Int. J. Foresight and Innovation Policy, Vol. 10, Nos.

2/3/4, 2015 75

Scenario planning: ‘ways of knowing’, methodologies

and shifting conceptual landscape

David Sarpong*
Bristol Business School,
University of the West of England, UK
Email: [email protected]
*Corresponding author

Joseph Amankwah-Amoah
School of Economics, Finance & Management,
Bristol University, UK
Email: [email protected]

Abstract: Scenario planning in recent times has become one of the strategic
tools used by organisations to probe their uncertain and fleeting business
environment. In this paper, we provide a synthesis of the configuration of
knowledge underpinning scenario generation, their construction, and the
methodologies underpinning them in practice. We also offer brief insight into
the shifting conceptual landscape in theorising scenario planning. We contend
that such knowledge has the potential to broaden our understanding of the value
of scenario planning to organisational competitiveness as we struggle to bridge
the growing gulf between the theory and practice of scenario planning in
organising. As an introduction to the special issue on scenario planning, we
also provide a brief outline of the papers contained in the issue.

Keywords: historical–counterfactual analysis; peripheral vision; scenario

planning; strategic analysis.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Sarpong, D. and

Amankwah-Amoah, J. (2015) ‘Scenario planning: ‘ways of knowing’,
methodologies and shifting conceptual landscape’, Int. J. of Foresight and
Innovation Policy, Vol. 10, Nos. 2/3/4, pp.75–87.

Biographical notes: David Sarpong is a Senior Lecturer in Strategy and

International Business at the Bristol Business School and a Visiting Research
Fellow at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. His research
interests revolve around strategic management, innovation management,
organisational foresight, Heideggerian approach to ‘practice’, and
microhistoria. His research has been published in journals such as
Technovation, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International
Marketing Review, Scandinavian Journal of Management, European
Management Journal, Strategic Change, Futures and Foresight. He is the
co-chair of the Strategy Special Interest Group (SiG) of the British Academy of
Management (BAM).

Joseph Amankwah-Amoah is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the

School of Economics, Finance and Management at the University of Bristol,
UK. His research interests include organisational failure, global business
strategy, lateral hiring, liberalisation, and the airline and solar PV industries.

Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

76 D. Sarpong and J. Amankwah-Amoah

His research has appeared in journals such as Business History, Technological

Forecasting and Social Change International Journal of HRM European
Business Review and the Thunderbird International Business Review.

1 Introduction

The history and practice of scenario planning can be traced back to the early 1970s when
Royal Dutch/Shell Planning group employed it as a tool for long-range corporate
planning (Bradfield et al., 2005; van der Heijden, 1996). Scenario planning seems to hold
great promise in dealing with several organisational challenges offering opportunities for
firms to understand their business environment often characterised by contingencies and
surprises. Reinforcing the potential of scenario planning for successful organising, an
impressive volume of empirical studies have shown that scenario planning improves
decision making (Korte and Chermack, 2007), can help in diagnosing strategic inertia
(Hodgkinson and Healey, 2008; Wright et al., 2008), and lead to the identification of
opportunities for innovation (Sarpong and Maclean, 2011; Varum and Melo, 2010). In
this regard, scenario planning has been developed and advertised by management
consultants as near ‘catholican’ for almost every organisational problem, and
organisations are encouraged to frequently organise scenario planning exercises or at best
integrate them in their organising processes.
Despite an increasing interest in the practitioner-related aspects of scenario planning,
efforts geared towards a cumulative corpus of the scholarly literature and theoretical
development of the process are still in its pre-paradigmatic stage (Wilkinson, 2009;
Goodwin and Wright, 2001; Martelli, 2001). The theoretical and empirical specifications
on scenario generation remain sparse, and the growing body of research on the practice
seldom delineates the logics of the knowledge underpinning the alternative scenarios
used in scenario planning exercises. Our view is also supported by the proliferation of
multifarious and often competing methods drawn upon by scholars and practitioners in
theorising and organising scenario planning exercises. From such perspective, our
purpose in this introductory paper is twofold. First, we provide a synthesis of the
configuration of knowledge underpinning scenario generation, their construction and
form. Second, we offer insights into the methodologies underpinning scenarios and the
shifting conceptual landscape in theorising scenario planning. We contend that such
knowledge has the potential to broaden our understanding of the value of scenarios as we
struggle to bridge the growing gulf between the theory and practice of scenario planning
in everyday organising.
The paper is structured as follows: First, we provide an overview of scenario planning
and the ‘ways of knowing’ that embody the generation of scenarios. Second, we delineate
the methodologies and common tools/methods underpinning scenarios. Third, we
examine how over the years, the theorising of scenario planning has shifted from an
episodic intervention to a social practice. Finally, we review the obstacles that may
impede the successful creation and capture of value from scenario planning.
 Methodologies and shifting conceptual landscape 77

