaluating scenario desirability, feasibility and validity and includes a process for indicating policy development opportunities.
Results:
We confirmed our method using data from New Zealand's Older Persons Health sector and its workforce. Three scenarios resulted, one that reflects a normative direction and two alternatives that reflect key sector workforce drivers and trends. One of these, based on alternative assumptions, was found to be more desirable by the policy Delphi panel. The panel also found a number of favourable policy proposals.
Conclusions:
The method shows that through applying techniques that have been developed to accommodate uncertainty, health workforce planning can benefit when confronting issues associated with integrated care. The method contributes to overcoming significant weaknesses of present health workforce planning approaches by identifying a wider range of plausible futures and thematic kernels for policy development. The use of scenarios provides a means to contemplate future situations and provides opportunities for policy rehearsal and reflection.
We advance a mathematical representation of Command and Control as distributed decision makers using the Kuramoto model of networked phase oscillators. The phase represents a continuous Perception-Action cycle of agents at each network node; the network the formal and informal communications of human agents and information artefacts; coupling the strength of relationship between agents; native frequencies the individual decision speeds of agents when isolated; and stochasticity temporal noisiness in intrinsic agent behaviour. Skewed heavy-tailed noise captures that agents may randomly ‘jump’ forward (rather than backwards) in their decision state under time stress; there is considerable evidence from organisational science that experienced decision-makers behave in this way in critical situations. We present a use-case for the model using data for military headquarters staff tasked to drive a twenty-four hour ‘battle-rhythm’. This serves to illustrate how such a mathematical model may be used realistically. We draw on a previous case-study where headquarters’ networks were mapped for routine business and crisis scenarios to provide advice to a military sponsor. We tune the model using the first data set to match observations that staff performed synchronously under such conditions. Testing the impact of the crisis scenario using the corresponding network and heavy-tailed stochasticity, we find increased probability of decision incoherence due to the high information demand of some agents in this case. This demonstrates the utility of the model to identify risks in headquarters design, and potential means of identifying points to change. We compare to qualitative organisational theories to initially validate the model.
Scenario planning, as a recognised organisational intervention, has steadily grown in popularity since the mid-20th century. To date, there are arguably as many methods and techniques as there are practitioners, with applications across nearly all sectors of public and private industry. Many feel that scenario planning is forever consigned to the realm of chaos, incapable of being clearly defined. We disagree and see the field as a collective of experiences and knowledge that play upon a theme, where emerging realities slowly reveal a structure to the system. In response, we propose a comprehensive typology for scenario planning interventions – the Comprehensive Scenario Intervention typology – which incorporates all dimensions of existing typologies along with additional dimensions and functions that reflect previously unrecognized and emergent topics relevant to understanding the critical realities of an intervention. The Comprehensive Scenario Intervention typology expands the scope of scenario planning interventions and adds to the theoretical foundation of the field.
This paper documents the Intuitive Logics scenario planning process and its relationship with horizon scanning activity in order to evaluate the separate and joint usefulness of these methods for anticipating the future. The specific objectives of this paper are to: (i) identify and differentiate scenario planning and horizon scanning methodologies (ii) discuss & evaluate their analytic underpinnings, and (iii) critically appraise their separate and combined value and effectiveness in relation to enhancing organizational preparedness for the future. Our analysis culminates with specifications to (iv) enhance the identification of 'weak signals' in Horizon Scanning by utilizing a systematically broadened range of both negatively-valenced and positively-valenced scenario storylines.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify what are the main causes that lead strategies to decline at execution phase.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopted the strategy of survey with the 69 Brazilian businessmen. The questionnaire was developed from 16 causes pointed out in the literature and the results analyzed using Cronbach’s α coefficient, multidimensional scaling, exploratory factor analysis and Pearson correlation coefficient.
Findings
The results of statistical analysis showed that the main causes are primarily associated to leaders’ defaults during execution strategies, lack of support and feedback of senior management, no involvement of the teams during the strategies formulation, failure of communication on the strategic objectives in all organizational levels, and others.
