Enhancing foresight among international construction business (ICB) managers

Pekka Huovinen, TKK Helsinki University of Technology, Finland (email: pekka.huovinen@tkk.fi )

Abstract

Triggers for this paper include internationally leading corporations in design, contracting, building products supply, and real estate businesses who are facing many challenges such as embedding innovations in their solutions and the increasing influence of creativity. The main aim is to enhance creative foresight among international construction business (ICB) managers. Three preferred aspects of an ICB manager’s foresight include a managerial competence, process, and targeted outcomes. This managerial foresight was approached via a literature review. Only 11 foresight-related concepts could be identified within a population of 51 competence-related, more generic, international business-management concepts published via 20 journals between the years 1990-2006. Only the applicable elements are synthesized in terms of foreseeing (i) opportunities (e.g. via the reconstruction of business boundaries), (ii) logics, models, and strategies (e.g. across turbulent landscapes), and (iii) organizations, competences, and processes (e.g. being stretched toward aspirations) for succeeding in ICBs. Some conclusions are put forth for designing better foresight-management concepts.

Keywords: construction, foresight, international business, literature review, management

1. Introduction

On the one hand, this paper has been triggered by many challenges that leading corporations and their managers have both envisioned and in the short term recognized in international construction markets. Overall, international construction markets involve foreign and local owners, developers, contractors, design firms, suppliers, service providers, financiers, and other stakeholders participating in the ownership, design, implementation, use, operations, maintenance, servicing, and life-cycle aspects of capital investments in natural resources usage, energy supply, telecommunications, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, general building, and real estate concerns. Dynamism includes a spectrum of static, dynamic, and even chaotic business environments. Within such markets, the viable management of a firm’s international business (IB) is perceived as managing a dynamic 6-element system, i.e. (i) targeting the most attractive clients in the preferred markets and competitive arenas, (ii) advancing contract-specific offerings and competitive strategies, (iii) integrating global, local, and contract -specific business processes, (iv) nurturing core technologies, offerings, and competences, (v) governing a flexible IB organization, and (vi) collaborating selectively with key stakeholders beyond a firm’s legal boundaries.

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Typically, Fugro NV [1] defines its mission to be, worldwide, the leading company and services provider in the collection and interpretation of data related to the earth’s surface, the sea bed as well as the soils and rocks beneath and advising clients regarding these matters. This mission is achieved through the provision of high-quality, innovative services, professional, specialized employees as well as advanced, generally state-of-the-art, unique technologies and systems (mostly developed in-house), and a worldwide presence in which the exchange of knowledge and cooperation, both internally and with clients, play a central role.

On the other hand, this paper has been triggered by the widening and increasing influence of foresight, creativity, and innovation across businesses, market contexts, and strategies. Foresight is generally defined as having the three facets of (i) an action or a faculty of foreseeing what must happen (prevision), (ii) an action of looking forward and a perception gained by looking forward (a prospect, a sight, or a view into the future), and (iii) a care or a provision for the future (Oxford English Dictionary [2]). Herein, managerial foresight is seen as one of critical competences in managing a business more successfully in evolving international construction markets in the future. The three preferred aspects of an international construction business (ICB) manager’s foresight include a competence, process, and targeted outcomes. Creativity can be defined as the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain. In turn, innovation can be viewed as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. Thus, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the second [3 p. 1154]. Under a pressure of international construction perceived as increasingly turbulent, reactivity and flexibility have emerged as key success factors. Thus, creativity is viewed as one of necessary conditions for a firm to survive.

The main aim of this paper is to enhance foresight among managers so that they can sustain their design, contracting, building products supply, and real estate businesses within highly evolving international construction (and real estate) markets. Namely, a firm’s successful transition into the future depends upon a degree to which the creative and causal thinking of its managers will coincide with future market developments. During the years 1999-2007, the author has been readily conducting a multi-year literature-review program with a focus on generic and international business-management (BM) concepts and construction-related BM concepts published between the years 1990-2006, e.g. [4], [5]. It turned out that there is a lack of (e.g. foresight-based) concepts for managing a business in international construction markets successfully. Instead, many authors of the international BM concepts (addressing non-construction contexts) have approached and specified some key elements for foreseeing and strategizing for the future (better than competitors do). Thus, the sub-aims are as follows: (i) To identify the foresight-related concepts within a population of 51 competence-related concepts form managing an international business published via 20 internationally renowned journals between the years 1990-2006, (ii) to retrieve and to expose the foresight-related elements of the 11 concepts perceived to be applicable also for sustaining businesses in international construction markets, and (iii) to make a synthesis of the most applicable elements for enhancing foresight among ICB managers inside firms, and (iv) to present some conclusions on designing better foresight-management concepts in the future.