1.1 Scenario planning, scenarios and their ‘ways of knowing’

It has become increasingly necessary for organisations not only to make flexible long-
term plans but also to understand their fast changing business environment and its
implications for competitiveness, despite the existence of standard forecasting tools and
monitoring systems. Scenario planning as a heuristic methodology provides real-time
insight into the future and serves as an influential canon for organisations to cross the
theory–practice divide in managing the future. Synthesising some disparate
conceptualisations of what constitutes scenario planning, Chermack, Van der Merwe and
Lynham (2007, p.381) argue that it is:
a process of positing several informed, plausible and imagined alternative
future environments in which decisions about the future may be played out, for
the purpose of changing current thinking, improving decision making,
enhancing human and organisational learning and improving performance.
Numerous scholars and practitioners alike have made contributions to developing,
improving and refining the process of scenario planning. The literature is therefore
replete with multitude, but similar approaches to the planning and execution of scenario
planning in organisations (e.g., Grinyer, 2000; van der Heijden, 1996; Schoemaker,
1993). Drawing on Porter’s (1980) value chain, for example, Mackay and McKiernan
(2006) observed that identifying a focal issue, demarcating a theoretical boundary of the
study and identifying specific stakeholders, represent supporting activities which provide
a strategic anchor for the primary activities of data collection, identification of trends and
the building and ‘wind tunnelling’ of the scenarios which in turn serve as the organising
logics of scenario planning that leads to the building of a comprehensive and compelling
transcendental foresight. Elsewhere, the Centre for Innovative Leadership (1995) has
identified six generic steps in the scenario planning process. They are as follows (Centre
for Innovative Leadership, 1995):
1 Identification of a strategic organisational agenda, including assumptions and
concerns about strategic thinking and vision.
2 Challenging of existing assumptions of organisational decision makers by
questioning current mental models about the external environment.
3 Systematically examining the organisation’s external environment to improve
understanding of the structure of key forces driving change.
4 Synthesis of information about possible future events into three or four alternative
plots or story lines.
5 Develop narratives about the story lines to make the stories relevant and compelling
to decision makers.
6 Use of stories to help decision makers ‘re-view’ their strategic thinking.
The process, which, in its purity, is an adaptation of military strategy studies, relies on
scenarios and mapping out their consequences and options to reach optimal decisions on
strategic goals. Scenarios in simple terms refer to compelling ‘stories’ or heuristic
narratives about how the future may unfold (Chermack, 2005). These scenarios, in the
form of narratives, provide possibilities and limits for organisational actors to (re)
78 D. Sarpong and J. Amankwah-Amoah