Research limitations/implications
The 69 businessmen work in different sectors and there may be specific causes for each sector. The research presented by this paper did not have objectives to analyze specific sectors of the economy.
Practical implications
The results are extremely important and useful for managers during the implementation phase of the strategies and researchers in the field of business strategies.
Originality/value
There are no research with the same focus and objective presented by this paper about Brazilian companies.
Collaboration is present throughout public administration as a means to address social issues that sit in the interorganizational domain. Yet research carried out over the last three decades has concluded that collaborations are complex, slow to produce outputs, and by no means guaranteed to deliver synergies and advantage. This article explores whether a "paradox lens" can aid the development of practice-oriented theory to help those who govern, lead, and manage collaborations in practice. It draws on a long-standing research program on collaboration and a synthesis of relevant literature on paradox and collaboration. The article develops five propositions on the application of a paradox lens that explicitly recognizes the context of collaboration as inherently paradoxical; acknowledges the limitations of mainstream theory in capturing adequately the complex nature of and tensions embedded in collaborative contexts; and uses the principles of paradox to develop practice-oriented theory on governing, leading, and managing collaborations.
Despite some recent progress, scenario planning's development as an academic discipline remains constrained by the perception it is solely a practical tool for thinking about the future, with limited theoretical foundations. The paper addresses this issue by showing that G. L. S. Shackle's ‘Potential Surprise Theory’ (PST) contains much that can lend theoretical support to scenario planning - especially its use of plausibility rather than probability, and its focus on potential extreme outcomes. Moreover, PST and scenario planning share the same ontology, viewing the future as constructed by the imagination of individuals. Yet, under PST, while the future is imagined and, therefore, subjective, individuals nevertheless seek to identify the ‘best’ option through a deductive process of elimination. PST therefore assists in overcoming the divide between the constructivist and deductivist perspectives in scenario planning as it employs both. Finally, the paper shows that theoretically underpinning scenario planning with PST would place it at the heart of contemporary debates on decision making under uncertainty taking place in economics and other fields, enhancing its status and profile as a discipline.
This paper shows that, in practice, the standard approach to scenario planning, known as ‘intuitive logics’, is overly focused on uncovering causes of one type, known as ‘efficient cause’. We outline and apply a broader consideration of causes, leading to a more sophisticated analysis of uncertainty. Our focus is on the incorporation of Aristotle’s nuanced analysis of causation. We incorporate the features of our augmented scenario development approach in a practical step-by-step methodology, and draw out several implications for expert knowledge elicitation.
In this article, we examine the role that formal strategic planning plays in determining the success of strategy implementation in a set of more than 150 public service organizations from Canada. We also analyse the mediating effects of managerial involvement in strategic planning and the moderating effects of stakeholder uncertainty on the planning-implementation relationship. A structured online questionnaire was used to collect the data. Our findings suggest that formal strategic planning has a strong positive relationship with implementation, which, though mediated by managerial involvement, becomes even more salient in the face of
stakeholder uncertainty. Several implications of these findings are discussed.
Who are we? What are we to become? The construction of reality involves the utmost in uncertainty. At the bottom of the web of strategic uncertainty sits the assumption. "Majestic Metals," a large primary metals company, provides a case history in this study of what executives may do with the assumption.
Adapting to climate change is a new responsibility for state and local government. Yet there is little clarity about what is involved, beyond an expectation of acting in a rational, informed manner. This paper presents a study from Victoria, Australia into public servants' perceptions and experiences of using scenario techniques for adaptation. It suggests that while scenario development is often positive for those involved, utilising scenarios to directly 'inform' adaptation decision making is more difficult. It seems that scenarios are a valuable but awkward form of evidence in the contemporary environment of evidence-based adaptation, introducing new substantive knowledge in an unfamiliar form, easily dismissed on credibility, legitimacy, and salience grounds. While scenario thinking is a good fit with climate change adaptation, it clashes with the predictive paradigm underlying the evidence-based decision-making model. This suggests that, for adaptation to better fit the institutional environment, alterations to the latter are needed.
