Getting from foresight to policy: The critical role of organizations and social entities

I recently posted an article where I was looking to identify gaps in our knowledge about how foresight programs inform policy and decision-making. Since then, I’ve come across recent research which looks at these gaps in more detail. In particular, a recent paper published by Schartinger, Wilhelmer, Holste & Kubeczko, titled “Assessing immediate learning impacts of large foresight processes”, takes a systematic look at what happens at certain stages during and following the implementation of foresight programs. Despite some weaknesses in their paper, Schartinger et al. make very interesting points concerning the “intermediate” outcomes of foresight programs, i.e. the “knowledge gap” that I’ve pointed out previously, suggesting that we need to look more closely at organizational change in this regard (this is where I was moving before I came across this article so it’s partly that I’m happy to see more movement in this direction). In this article I want to address some of the weaknesses and then hone in on how we address the knowledge gap about intermediate outcomes of foresight programs.

Schartinger et al. set out to study the “immediate” impacts of foresight programs, i.e. the outcomes that accrue during and immediately following the implementation of the program (see Table 1. for temporal categorization of outcomes, “immediate”, “intermediate”, and “ultimate” from Havas et al., 2010). In particular these include individual learning outcomes, system (re-)configurations, and networking.

The first problem I see is in the way that the focus of the study is defined. This isn’t a major issue but does compromise the clarity of the study and how the conclusions are construed. The authors refer to existing literature regarding their definitions of types of impacts of foresight referring to, among others, Havas et al., 2010. Havas et al.‘s categorization of impacts of foresight is fairly detailed based on both the function of the foresight program and types of impacts over time (see Table 1.).

My first issue with the Schartinger et al. article is this: The authors refer to the Havas et al. framework but they don’t adequately define the unit of their study within it. In particular, they never say whether they are studying an “informing”, “advisory”, or “facilitating” type of foresight program. This is important because the outcomes expected from each of these types can differ considerably. For example, networking, a specific focus of Schartinger et al.’s study, appears in different forms and at different stages depending on the function of the foresight program. The problem here is that we have no way of determining the adequacy of the focus of the study without more information about its expected function.

The more critical issues with the article are to be found in the authors’ conclusions. The authors seem to want to make connections between what they have revealed in their study and “learning” as a pathway to enduring change. However, their assertions to that effect go beyond what their data would suggest, especially in the following:

– The authors’ second conclusion is that learning occurs as a result of the creation of a “multi-dimensional picture on the system level”. It’s not clear here what kind of learning occured nor how useful the learning that was measured would prove to be in the context of the foresight program or the issues that were explored. The authors primarily collected evidence realated to the establishment of realtionships and the nature of those relationships. I think the study clearly demonstrates that participants learned about various things through these relationships but to what extent that type of learning will result in qualitative change in decision-making processes or views of the issues explored is not clear at all.

– The authors’ third conclusion is that the foresight program prompted the formation of new acquaintances and networks. This is undisputed and the evidence clearly supports the assertion. However, the authors go on to claim that these ties are indicative of increased flow of information and “learning”. This latter claim is not obviously supported by the evidence at all and is merely an assumption on the part of the authors.

What I think is one of the biggest strengths of Schartinger et al.‘s paper is their conjecture that the intermediate stage of foresight programs, i.e. that which connects the immediate and ultimate outcomes, involves the organizations that individual participants in foresight programs represent. Specifically, that we have to look for evidence of qualitative change within those organizations in terms of “organizational development” (the term that Schartinger et al. use), “organizational learning” or “organizational culture” (I’m more apt to focus on the latter). This is precisely the conclusion that I have been coming to independent of Schartinger et al. and others’ research. It seems reasonable to assume that the intermediate outcomes have to somehow institutionalize changes resulting from foresight programs to create an independence from individual participants.

The issue here is that, as Schartinger et al. point out, outcomes at the level of individual participants do not guarantee any enduring change. Individuals participate in foresight programs as representatives of their organizational or social affiliations. There is little use in recruiting individuals to participate in foresight programs unless there is an expectation that the individual will be able to have some sort of cascade effect beyond the program as such. But, as Schartinger et al. suggest, individuals are likely to be re-integrated into pre-existing organizational cultures following their involvement in foresight programs, negating any impact that the program may have had. Another issue is that, because foresight programs deal with long-term perspectives, we can, and should, expect significant elasticity in the meanings of the terminology we define for thinking about the future (I explain this last point in more detail here).

So, to get at the intermediate outcomes of foresight programs, evaluators and researchers should turn their attention to the organizations or social entities that participating individuals represent. This could be done in a number of ways. One is simply to ask representatives of organizations how their organizations have changed. Probably a more conclusive approach would be to conduct organizational culture audits. Best would be if this could be done before and after a foresight program to get more of a sense of the types of changes that take place.