construct, understand and prepare for the future rather than forecast or predict it (van der
Heijden, 1996). With the help of a facilitator, minimum of three scenarios are frequently
generated for scenario planning exercises and a five-year horizon is normally employed.
These scenarios are then ranked based on perceived certainties and potential impact.
Those deemed to be much more plausible with overarching implications may then be
selected and used as primer to develop two additional scenarios. For scenarios to be
worth pursuing, they need to be very compelling visions that are not detached from the
very world in which they are expected to play out (plausible), and they should be
modelled by drawing on internal resources and structures as well as external factors that
may have a likely impact on the future (internal consistency) (Mackay and McKiernan,
2004).
While the prospect of scenario planning contributing to competitiveness has been
widely oversold, we know very little about what really counts as compelling and
plausible scenarios and most importantly the knowledge that goes into their generation.
We argue that there are different, but complementary ‘ways of knowing’ that frequently
lead to the generation of consistent and plausible scenarios. ‘Ways of knowing’ as used
here refers to the embodied technologies that explicitly or implicitly connote specific
assumptions made in constructing scenarios for firms embedded in fleeting business
environment (Fuller and Loogma, 2009). Emphasising the stretching of consciousness
through simultaneous attention to memory and expectation, we present these ‘ways of
knowing’ under the general rubric of
a historical–counterfactual analysis, the use of historical data and events
b strategic analysis, the mapping of organisational capabilities and internal resources
c peripheral visioning, identification of potential early signals emanating beyond the
theoretical boundaries of a firm.
Conceptualised as autonomous and independent of one another as a result of their
distinctive interpretations of organisational reality, these ‘ways of knowing’ are
temporarily interconnected and cumulatively provide a repertoire of analytically
complementary ways to understanding knowledge underpinning the generation of
plausible and internally consistent scenarios in practice (Figure 1).

1.1.1 Historical–counterfactual analysis

Counterfactuals are narratives about alternative past events. Fundamentally, they are
conditional statements or propositions with both antecedents and consequences (Bryne
and McEleney, 2000). In other words, “a counterfactual statement is a conditional
sentence; that is, one that takes the form, ‘if p, then q’, where p (the antecedent) and q
(the consequent) are true or false clauses” (Booth et al 2009a, p.87). Counterfactuals are
not only pervasive but also essential in analysing and making sense of historical data.
Such analysis and probing of past events that had strategic impacts on an organisational
strategy serve as the starting point in developing alternative futures, which is known as
the ‘history of the future’ (Staley, 2002; Wagar, 1999).
 Methodologies and shifting conceptual landscape 79

Figure 1 ‘Ways of knowing’ in scenario generation (see online version for colours)

Historical and counterfactual analysis as a potential generator of knowledge underpinning

scenarios provides a stimulating context in developing stories as to what did happen, and
probably what might happen in the foreseeable future. Such stories help in developing a
broad understanding of historical data patterns, which can be extrapolated to uncover
evolving environmental trends. While the outputs generated from counterfactual
narratives could be easily labelled as ‘unscientific’ speculations (Lebow, 2007), we argue
that in scenario planning exercises, they provide a safe environment to test theoretical
generalisations and taken-for-granted assumptions about historical events (Booth et al.,
2009b; Kahneman and Miller, 1986). In this regard, counterfactual narratives as a ‘way of
knowing’ in scenario generation lead to a better understanding of causal dynamics of the
past, reduce hindsight bias and provide a forum for organisations to learn from past
mistakes. We know that organisational actors, often conditioned by routines they have
followed for years, frequently rely on historical knowledge they have accumulated when
dealing with the future (Walsh and Ungson, 1991). In this regard, historical–
counterfactuals as a ‘way of knowing’ in scenario generation allow actors to feed their
accumulated experiential knowledge into the scenario generation process.

