Evaluation criteria for R&D adopting “imaginary future generations” — A deliberation experiment in an engineering company

Abstract

We investigate how the adoption of “imaginary future generations (IFGs),” a mechanism for activating futurabilty of people, influences the decision criteria and evaluation framework of a corporate R&D strategy. We conducted a debate experiment involving the employees of a water engineering company, in which the participants depicted the future state of society and the company’s business in the year 2050 and examined an R&D strategy for specific technologies. Text mining of the discussion content and results of a questionnaire survey administered to participants showed that compared to viewing the future from the perspective of current generations, an IFGs’ perspective evidently changed 1) the perception of the future state of society and business; and 2) the most important indicators used to examine an R&D strategy, and their relative weights. When the perspective of IFGs was adopted, indicators associated with the categories of “business & economy,” “differentiation with & relationships with other companies,” and “company policy and vision” were rated as less important to the R&D strategy, while the importance of the categories “technology development,” “environmental problems,” and “social issues & needs” increased. This study demonstrates that the adoption of the viewpoint of “futurability” can change the framework of technology evaluations.