Scenario planning is often used by organizations to think about future uncertainties. However, what it does in terms of changing perceptions is difficult to assess and quantify. To address this need, this article builds on previous studies documenting the effectiveness of scenario planning. Specifically, this article contributes to the data on perceptions of learning organization characteristics. This study compiles quantitative data gathered from 133 individuals working in 10 United States companies who participated in scenario planning. The Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) instrument was used in a pre‐ and post‐test research design and differences were analyzed using a t‐test. Results show a positive relationship between scenario planning and improved perceptions of learning organization characteristics for six of the seven dimensions of the DLOQ. Interpretation of the results suggests that scenario planning can change participants' views of their organizations' adaptive learning characteristics.
Often undervalued, experts possess a master of their jobs that makes them almost irreplaceable.
As firms become more networked they greatly expand their points of contact with the outside world. This can greatly help the detection of early signs of threats or opportunities emerging at the periphery. But a major challenge for firms scanning the periphery of their networks is how to manage the explosion of information. How do they avoid undue distraction while spotting useful signals amid an avalanche of data? We discuss how strategic radars can be used to integrate outside networks, weak signals, sense making, strategic dialog and scenario planning. A brief case study illustrates how a strategic radar system was actually developed and deployed by a large government agency in order to enhance its adaptive capability for coping with increasing external change.
The purpose of this chapter is to outline the development of the idea of "stakeholder management" as it has come to be applied in strategic management. We begin by developing a brief history of the concept. We then suggest that traditionally the stakeholder approach to strategic management has several related characteristics that serve as distinguishing features. We review recent work on stakeholder theory and suggest how stakeholder management has affected the practice of management. We end by suggesting further research questions.
Develops scenario planning methods in ways that link scenario analysis to improved decision making, engage time-poor senior decision makers, attenuate decision makers’ tendency to deflect responsibility for bleak, negative scenario outcomes, and enhance causal analysis within scenario-storyline development.
What if? Two of the most powerful – and frightening – words in business. Almost as bad as “I didn’t see that coming.” Some things that transform the marketplace overnight come from nowhere. Some things that create potentially critical under-performance are genuinely unforeseeable. Sometimes it is impossible to predict how a change in an organizational strategy will play out. Some things and sometimes – but not many and not often.
Decision makers in organizations face more-and-more complex and ambiguous problems that need to be addressed under time pressure - and the need for practical decision support has become essential. The range of methods in this book will enable you to be prepared, proactive and resilient no matter what the future brings.
Based on up-to-date academic research and years of application and iteration in the real world, this book, illustrated with examples of the value delivered in Europe, Australia and the Middle East, will transfer practical skills in scenario thinking using step-by-step instructions.
This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition introduces these new approaches in detail, with clear guidelines and examples to enable the reader to select and implement the most appropriate scenario method to suit the issue at hand – considering the timeframe for its investigation, the resources available and the outcomes expected.
In this article, we outline and discuss a novel augmentation of scenario method combined with Delphi analysis to engage multiple actors in analyzing complex and contested problems. In particular, we present ‘branching scenarios’ as an approach that breaks potential chains of perceived causality from the national/global level to drive local outcomes. The approach focuses on generating debate on local agency. The project discussed formed part of a larger research program in North West Tasmania to study the possible processes for economic and social regeneration. In engaging key stakeholders from public, private and non-governmental organizations, the team faced issues associated with participants' geographical dispersal and lack of time. In addition, the region may be considered as characterized by ‘lock-in’ to extant structures and, perhaps, resistant to the change necessary to achieve economic regeneration. For these reasons, our scenario intervention was deliberately designed to provide a cognitive ‘jolt’ to these senior, time-poor individuals - seeking to prompt their articulated action to achieve the jointly-held goal, regeneration. We document our approach and evaluate and analyze the degree to which we achieved this jointly-desired outcome. We present a new conceptual framework for broad social inquiry that will promote deep stakeholder engagement.