1.1.2 Strategic analysis

While historical–counterfactual analysis entails reconstruction of past outcomes, strategic
analysis as a ‘way of knowing’ in the generation of scenarios is future oriented. Thus,
instead of moving from the past to present, strategic analysis is concerned with moving
from the present into the future. Emphasising the concurrent need of the organisation to
compete in the present and prepare for the future, strategic analysis serves as the context
for evaluating the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, strategic
analysis is internally focussed and usually involves building contextual understanding of
the resource position of the firm and its implication for value creation and capture. In
addition, strategic analysis may also include assessment of the competitive intensity of
the industry in which the firm is embedded and the profitability of the firm vis-á-vis its
competitors.
80 D. Sarpong and J. Amankwah-Amoah

1.1.3 Peripheral visioning

The concept of peripheral vision, also referred to as ‘side vision’ in optometry, is the
ability to see objects or movements outside the centre of gaze (Kaye, 2000). The
‘borrowed’ concept of peripheral vision as used here refers to those ‘ways of knowing’
that enable one to identify opportunities and threats emerging from far beyond the
theoretical boundary of the firm. The fundamental challenge associated with this
particular ‘ways of knowing’ is the fact that it eludes systematisation, and sometimes runs
against (contemplative knowledge) in everyday organising. In reality, the ‘periphery’ is
often blurry and always elusive. It is always in a constant process of becoming. Every
turn of the periphery automatically results in a new blind spot in the other direction (Day
and Schoemaker, 2004). The elusiveness of the periphery is very much akin to what
Cooper (2005) described in unequivocal terms as the ‘latent’, and ‘unpacks’ it succinctly
as:
To say that something is manifest means that it is clear, definitive and even
obvious. To say that something is latent means that it is unclear, indefinite and
even nebulous. The latent does not easily lend itself to the clarity of definition;
it is illusive rather than explicative. It can mean hidden, secret, clandestine; it
can also mean lateral, widespread, disseminated, broad, extensive; it suggests
something dormant, quiescent, virtual, waiting to be expressed, as well as
something malleable, plastic and even formable. It seems to resist conceptual
and practical appropriation, all the time receding from direct, explicit
expression. (Cooper, 2005, p.1693).
The periphery, in scenario planning, is neither definable nor locatable in space (Chia,
2008). Rather, it is a spatio-temporal process of probing events happening beyond the
theoretical boundaries of the organisation and the industry in which it is embedded, to
examine their potential implications on future competitiveness. As a ‘way of knowing’ in
scenario generation, peripheral vision tends to shape scenarios by directing attention
away from the organisation’s current value network to peripheral events with no
historical precedence, new technologies and probably new ways of organising in different
industries that could potentially influence the focal organisation’s and its industries’
competitiveness in the future.

1.2 Methodologies underpinning scenario planning

A plethora of methods ranging from qualitative and quantitative techniques underpin
scenario planning. In this regard, scenario planning does not rely on a few select
techniques but rather employs a plethora of tools ranging from basic strategic
management frameworks such as value chain analysis to technological forecasting (van
der Heijden, 2004). While there has been no consensus on which methods are best suited
in developing coherent images of the future, a few typologies that tend to harmonise their
combinations and use in practice have been proposed (e.g., Börjeson et al., 2006; Van
Notten et al., 2003). At the operational level for example, Börjeson et al. (2006)
identified surveys, workshops and Delphi techniques as the core techniques employed in
scenario development. Building on the pioneering work of Huss and Honton (1987),
Bradfield et al. (2005) also mapped the various methods frequently relied upon in
scenario planning. They grouped these, often similar, methods under three broad
methodologies: intuitive logics; the probabilistic modified trends; and cross impact
analysis. In a direct complement to the Huss and Honton (1987) classification, we
 Methodologies and shifting conceptual landscape 81

suggest competitive intelligence (CI), the ethical probing of competitors’ strategic actions
as an additional methodology that is beginning to gain tract among scenario practitioners.
While these methods and techniques are very much interdependent and often enacted as
interlocking activities in practice, we present them here as autonomous and independent
of one another to enable us to explore them further. Note that the techniques we cite
under the various methods are some of the commonly used techniques, as opposed to
chronicling all the techniques under the various methods.