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2. Identifying 11 concepts within a 51-concept population

For the original review, a business management (BM) concept (incl. models, frameworks, etc.) was defined as an abstraction representing an object, i.e. a firm managing its dynamic business. A concept serves as (a) the foundation of a communication, (b) a way of looking at the empirical world, (c) a means of classifying and generalizing BM situations, e.g. stating the conditions when the management’s efforts are likely to be (un)successful, and (d) a component of a theory or a model and thus of an explanation, prediction, and prescription (applying [6 p. 31).

Competence relatedness was rationalized as follows. When looking through a “how” lens, the overall picture of BM research had become very messy during the late 1990s and, thus, intellectually challenging enough in terms of the divergent meanings and uses of how-focused terms within various research traditions. Thus, this reviewer chose to analyze the roles of the organizational or organization-level “how” elements called a firm’s competenc(i)es, capabilities, capacities, or abilities, and their roles as part of eligible BM concepts. As the inherent unit of analysis, a firm’s competences were then coupled with a choice to broaden the competence-based approach (competence is the primary element within a BM concept) to the competence-related one (competence is at least one of its key elements).

For the comprehensive search of eligible scientific articles from among journals, a population of 42 journals has been relied upon. The pioneering review involved the planning and testing of a set of the replicable ways of searching, browsing, in-/excluding, retrieving, systemic inferring and coding, describing, analyzing, and interpreting the outcomes of primary international BM research [4]. Three landmark concepts - Prahalad and Hamel’s [7] core competencies, Teece et al.’s [8] dynamic capabilities, and Barney’s [9] resource sustainability - have triggered a growing flow of published concepts also via journals. In total, it turned out that the 51 competence-related international BM concepts have been published in the 20 journals between the years 1990-2006 [5]. The numbers of the concepts belonging to each of the eight schools of thought on BM vary between no competence-related international BM concepts within the Porterian school and 19 (37 %) concepts within the dynamism-based school. The organization-based school has produced 9 (18 %) concepts. The knowledge-based school has produced 7 (14 %) concepts, followed by the competence-based (5/10 %), process-based (4/8 %), evolutionary (4/8 %), and resource-based (3/6 %) schools. There are 75 individual authors. Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad have been involved in co-publishing 5 (10 %) dynamism-based concepts. Danny Miller and Henk Volberda have both co-authored 3 (6 %) concepts. Richard D’Aveni, Yves Doz, Michael Hitt, Ron Sanchez, and George Stalk Jr. have (co)published 2 (4 %) concepts, respectively. This reviewer will submit a complete list of the 51 references by request.

For this paper, the reviewer re-read analytically the 51 references and, thus, identified 11 (22 %) foresight-related and competence-related international BM concepts, i.e. 7 (14 %) dynamism-based, 3 (6 %) competence-based, and 1 (2 %) resource-based concept. These 11 international BM concepts serve as the theoretical ‘data’ for this review at hand.

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3. Quoting the elements of the 11 concepts for the enhancement of managerial foresight in construction

The identification of the 11 foresight-related and competence-related international BM concepts was based on the authors’ replies to two key questions: (1) How can business managers develop and leverage their foresight as a managerial, organizational competence and process? and (2) What highly competitive outcomes of foresight management are worth pursuing? The relevant replies of the 11 authors are quoted in Tables 1-3. Foresight is defined as the primary element (or dimension) within the 9 concepts as follows.

Among the seven dynamism-based international BM concepts, Prahalad and Hamel [7 p. 91] launched their core-competence concept as a wellspring of foreseeing new businesses. They advocated a hierarchy of core competencies, core and end products, and market-focused business units. Later, Hamel and Prahalad [10] posited that competitiveness depends on willingness to challenge managerial frames. By [foresight-based] design, creating a stretch or a misfit between an aspiration and current resources is the single most important task. Moreover, they [11 p. 127-8] emphasized that foresights be built based on insights into trends in technology, demographics, regulations, and lifestyles. D’Aveni [12 p. 48-9] introduced soothsaying for firms to co-create the targeted future through disruptions in hypercompetitive markets where every advantage is temporary. He advocated a [foresight-based] building of a series of temporary advantages. Hitt et al. [13 p. 25-6] argued that new landscapes are developing based on technological revolutions and globalization. They advocated the [foresight-based] building of flexibility to reduce the periods of complex instability. Managers need to engage in nonlinear thinking for radical innovations. Foresight is used during the periods of destabilization to transform a firm into a new temporary state of equilibrium. Hamel and Välikangas [14 p. 52-5) posit that the only dependable advantage is a superior capacity for reinventing a business model before turbulent circumstances force to this. Resilience refers to a capacity for [foresight-based] reconstruction. Kim and Maubourgne [15 p. 77-8, 83-4) advocate the adoption of a reconstructionist’s worldview: market boundaries and businesses are being reconstructed. Blue oceans denote new businesses, i.e. unknown spaces, untainted by competition. A [foresightful] firm can create, exploit, and protect such blue oceans (even from within red oceans, i.e. existing businesses) where actions favorably affect both cost and value.

