Building dynamic capabilities to cope with environmental uncertainty: The role of strategic foresight

Tim Haarhaus and Andreas Liening

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2020, vol. 155, issue C

Abstract: Increasing environmental uncertainty poses significant challenges for organizations. Although scholars generally agree that companies require dynamic capabilities to flexibly respond to and shape uncertain environments, only little empirical research has been conducted on the factors that facilitate the development of these capabilities. This study addresses this gap and introduces strategic foresight as an important antecedent of firms’ dynamic capabilities. The paper investigates the impact of strategic foresight on two distinct types of dynamic capabilities, namely strategic flexibility and decision rationality, and how the influence of strategic foresight is moderated by the degree of environmental uncertainty. We test our hypotheses by adopting a mixed-methods approach, using both qualitative information gathered trough five expert interviews, as well as survey data collected from 79 managers familiar with strategic foresight practices. The obtained results indicate a significant positive impact of strategic foresight on firms’ strategic flexibility and decision rationality. Furthermore, this study finds that environmental uncertainty strengthens the positive effect of strategic foresight on strategic flexibility. Contributions to strategic foresight research and managerial practice for firms trying to cope with continuously increasing levels of environmental uncertainty are discussed.

Keywords: Strategic foresight; Dynamic capabilities; Environmental uncertainty; Strategic flexibility; Decision rationality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162519316877
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:155:y:2020:i:c:s0040162519316877

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120033

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().