1.2.1 Intuitive logics

Intuitive logics (IL) as a scenario planning methodology is referred to as the ‘Shell
approach’ due to their extensive use by the Royal Dutch Shell planning group
(Bradfield et al., 2005). They are often ‘soft’ techniques used to stretch the thinking
ability of managers with respect to their situated practice and organisational
environments. As argued by Mackay and McKiernan (2006), what differentiates IL from
other tried and tested methods for building scenarios is the fact that they employ eclectic
techniques and activities which are often informal in nature, yet may force actors to
‘think outside the box’. These activities may include brainstorming, lateral thinking,
strategic conversations, mind mapping and wild cards.

1.2.2 Trend and cross impact analysis

The Futures Group based in Connecticut in the 1970s and the RAND Corporation in 1966
are credited with the development and use of trend and cross impact analysis (Huss and
Honton, 1987). The methodology is suited for uncovering evolving environmental trends
and their possible impact in the future through the mapping and extrapolation of
historical datasets. Trend-impact techniques rely extensively on historical data and
frequently on forecasting techniques such as time series to extrapolate the likely impact
of a set of scenarios. Cross impact analysis, on the other hand, is often used to critically
“evaluate changes in the probability of occurrence of events which might cause
deviations in the naïve extrapolations of historical data” (Bradfield et al., 2005, p.801) in
trend impact analysis. Among the techniques often employed in trend and cross impact
analysis are the Delphi method, which entails the eliciting and collating of the opinion of
experts to chart alternative pathways, impact estimation techniques which are often
computer based; for example, and simulation and gaming which often draw upon game
theory and other quantitative approaches. Recently, ‘soft’ techniques such as
counterfactual thought are increasingly employed to complement some of the quantitative
approaches in cross and trend impact analysis.

1.2.3 Competitive intelligence

The systematic gathering, evaluation and acting on publicly available information on
competitors is known as competitive intelligence. The Society of Competitive
Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) defines CI as:
A continuous process of ethically collecting, analyzing and disseminating
accurate, relevant, specific, timely, foresighted and actionable intelligence
regarding the implications of the business environment, competitors and the
organization itself (SCIP, 2008).
82 D. Sarpong and J. Amankwah-Amoah

Some of the common tools and methods that constitute CI may include active
participation in open space innovation communities, benchmarking competitors’
products, text mining, web mining, as well as technology watch and auditing. In this
regard, CI in the form of prospecting for novel opportunities provides context for the use
of experimental ‘perpetual beta’ applications such as social computing and web 2.0 in
gathering knowledge-based competitive intelligence.

1.3 Shifting conceptual landscape

Organisations over the last few decades have been encouraged by both practitioners and
scholars to frequently organise scenario planning exercises to help them create an
understanding of their business environment. This call has led to many organisations
treating scenario planning as an annual ritual or an episodic intervention to steer the
organisation’s strategy. Given the ever-changing competitive environment, Wright (2005)
proposed a move from the dominant conception of scenario planning as a managerial
planning decision tool to what he referred to as the broadening and enhancement of a
managerial prospective sense-making device. Following this, various scholars have called
for a reconceptualisation of scenario planning as an everyday practice (e.g., Cunha, Palma
and Costa, 2006; Constanzo, 2004), bearing in mind the fast pace of environmental
changes which are also characterised by ambiguity and complexity.
Recently, scenario planning is frequently referred to as ‘scenario thinking’ to reflect
the role of cognition and imagination in interpreting the past and perceiving the future in
the present (Mackay and McKiernan, 2004). The moves from practice to thinking, they
argue, also reflect the fundamental logic of scenario planning as a springboard to
envisaging the future as opposed to predicting the future (Sarpong, 2011; Wright and
Cairns, 2011). As a result, it requires deep understanding of the present organisational
operational environment and how it may evolve in the future.

