Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Strategic Foresight: How Entrepreneurs Engage the Future as Opportunity

Arran Brown and Brian Barnard
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Arran Brown: Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Brian Barnard: Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Expert Journal of Business and Management, 2019, vol. 7, issue 1, 11-30

Abstract: This study investigates how entrepreneurs and innovators engage the future, and it reflects on how strategic foresight (also called futures studies) can contribute to innovation and entrepreneurship. The literature emphasizes the importance of planning for the future, but not much attention has been given to how entrepreneurs view, forecast and incorporate the future, and how this influences their innovation and creativity. The study found that entrepreneurs are disconnected from the future, and do not take it seriously. The future is mostly left to unfold, and it appears as a surprise. Entrepreneurs use simple methods to engage the future, and their understanding of it is vague. There is a lack of leadership and coordination around the future, and very little intervention around the future. Entrepreneurs recognize a general connection between the future and innovation, but they fail to see the relationship between innovation and futures studies. Futures studies are central to innovation, especially radical innovation, but entrepreneurs do not exploit it. Incremental innovation is predominant, and this leads to the conclusion that entrepreneurship is dysfunctional, to the extent that radical innovation is an important part of entrepreneurship and futures shaping. The study essentially surfaces a number of obscure philosophical positions regarding the relationship between entrepreneurship, innovation and the future.

JEL-codes: L26 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:exp:bsness:v:7:y:2019:i:1:p:11-30

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