Most businesses rely on traditional capital-budgeting tools when making strategic decisions such as investing in an innovative technology or entering a new market. These tools assume that decision makers have access to remarkably complete and reliable information-yet most strategic decisions must be made under conditions of great uncertainty. Why are these traditional tools used so often even though their limitations are widely acknowledged? The problem is not a lack of alternatives. Managers have at their disposal a wide variety of tools-including decision analysis, scenario planning, and information aggregation tools-that can help them make smart decisions under high degrees of uncertainty. But the sheer variety can be overwhelming. This article provides a model for matching the decision-making tool to the decision being made, on the basis of three factors: how well you understand the variables that will determine success, how well you can predict the range of possible outcomes, and how centralized the relevant information is. The authors bring their frame-work to life using decisions that executives at McDonald's might need to make-from the very clear-cut (choosing a site for a new store in the United States) to the highly uncertain (changing the business in response to the obesity epidemic).
Emerging uncertainties present a challenge to decision making. On the basis of a review of existing scenario methods, we examine how ontological uncertainty, that is, the situation in which we do not know what we do not know, is included in scenario processes. We present three experimental foresight methods applicable for cases dominated by uncertainty; structural scenarios, shock scenarios and action portfolio and Agent-Based Modeling. The main finding of our experiment is that in order to address uncertainty, we have to relax the plausibility requirements and focus the analysis on futures that are perceived to be non-probable. In this way we are able to challenge existing perceptions and multiply the number of mental models of the futures.
Scenario planning is a method widely used by strategic planners to address uncertainty about the future. However, current methods either fail to address the future behaviour and impact of stakeholders or they treat the role of stakeholders informally. We present a practical decision-analysis-based methodology for analysing stakeholder objectives and likely behaviour within contested unfolding futures. We address issues of power, interest, and commitment to achieve desired outcomes across a broad stakeholder constituency. Drawing on frameworks for corporate social responsibility (CSR), we provide an illustrative example of our approach to analyse a complex contested issue that crosses geographic, organisational and cultural boundaries. Whilst strategies can be developed by individual organisations that consider the interests of others - for example in consideration of an organisation's CSR agenda - we show that our augmentation of scenario method provides a further, nuanced, analysis of the power and objectives of all concerned stakeholders across a variety of unfolding futures. The resulting modelling framework is intended to yield insights and hence more informed decision making by individual stakeholders or regulators. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. and Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO) within the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS).
The integration of expert judgment is a fundamental pillar of most scenario planning processes. In particular, the systematic scanning of external expert opinions has been shown to be effective for the early detection of emerging threats and opportunities in an organization’s environment. However, organizations tend to focus on internal advice more than on advice from external experts. This can be critical for organizations if it leads to an inertia in internal judgment, resulting in blind spots or a failure to see weak signals in the firm’s periphery. In this article, we introduce a structured framework for the collection and structuring of internal and external expert judgment. This so-called 360 Stakeholder Feedback tool provides a structured and quantitative approach for the detection and discussion of blind spots and weak signals in scenario planning processes. Thus, it can contribute to a better and more holistic judgment in the strategic process. We demonstrate the methodology based on a case from the German construction industry, in which we aggregate and analyze expert judgments from different stakeholder groups regarding the future of the industry.
In this paper we present a novel application of scenario methods to engage a diverse constituency of senior stakeholders, with limited time availability, in debate to inform planning and policy development. Our case study project explores post-carbon futures for the Latrobe Valley region of the Australian state of Victoria. Our approach involved initial deductive development of two 'extreme scenarios' by a multi-disciplinary research team, based upon an extensive research programme. Over four workshops with the stakeholder constituency, these initial scenarios were discussed, challenged, refined and expanded through an inductive process, whereby participants took 'ownership' of a final set of three scenarios. These were both comfortable and challenging to them. The outcomes of this process subsequently informed public policy development for the region. Whilst this process did not follow a single extant structured, multi-stage scenario approach, neither was it devoid of form. Here, we seek to theorise and codify elements of our process - which we term 'scenario improvisation' - such that others may adopt it.