1.4 Failures and obstacles to successful scenario planning

Reports of scenario planning failing to deliver its promises are scarce. This is probably
because most of scenario scholars double as consultants and may try to report only
successful exercises, thereby resisting criticism of their own shortcomings and the
practice as a whole. An exception is the work of Hodgkinson and Wright (2002) who
reported how a scenario planning exercise they organised failed to achieve its objectives.
In documenting their failed scenario intervention, they observed that strategic alternatives
developed after the exercise were not good enough to transition the firm out of its
quagmire into a successful future. From this perspective, we can safely argue that
“scenarios are not a panacea for difficulties in understanding the future and can
themselves be vulnerable to faulty reasoning” (Mackay and McKiernan, 2004, p.163).
Theoretically, various contextual factors have been identified as capable of militating
against successful scenario planning. Setting clear objectives, aims and intentions at the
start of the scenario planning exercise is a requirement for successful scenario planning.
Schoemaker (1993), for example, observed that most scholars or facilitators
conceptualise and practice scenario planning as a forecasting or prediction exercise.
Reinforcing this view is the observation by Schwartz (2008), that some of the methods
and techniques employed by people who claim to be engaged in scenario planning are
 Methodologies and shifting conceptual landscape 83

very close to becoming mere experimentations and forecasting that is inconsistent with
the esprit de corps of developing alternative images and managing the uncertain future.
Organisational politics and institutional arrangements can also militate against
successful scenario planning as they are capable of suppressing dissonant opinions and
are over-reliant on bounded rationality by actors in developing ‘pictures’ of the future
(Chermack, 2004). This may happen especially when the organisation is enjoying relative
success with their current strategy. Here, actors may depict cognitive inertia, thus getting
entrapped in obsolete assumptions, schemas, expectancies, inferential processes and
mental models that blind them to perceive emerging reality. They may also simply reject
‘wild scenarios’, which go contrary to their rationalistic view about how the future will
unfold, without even pausing to consider them. While scenarios have the intrinsic causal
power of opening eyes and challenging taken-for-granted assumptions, thereby reducing
bounded rationality, the reliance on bounded rationality in itself remains a major obstacle
to the use of scenarios in probing the future.
In addition, some psychological theories could also account for scenario planning
failure. For example, Wright et al. (2008) cites group think, “a deterioration of mental
efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement that results from in-group pressures”
(Janis, 1982, p.9), as the fundamental cause of failure of the scenario thinking exercise
undertaken by Hodgkinson and Wright (2002). Hindsight bias (over-exaggeration of the
likelihood of predicting an outcome before its occurrence) and foresight bias (an over-
simplified view of the future) are also often invoked as fundamental psychological factors
that tend to impede strategic cognitive linkage of the past, present and future during the
scenario thinking process (e.g., Mackay and McKiernan, 2004; Kahneman and Miller,
1986). Again, at the process level, people engaged in scenario planning may only draw
on accessible hypotheses that have existing compelling evidence to develop their visions
of the future leading to path dependencies, thus they “look for evidence consistent with a
particular sufficient cause (sometimes an already known cause), rather than looking for
evidence about additional sufficient or contributing causes” (Johnson and Sherman, 1990,
p.489). Elsewhere, Waehrens and Riis (2010) also found that rigid activity system that
restricts interactions between emerging social practices and the organisations’ strategic
intent is responsible for the inadequate understanding and enactment found in
organisations.
The motivation of this special issue, therefore, is to engage with the growing scenario
planning themes across the various management disciplines and examine its practice and
its influence on the creation and capture of sustainable value in contexts of accelerated
change, greater complexity and genuine uncertainties.

1.5 Overview of papers in this special issue

Taken together, the six papers contained in this special issue provide insight into some
salient theoretical, empirical, methodological and philosophical underpinnings of
scenario planning research and practice. In addition to outlining some stimulating
directions for future research in scenario planning, each of the papers contained in the
issue adopted a different level of sociological analysis, reflecting the potential application
of scenario planning methodologies in different contexts of organising and theorising.
Our first paper by Davies and Pyper, entitled “Applying actor network theory and
pragmatist thinking to the process of implementing scenarios”, responds to calls made
elsewhere in research into scenario planning to consider anew the potential for pragmatist
84 D. Sarpong and J. Amankwah-Amoah

