Cultural Prerequisites for Participating in Open Foresight

Abstract

Companies are increasingly interested in participating in open foresight. However, little is known about the conditions supporting them to open up successfully in open foresight. This research takes a culture perspective on this issue. The leading assumption is that companies with an open culture are more likely to engage in collaboration than companies with a culture inhibiting openness. We use the Competing Values Framework to measure corporate culture, and collaboration breadth and depth to measure openness to external collaboration. Drawing on a sample of 168 Austrian companies, the research confirms that culture plays an important role in creating an environment supportive of open foresight, albeit in a somewhat surprising way: the internally oriented clan culture appears to support openness, while the externally oriented market culture does not support it. Possible explanations for this finding are put forward as directions for further research. The findings should help companies to predict whether they have the cultural conditions in place to embark on an open foresight journey successfully.