Strategic activity is often punctuated through the application of strategy tools. Despite widespread use, a lack of understanding exists regarding the impact such tools and their practices have on an organization’s strategy process. Of the growing body of research tackling the phenomenon, none appears to extend beyond an intra-organizational set- ting. Acknowledging the importance of multi-organizational partnerships, particularly in the public sector, in this paper an attempt is made to help fill this void through exam- ining the application and effect of a scenario planning process at an inter-organizational level. Conceptualizing scenario planning as a practice of simplexity, where complexity of thought combines with simplicity of action, an in-depth, longitudinal case study is used to demonstrate the importance and interaction of sensemaking, storytelling and orga- nizing in creating meaning within strategizing activities at the inter-organizational level. However, also demonstrated is the relative weakness of the output of the scenario plan- ning process − the stories − as a boundary object capable of transferring knowledge and meaning to the intra-organizational level. Through empirical and theoretical integration a model is developed presenting the flow of practices and artefacts used in sensemaking within inter- and intra-organizational strategizing.
Planning under Pressure offers managers, planners, consultants and students a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the Strategic Choice Approach, which has gradually been attracting worldwide recognition as a fresh, versatile and practical approach to collaborative decision-making under uncertainty. Starting from basic principles, the book uses helpful diagrams and clear explanations to demonstrate practical ways of approaching daunting decision problems; of devising possible ways forward; and of working effectively towards agreed courses of action. Along he way, decision makers are helped to cope with diverse sources of uncertainty OCo technical, political, managerial OCo in a strategic manner. In this extended third edition, the authors have added short contributions from 21 users from seven countries. These new contributors present lessons from their varied experiences in adapting the Strategic Choice Approach to guide decision-making and learning in settings ranging from the re-routing of a controversial city carnival procession to national policy for the management of nuclear waste.
This paper reports an empirical study aimed at elucidating reasons for success or failure in the implementation of strategic decisions. Eleven decisions in six organizations were examined using a case-study approach. Findings highlight four factors that appear to be critical for the successful management of implementation: backing, clear aims and planning, and a conducive climate - as long as chance events do not get in the way. Perhaps surprisingly, other factors, such as having relevant experience, giving implementation priority, having abundant resources, an appropriate structure and implementing flexibly, appear to matter rather less.
Developments in social media, Web 2.0 and crowdsourcing have enabled new forms of methodological innovation in both the social and natural sciences. To date, relatively little attention has been given to how these approaches impact scenario planning and strategic foresight, especially in public projects designed to engage multiple stakeholders. This article explores the role that online approaches may play in qualitative scenario planning, using data from five empirical case studies. Two categories of measures were used to compare results between cases; participation characteristics, such as the number and type of participants involved, and interaction characteristics, such as the number of variables and opinions incorporated, the mechanisms of analysis, etc. The systems studied were found to have substantial impact on the early stages of the scenario process, in particular: increased participation in terms of both amount and diversity, increased volume and speed of data collected and analyzed, increased transparency around driver selection and analysis, and decreased overall cost of project administration. These results are discussed in the context of emerging issues and opportunities for scenario planning, particularly for public scenario projects, and how such tools and platforms might change scenario practice over time.
In this interview, international strategy guru Gary Hamel explains the thinking behind his new book, Leading the Revolution. He believes that the impetus for radical change in a business must come from the ideas and energies of the people within the company, not from consultants or external advisors. He also believes that innovation and radical change will be necessary for wealth creation in the coming years – change not only in products and processes, but change in entire business models as well. The interview includes Hamel’s guidelines for those at any level of an organization who may have ideas about new opportunities that can revolutionize the company or the industry.
Problem structuring methods (‘soft’ OR) have been around for approximately 40 years and yet these methods are still very much overlooked in the OR world. Whilst there is almost certainly a number of explanations for this, two key stumbling blocks are: (1) the subjective nature of the modelling yielding insights rather than testable results, and (2) the demand on users to both manage content (through modelling) and processes (work with rather than ‘on behalf’ of groups). However, as evidenced from practice there are also a number of significant benefits. This paper therefore aims to examine the case of Soft OR through examining the case for and against problem structuring methods.