thought to cast new light on scenario planning and its processes of organising. Drawing
on the sociology of translation, also known as actor network theory, they provide what
they call a pragmatist account to challenge the frequent de-politicisation of scenario
planning in extant research. They do this by reinforcing the organisational politicking in
the production of scenarios while encouraging politics back into the way scenarios are
used. They argue that network pragmatism has the potential to specify the conditions for
existence of any given scenario, by allowing a scenario to enrol and ally with its own
network of affiliates. When this condition is not met, scenarios die in the network world.
Pragmatism thus explores the conditions under which the pragmatic death (and potential
rebirth) of scenarios becomes possible. This process moves some scenarios out of
network environments and the lives they lead there into individual realms of practice,
memory or love. When this move is made, network pragmatism loses its claims to
theoretical ascendancy. They conclude by delineating some of the epistemological limits
of their theory to avoid what they termed as ‘charges of pragmatic encroachment’.
The second paper by McGrail and Riedy, entitled “Creating scenarios or creating and
sustaining social worlds? Towards new sociological understandings of the use and
impacts of scenario planning”, also responds to the charges of ‘under-theorising’ often
levelled against research in scenario planning. In doing this, they contributed to the
development known as sociologically informed scenario planning practices which are
more proactive (or ‘transformative’). Empirically, they examined scenario practices at
CSIRO (Australia’s national science organisation), focussed on the Future Fuels Forum,
and a theory of social fields. Their case evidence shows that convening a scenario
exercise and the use of scenarios can both be a form of context specific strategic action in
practice. It also illustrates that the impacts of scenario exercises are influenced by the
fluidity of the situation and associated field level processes; the social skill of actors and
their ability to use scenarios in ways that help to solve related problems; and the
outcomes of political processes. The third paper by Grebenyuk, Kindras and Meissner,
entitled “Integration of road-mapping and scenario planning for implementing science,
technology and innovation strategic priorities-the case of Russia”, develops an integrated
approach of road mapping and scenario planning for public authorities’ priority setting in
science, technology and innovation. They did this by combining existing frameworks on
foresight, road mapping and scenario planning to develop a novel methodology to aid
priority setting in national science, technology and innovation policy implementation.
They go further to test the methodology in the context of Russia STI priority setting
project.
The penultimate paper by Nyuur, Brečić and Sobiesuo, entitled “Foresight
capabilities and SME product/service adaptiveness: the moderating effect of industry
dynamism”, empirically examines the impact of ‘first-order’ foresight capabilities on
SME product/service adaptiveness (PSA). They go on to test the moderating effect of
environment dynamism (IND) on the associations between these first-order foresight
capabilities and SME PSA. Their findings suggest that the cultivation of foresight at the
firm level is relevant for value creation and capture. Specifically, they found that
foresight capabilities, including environmental scanning, developing network ties,
analysing, industry dynamics, and planning and visioning, all have high level of direct
impact on SMEs’ ability to strategically adapt their products or services to the market and
customer needs.
The final paper by Mswaka, entitled “Scenario planning in social enterprises; the case
of South Yorkshire”, examined the use and application of scenario planning in the third
 Methodologies and shifting conceptual landscape 85

sector. Drawing on a qualitative case study of two social enterprises located in the
Yorkshire region of the UK, the study explored the role and value of scenario planning to
sustainable value creation and capture in social enterprises. The study found that while
traditionally associated with large capitalised commercial enterprises, scenario planning
is not new in the third sector. In the face of growing uncertainties and funding cuts, many
social enterprises frequently organise scenario planning exercises to help them develop
novel ways to deliver their social and economic goals.
We are very grateful to the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Foresight and
Innovation Policy who enthusiastically agreed to host this special issue on scenario
planning. We would also like to thank the authors who contributed to the special issue
and the hardworking reviewers who provided our authors with excellent feedback on
their manuscripts and shared their expertise with us. Finally, we would also like to
acknowledge the Inderscience editorial team who supported us throughout the
submission, reviewing and production process.

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