Futures studies

About: Futures studies is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2996 publications have been published within this topic receiving 49505 citations. The topic is also known as: futurology & futurism.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles

Abstract: The emergence of an entrepreneurial econmy in the 1970s was the most significant and hopeful event in recent U.S. social and economic history. For Drucker, innovation and entrepreneurship are not a "flash of genius," but purposive tasks that can be organized as systematic, rational work fostered by management. Entrepreneurship is treated not as personality or intuition but behavior, concept, and theory. Entrepreneurship is not high-risk; rather, few so-called entrepreneurs have the method for what they do. The practice of innovation, the practice of entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial strategies compose innovation and entrepreneurship. Instead of pursuing "bright ideas," entrepreneurs should focus on the seven successful sources for innovative opportunity: (1) unexpected success, failure, or outside event; (2) incongruity between what is and what "ought" to be within an industry or market; (3) innovation based on a process need (supplying the missing link); (4) changes in industry structure or market structure; (5) demographics or population changes; (6) changes in perception, mood, and meaning; and (7) new scientific and non-scientific knowledge (requiring analysis of relevant factors, focus on strategic position, and entrepreneurial management). The practice of innovation is purposeful innovation resulting from analysis, system, and hard work. The principles of purposeful, systematic innovation are: (1) analyze opportunities, (2) be perceptive, (3) be simple and focused, (4) start small, and (5) aim at leadership. Principles of innovation are (1) innovation is work, (2) build on strengths, and (3) innovations have an effect in the economy and society. Entrepreneurs are not "risk-takers" but opportunity focused. The discipline called entrepreneurial management must develop a practical guide for innovation in (1) the existing business (policies to create a climate, practices, measures of innovative performance, and organizational practices), (2) the public-service institution (policies and need to innovate), and (3) the new venture (focus on market, financial foresight, early building of a top management team, role decisions by the founder, and outside advice). Entrepreneurship also requires four strategies, or practices and policies in the marketplace: (1) being "Fustest with the Mostest"; (2) "Hit Them Where They Ain't," or "entrepreneurial judo" (avoid the "not invented here" syndrome, don't "cream" a market, the fallacy of "quality," delusion of the "premium" price, and maximizing instead of optimizing; (3) finding an ecological niche (toll-gate, specialty skill, and specialty market strategies); and (4) changing utility, values, and economic characteristics (creating utility, pricing, adapting to customer's reality, and delivering true value to customer). In conclusion, Drucker argues that an entrepreneurial society is needed in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal, steady, and continuous. What will not work is planning or over-reliance on high-technology. Social innovation is needed in the areas of redundant workers and abandoning outworn and obsolete social policies and institutions. Also needed are changes in tax and fiscal policies and government regulations, and individuals must undertake continuous learning and relearning. (TNM)

Foresight in science and technology

Abstract: Emerging generic technologies seem set to make a revolutionary impact on the economy and society. However, success in developing such technologies depends upon advances in science. Confronted with increasing global economic competition, policy-makers and scientists are grappling with the problem of how to select the most promising research areas and emerging technologies on which to target resources and, hence, derive the greatest benefits. This paper analyzes the experiences of Japan, the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the UK in using foresight to help in selecting and exploiting research that is likely to yield longer-term economic and social benefits. It puts forward a model of the foresight process for identifying research areas and technologies of strategic importance, and also analyzes why some foresight exercises have proved more successful than others. It concludes by drawing an analogy between models of innovation and foresight.

Contested Futures: A Sociology of Prospective Techno-Science

Abstract: Contents: Foreword, Barbara Adam. Time, Temporality and the Social Construction of the Future: Introducing contested futures: from looking into the future to looking at the future, Nik Brown, Brian Rappert and Andrew Webster Futures of the present: from performativity to prehension, Mike Michael. Language and the Social Rhetoric of Technical Futures: Forceful futures: from promise to requirement, Harro van Lente The narrative shaping of a product creation process, J. Jasper Deuten and Arie Rip Organizing/disorganizing the breakthrough motif: Dolly the cloned ewe meets Astrid the hybrid pig, Nik Brown Talking about the future: metaphors of the internet, Sally Wyatt. Passed Futures: Lessons from failed technology futures: potholes in the road to the future, Frank W. Geels and Wim A. Smit Science fiction's memory of the future, Hilary Rose. Future Science, Future Policy and the Management of Uncertainty Scripts for the future: using innovation studies to design foresight tools, Bastiaan de Laat Genetics and uncertainty, Annemiek Nelis Expectations and learning as principles for shaping the future, Luis Sanz-Menendez and Cecilia Cabello Contested health futures, Tom Ling Index.