Towards a best-practice framework for strategic foresight: Building theory from case-studies in multinational companies

In many industries companies are faced with disruptions from emerging technologies, from the political and legislative environment, from alternative business models or from socio-cultural shifts. To be able to anticipate, identify and manage disruptions, companies are increasingly developing and experimenting with new strategic foresight (SF) practices. The research is currently limited to exploratory case studies and there is a need to broaden the knowledge and derive measures for measurement of SF practices.
Building on a literature review, data from 56 interviews in nine multinational companies (MNC) and data gathered at a practitioner conference on SF we identify new aspects in SF practices. Using clustering we develop a generic capability model that can be used for benchmarking.

Keywords: Strategic foresight, best-practice framework, capability model, technology intelligence, political foresight, consumer foresight, competitive intelligence.