Purpose – This paper aims to depict foresight programmes as extended service encounters between foresight practitioners, sponsors, and other stakeholders. The implications of this perspective for evaluating the outcomes of such programmes are to be explored. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Bucket pricing entails a prepaid price and a maximum consumption limit, which requires consumers to make advance purchase decisions before their consumption needs are fully revealed. We propose a dynamic model that involves how consumers form expectations of future consumption needs, learn to...

Purpose – This article aims to consider what libraries might be used for after machines become smarter than humans. Design/methodology/approach – The article considers how Vernor Vinge's novel Across Realtime and his essay “The coming technological singularity” inform possible library...

Purpose – To present the degree to which futurists (inadvertently perhaps) encourage future avoidance or deflection. Design/methodology/approach – Identifies instances and examples of future deflection and avoidance attributable to the misplaced zeal of forecasters. Findings – Proposes...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach to the study of the future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes six foundational concepts (the used future, the disowned future, alternative futures, alignment, models of social change, and uses of the future),...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish what foresight is, to review past usages and definitions of foresight and to synthesize them into one generic definition, in order to make the concept measurable. Design/methodology/approach – A discussion on how to classify variables in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the reasons, especially the assertions about the future, given by the US administration under President Reagan, to justify the decision to attack and invade the Caribbean island of Grenada. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is...

Purpose – This paper addresses a challenging topic, which in both academic and professional literatures has been widely discussed but mainly from one single angle – that is, how to select foresight methods. From that point of view researchers and consultants promote (even if unintentionally)...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use bibliometric analysis to forecast RFID technology and uses the adoption of barcode scanner to model the RFID scanner adoption in the US retail market. Design/methodology/approach – Forecasting emerging technologies and identifying the rate of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to lay a theoretical basis for discussion of the ways by which organized foresight can be employed in the service of pro‐poor objectives. This is in line with the fundamental mandate of the Rockefeller Foundation, dating from its establishment....