A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool was designed and used to support the evaluation of different electricity production scenarios. The MCDA tool is implemented in a user-friendly Excel worksheet and uses information obtained from a mixed integer optimization model, to produce a set of optimal schemes under different assumptions. Given the input, the MCDA allowed ranking different scenarios relying on their performance on 13 criteria covering economic, job market, quality of life of local populations, technical and environmental issues. The MCDA tool was used by a group of experts and academics with background in economics, engineering and environment. Regarding the totality of results, both the most and least expensive scenarios ranked first the same amount of times. These scenarios were, respectively, “Coal”, relying mainly in new coal power plants and “Maximum Renewable”, relying mainly in new wind and hydro power facilities. The opinions were divided towards these two solutions with different fundamental characteristics: “Maximum Renewable” with costs higher than “Coal” but leading to substantial reduction of the external energy dependency. Sensitivity analysis suggests that, although the costs are regarded as the most important criterion, those who had different rankings in their preferences have different attitudes towards other criteria.
Scenario planning and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are two key management science tools used in strategic planning. In this paper, we explore the integration of these two approaches in a coherent manner, recognizing that each adds value to the implementation of the other. Various approaches that have been adopted for such integration are reviewed, with a primary focus on the process of constructing preferences both within and between scenarios. Biases that may be introduced by inappropriate assumptions during such processes are identified, and used to motivate a framework for integrating MCDA and scenario thinking, based on applying MCDA concepts across a range of “metacriteria” (combinations of scenarios and primary criteria). Within this framework, preferences according to each primary criterion can be expressed in the context of different scenarios. The paper concludes with a hypothetical but non-trivial example of agricultural policy planning in a developing country.
Scenario planning has become a widely used approach for making sense of complexity and uncertainty in turbulent organizational environments. While its early development is rooted primarily in the practitioner world, more recently scholars have been directing attention to its theoretical and methodological presuppositions as they seek to establish rigorous epistemological and ontological axioms that can further advance these methods. In this article we seek to contribute to this lively area of scholarly activity by demonstrating how structuration theory can inform scenario planning by offering a set of concepts that can be used to consistently and systematically analyse future uncertainties within a flexible sociological framework. Structuration theory posits that social systems are reflexively structured through actor–structure interactions over time.
Scenario planning has become a widely used strategic management approach for understanding future environmental uncertainty. Despite its increasing popularity in management practice, the theoretical underpinnings for scenario planning processes remain underdeveloped. Furthermore, there is little analysis on why some scenario methods succeed and others fail. To address this gap, we draw on storytelling theory as a conceptual lens for analyzing our data. This paper uses a longitudinal case study of two successive scenario planning interventions over a nine-year period in an intra-organizational partnership to investigate the efficacy of scenario planning development processes. Of the two interventions, the first, which followed what we term an ‘inductive’ method, was successful, meeting the objectives set by the organization, while the second approach, which we term ‘deductive’, was deemed a failure. We develop a process model explaining these divergent outcomes based on how meaning was either enabled or inhibited in the two methods through storytelling.
In recent years, scenario planning has enjoyed wide acceptance among practitioners and academics as a decision support aid in the strategy formulation process. Although different approaches to scenario planning are possible, most of them are usually deployed in a group workshop format and led by a facilitator. This work setting for scenario planning activity has led managerial cognition scholars to argue that the cognitive diversity of the workshop participants is likely to be a critical determinant of the effectiveness of scenario planning interventions. The purpose of this paper is thus to explore this proposition further, by articulating a theoretical framework to inform the investigation of the role of cognitive style in scenario planning interventions. Specifically, the framework highlights the potential impact of individual differences in ways of perceiving and judging on participants' observed behaviours within the scenario planning workshops. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of our framework for research and practice of scenario planning workshops.
This paper proposes that relating scenario planning with early warning scanning provides firms with synergic capabilities that help frame top management attention on possible future contexts and how they might unfold. The research is based on two case studies and makes two scholarly contributions: it discusses cognitive aspects in sensing by analyzing scenario planning and early warning scanning as dynamic capabilities; and it provides an exploration of the synergies between both. The paper may also help reflective scenario planners and competitive intelligence professionals to better connect their work.
