远见Fear of foresight Knowledge and ignorance.pdf

FUTURESFutures 38 (2006) 942–955Fear of foresight: Knowledge and anizational foresightMiguel Pina e Cunhaa,?, Patr?′cia Palmab, Nuno Guimara?es da CostaaaFaculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Rua Marque?s de Fronteira, 20 1099-038 Lisboa, PortugalbInstituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34 1149-041 Lisboa, PortugalAvailable online 19 April 2006AbstractWe discuss the changes occurring in the ?eld anizational foresight. The analysis results fromviewing foresight from two different perspectives: as centered on the future or on the present; asmacroscopic analysis or microscopic practice. bination of these factors results in fourdifferent modes anizational foresight: strategic planning, visioning, scenario thinking andplanned emergence. These different perspectives are examined. We contribute to the literature bypresenting foresight as plex process, amenable to different understandings. Foresight is oftenportrayed as a technical and analytic process. We discuss it as a human process permeated by adialectic between the need to know and the fear of Elsevier Ltd. All rights . IntroductionIn one of his writings, the eminent psychologist Abraham H. Maslow remarked that‘‘From our point of view, Freud’s greatest discovery is thatthegreat cause of muchpsychological illness is the fear of knowledge of oneself—of one’s emotions, impulses,memories, capacities, potentialities, of one’s destiny. We have discovered that fear ofknowledge of oneself is very often isomorphic with, and parallel to fear of the outsideworld. That is, inner problems and outer problems tend to be deeply similar and to berelated to each other.’’[38, p. 71, italics in the original]. In this paper, we approach therelationship between the need to know and the fear of knowing of decision makers in theARTICLE IN PRESSate/futures0016-3287/$ - see front matterr2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights :.?Corresponding author.