Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons why the concept of a “strategic early warning system” (SEWS) has not been widely introduced and why it fails to be implemented successfully in German corporations. The aim of such systems is to detect changes in an...

Purpose – This paper offers six shamanic futures concepts to augment Inayatullah's six pillars, questions and concepts of futures studies. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on Ashis Nandy's use of the shaman as a futures category that posits alterity and the unknowable as the dissenting...

Purpose – Previous research on institutional change has largely ignored its cyclical nature. This paper aims to introduce a four‐phase cyclical model of long‐term institutional change. Design/methodology/approach – The recurrent patterns of the model have been identified from previous...

Purpose – This paper aims to argue that utilising foresight becomes a more useful tool to organisational management, if the innovative technique of “creative competition” is applied. In an empirical analysis, it seeks to show how the technique of creative competition was used in a...

Against a background of global change and major demographic, social, economic, political and technological trends, this article explores the future role of Unesco. Considering these major trends, this article first examines three global scenarios: optimistic liberal; pessimistic liberal; and...

Purpose – This paper aims to study the future of the Singapore association of social workers using causal layered analysis (CLA) and the Futures Triangle. In today’s rapidly changing world, professional associations have to re-evaluate their roles to remain relevant. This paper presents an...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss possible future pathways of the Finnish science, technology and innovation (STI) system. The paper sketches three speculative pathways for the Finnish STI system. Design/methodology/approach Theoretical considerations behind the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discover the main reasons for change, why change is necessary and how library professionals can adapt to change. Academic institutions are rapidly changing around the world where libraries are facing similar challenges and adapting change is a demand for...

Purpose – Change drivers are events, activities, or behaviors that facilitate the individual adoption of change initiatives and the implementation of organizational change. The purpose of this paper is an exploratory study of whether gender differences exist for change drivers....

Goffman’s concept of cooling out the mark (Goffman, E., “On cooling the mark out: some aspects of adaptation and failure”, Psychiatry: Journal of the Study of Interpersonal Relations, Vol. 15 No. 4, 1952, pp. 451‐63) is proposed as helpful for understanding self‐regulating groups’...