@article{PaceBrunoSchwarz2025, author = {Pace, Lisa A. and Bruno, Carmen and Schwarz, Jan Oliver}, title = {Personas in scenario building: Integrating human-centred design methods in foresight}, volume = {2025}, pages = {103539}, journal = {Futures}, number = {166}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1873-6378}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103539}, year = {2025}, abstract = {This paper contributes to integrating human-centred design approaches in foresight. We emphasize design thinking as an approach that incorporates user-centred concepts and artefacts, enabling the creation and visualization of potential futures and mediating the exploration of new perspectives and areas of intervention for innovation. However, there is limited discussion in the foresight literature on the meaningful application of design approaches. We focus on the persona method and its roles and applications in scenario building. To be meaningful in scenario building, personas need to appropriately integrate users' future needs, expectations and behaviours that shape and in turn are shaped by contexts that are yet to be realised. Based on an analysis of published case studies, the paper underscores the role of personas in fostering creative imagination, enhancing scenario engagement, and prospective sensemaking beyond their application as a storytelling vehicle in scenarios. We link persona characteristics and design to their roles in scenario building, allowing design and foresight practitioners the flexibility to tailor the persona approach to different contexts and critically assess the underlying limitations. From this, we provide recommendations for incorporating personas in scenario building and conclude with suggestions for future research.}, language = {en} } @article{SchwarzSchroppWachetal.2025, author = {Schwarz, Jan Oliver and Schropp, Theresa Constanze and Wach, Bernhard and Buder, Fabian}, title = {Do internal foresight activities add value to decision-making? Insights from an empirical investigation}, volume = {2025}, pages = {103548}, journal = {Futures}, number = {166}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0016-3287}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103548}, year = {2025}, abstract = {In a large empirical investigation of 400 managers in large U.S. and European corporations, we shed light on the effects of internal strategic foresight activities for decision-making, asking whether and how firms' internal foresight activities add value to their decision-making. Enabling and supporting strategy conversations is conceptualized here as a central activity of strategic foresight. Our empirical investigation demonstrates that internal foresight activities have a significant and positive effect on strategy conversations within a firm. Against the assumptions of previous research, however, we cannot confirm the positive influence of strategy conversations in general on challenging the status quo in a firm or the overall helpfulness of strategic foresight activities in the context of decision-making. Future research should delve deeper into organizational studies to gain a more nuanced understanding of the processes and factors influencing future-oriented decision-making, as well as identifying key enablers that facilitate these decisions.}, language = {en} } @article{DoerrSchoenhoferSchwarz2024, author = {D{\"o}rr, Ulrike-Sabine and Sch{\"o}nhofer, Gerhard and Schwarz, Jan Oliver}, title = {The state of foresight in small and medium enterprises: literature review and research agenda}, volume = {12}, pages = {16}, journal = {European Journal of Futures Research}, number = {1}, publisher = {SpringerOpen}, address = {Heidelberg}, issn = {2195-2248}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1186/s40309-024-00237-1}, year = {2024}, abstract = {AbstractSmall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of many economies. In today's world of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity), SMEs face diverse challenges to survive and stay competitive. SMEs must prepare themselves for these challenges by practicing foresight. However, foresight, and especially corporate foresight, has been conceptualized and researched in the context of large corporations. Applying foresight in SMEs is therefore complicated by the question of how to implement foresight in the context of SMEs given their specific requirements and limitations. This article provides an overview on the literature on the application of foresight in SMEs is, along with a summary of the extent to which SMEs conduct foresight from an organizational and individual perspective. Besides offering a compendium on the state of foresight in SMEs, a research agenda is formulated, incorporating the idea of a toolbox tailored to SMEs based on existing approaches and prior works.}, language = {en} } @article{Schwarz2021, author = {Schwarz, Jan Oliver}, title = {From alternative pictures of the future to an organizational intervention: A commentary on Rowland and Spaniol}, volume = {4}, pages = {e105}, journal = {Futures \& Foresight Science}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {2573-5152}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1002/ffo2.105}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @article{Schwarz2020, author = {Schwarz, Jan Oliver}, title = {Revisiting Scenario Planning and Business Wargaming from an Open Strategy Perspective}, volume = {12}, journal = {World Futures Review}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage Publishing}, address = {Thousand Oaks}, issn = {2169-2793}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/1946756720953182}, pages = {291 -- 303}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The key aim of Open Strategy is to open up the process of strategy development to larger groups within and even outside an organization. Furthermore, Open Strategy aims to include broad groups of stakeholders in the various steps of the strategy process. The question at hand is how can Open Strategy be achieved? What approaches can be used? Scenario planning and business wargaming are approaches perceived as relevant tools in the field of strategy and strategic foresight and in the context of Open Strategy because of their participative nature. The aim of this article is to assess to what degree scenario planning and business wargaming can be used in the context of Open Strategy. While these approaches are suitable, their current application limits the number of potential participants. Further research and experimentation in practice with larger groups and/or online approaches, or a combination of both, are needed to explore the potential of scenario planning and business wargaming as tools for Open Strategy.}, language = {en} } @article{SchwarzWachRohrbeck2023, author = {Schwarz, Jan Oliver and Wach, Bernhard and Rohrbeck, Ren{\´e}}, title = {How to anchor design thinking in the future: Empirical evidence on the usage of strategic foresight in design thinking projects}, volume = {2023}, pages = {103137}, journal = {Futures}, number = {149}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1873-6378}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103137}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Many organizations use design thinking (DT) to develop future products and services. DT is often used for its ability to serve as a common "language" and platform to enable market-facing departments and technology-oriented units to cocreate innovations. DT has been shown to be a powerful tool for helping to identify and connect the needs of average customers (personas) with technical solutions that form the basis for winning products. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which DT professionals already use strategic foresight (SF) methods that anticipate future customer needs and highlight emerging technologies to expand classical DT and anchor their projects in the future. Using survey data on 302 DT projects, we report on the extent to which SF methods are used in DT projects, the overriding types of SF methods in DT projects, and their impact on project success.}, language = {en} } @article{WachSchwarzvonHeld2024, author = {Wach, Bernhard and Schwarz, Jan Oliver and von Held, Felix}, title = {Corporate foresight for the benefit of corporates' innovation climate}, volume = {7}, pages = {e195}, journal = {Futures \& Foresight Science}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {2573-5152}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1002/ffo2.195}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Corporate foresight (CF) can be considered a future-oriented capability that incorporates perceiving and prospecting. Extant CF-related studies tackle the CF-innovation relationship but do not provide details on how CF relates to innovation climate. As we assume that the innovation climate of companies is a relevant antecedent to innovation, we conduct a quantitative empirical study with 147 upper-tier managers to investigate how CF and the respective training of managers relate to a corporate's innovation climate. Results show that strong perceiving and prospecting positively influence the innovation climate, whereby prospecting is of particular importance. Further, we find that training managers in future-oriented capabilities is only under certain circumstances (i.e., low prospecting) beneficial to the innovation climate in companies.}, language = {en} } @article{SchroppSchwarzBuder2024, author = {Schropp, Theresa Constanze and Schwarz, Jan Oliver and Buder, Fabian}, title = {Corporate foresight in light of the COVID-19 pandemic—The crisis as a driver?}, volume = {6}, pages = {e178}, journal = {Futures \& Foresight Science}, number = {2}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {2573-5152}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1002/ffo2.178}, year = {2024}, abstract = {AbstractOur study emphasizes the evolving nature and increasing relevance of corporate foresight (CF) in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. This research, therefore, contributes to the foresight literature, concerned with the antecedents and motivators of CF as it investigates how external events that are characterized by great uncertainty influence the CF practice of large companies. On the example of the COVID-19 pandemic and based on a study of 25 interviews, this empirical research reveals that such events provoke an intensified engagement with the future within companies as implied by a greater resource commitment and interest in foresight. Thereby, CF and especially the development of multiple future scenarios, are considered helpful in countering uncertainty and facilitating responsiveness.}, language = {en} } @article{GordonRohrbeckSchwarz2019, author = {Gordon, Adam and Rohrbeck, Ren{\´e} and Schwarz, Jan Oliver}, title = {Escaping the 'Faster Horses' Trap: Bridging Strategic Foresight and Design-Based Innovation}, volume = {9}, journal = {Technology Innovation Management Review}, number = {8}, publisher = {Talent First Network}, address = {Ottawa}, issn = {1927-0321}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1259}, pages = {30 -- 42}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Design thinking is inherently and invariably oriented towards the future in that all design is for products, services or events that will exist in the future, and be used by people in the future. This creates an overlap between the domains of design thinking and strategic foresight. A small but significant literature has grown up in the strategic foresight field as to how design thinking may be used to improve its processes. This paper considers the other side of the relationship: how methods from the strategic foresight field may advance design thinking, improving insight into the needs and preferences of users of tomorrow, including how contextual change may suddenly and fundamentally reshape these. A side-by-side comparison of representative models from each field is presented, and it is shown how these may be assembled together to create a foresight-informed design thinking process.}, language = {en} } @article{SchoenhoferKomonenSchwarzetal.2026, author = {Sch{\"o}nhofer, Gerhard and Komonen, Pauli and Schwarz, Jan Oliver and Bechthold, Laura}, title = {Futures of Everyday Life: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Future Personas in Scenarios}, volume = {8}, pages = {e70030}, journal = {Futures \& Foresight Science}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {2573-5152}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1002/ffo2.70030}, year = {2026}, abstract = {Scenario reports, holding a long-standing tradition in foresight and futures studies, act as an essential document for organizations to prepare for possible, plausible, and alternative futures. Focusing on descriptions and representations of everyday life, we examined 29 future persona narratives from six publications—covering a wide field from public to private sector—through qualitative content analysis. Our guiding question is: How can anthropological perspectives such as cultural relativism or postcolonial discourses contribute to an in-depth, qualitative interpretation depictions of future everyday life? Acknowledging anthropology's colonial origins and its growing commitment to the interests of indigenous and other marginalized groups, we offer alternative readings of prominent scenario reports. Our findings suggest that scenario reports, in addition to anticipating possible futures, construct certain futures based on a systematic analysis of empirical data but also speculative interpretation. The results of these interpretative acts often appear elitist, stereotypical, and technocratic, often replicating dominant societal narratives rather than fostering substantive shifts in how the future is imagined. We therefore call for a more polyphonic representation of futures in scenario writing and foresight work that can produce more discontinuous and transformative images of the future. We understand polyphonic representations as coined by various independent, predominant as well as subaltern perspectives on the same issue at stake while being offered the same amount of space. Therefore, as we will indicate in our analysis, most of the reports referred to are rather monophonic and do not offer discuptive perspectives on the future of everyday life. As an avenue of methodological development, we propose a more nuanced and comprehensive perception of culture and social structures in scenario narrative writing. In addition, ethnographic methods could increase our understanding of how futures are collaboratively constructed and produced by different actors and their respective backgrounds and knowledge in scenario processes.}, language = {en} }