Two competence-based international BM concepts include foresight as their primary element. Sanchez’ [16 p. 71-3, 76-7) strategic flexibility is a condition of having strategic options as part of managing [foresight-based] competence building and leveraging. He [17 p. 520, 530] specifies flexibility as five [foresight-related] competence modes. In turn, Chiesa and Manzini [18 p. 111, 116-8) have defined foresight as the complementary element (or dimension). They advocated firms to formulate technology strategies based on the [foresight-based] analyses and the understanding of the evolution of the next paradigm. Miller et al. [19 p. 37, 49-51) have defined foresight as reflection in their resource-based ‘strategy from the inside out’. They advocated the identification of asymmetries and the shaping of a market focus to exploit them. Asymmetries are hard-to-copy ways in which a firm differs from its rivals.

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Table 1. Managerial foresight (MF)-related elements of four dynamism-based international BM concepts (published between 1990-1995). Key: Within [ ], the original terms have been replaced with the international construction business –related ones. Reference (quoted pp)

Elements corresponding to MF as a competence and a process

Elements corresponding to MF as targeted outcomes

Prahalad, Hamel [7 p. 81, 85-86, 89]

Long term competitiveness of firms derives from (a) an ability to build, at lower cost and more speedily than competitors, core competencies that spawn unanticipated products, and (b) an ability to consolidate firm-wide [expertise] and skills into competenc-ies that empower businesses [with core/end services, and solutions] to adapt quickly to changing opportunit-ies. (Dynamism-based concept)

At three levels, outcomes include: (i) best core competencies for developing core [solutions and services], (ii) maximum shares in providing core solutions [and services], and (iii) positions to shape the solutions and markets. All this is based on a strategic architecture, i.e. a road map of the future that identifies which core competencies to build and their constituent knowledge.

Hamel, Prahalad [10 p. 76- 78, 84]

Global competition is mind-set vs. mind-set. Long-term competitiveness depends managers’ willingness to challenge continually their managerial frames. Creating stretch, a misfit btw. resources and aspirations, is the single most important task. Stretch can beget risk when arbitrarily short time horizon is set for long-term leadership goals. (Dynamism-based concept)

The outcomes of stretch: (i) a view of competition as encirclement, an aspira-tion that creates by design a chasm btw. great ambition and resources, the accelerated acquisition of market knowledge and [service-]development cycle, cross-functional teams, a focus on a few core competencies, strategic alliances, and the programs of employee involvement.

Hamel, Prahalad [11 p. 127-128]

Managers must build their foresights as an ongoing project based on deep insights into trends in technology, demographics, regulations, and lifestyles. The understanding of the potential implications of trends requires creativity and imagination. Foresight is a synthesis of many people’s visions, defining the future. (Dynamism-based concept)

Managers’ primary role is to capture and exploit the foresight that exists throughout the organization. The outcomes of ‘competing for the future’ strategy include re-written [business] rules and new competitive space, a firm’s trans-formation that is revolutionary in result and evolution-ary in execution, and getting ahead of the [business] change curve.

D’Aveni [12 p. 50-51]

Strategic soothsaying is based on managers’ ability to predict future trends, to control the development of key technologies that will shape the future, and to create self-fulfilling prophecies. (Dynamism-based concept)

This soothsaying (i) allows managers to see and create future needs that they can serve better than any competitor does, even if only temporarily, and (ii) contributes to the vision of the next advantage and the future market disruption.

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Table 2. Managerial foresight (MF )–related elements of three dynamism-based international BM concepts (published between 1998-2004). Key: Within [ ], the original terms have been replaced with the international construction business–related ones.

Reference (quoted pp)

Elements corresponding to MF as a competence and a process

Elements corresponding to MF as targeted outcomes

Hitt et al. [13 p. 25-26, 33, 39]

Driven by technological revolution and globalization, a new competitive landscape is highly turbulent, chaotic, producing disorder and uncertainty. Managers need to engage in nonlinear thinking and to adopt a systemic perspective of design firms. They use vision and foresight during periods of destabilization to transform their [design] firms into a new state of equilibrium (albeit temporary). (Dynamism-based concept)

Strategic (proactive, responsive. networking) flexibility allows managers to reduce the periods of complex instability by making their firms transnational, predicting attractive businesses to enter, using cross-border synergies and new [expertise], building dynamic core competencies, balancing local demands with the global vision, engaging in valuable strategies, and networking with clients and other stakeholders.

Hamel, Välikangas [14 p. 53-55]

Strategic resilience refers to a capa-city for continuous re-construction. It is about (a) anticipating deep secular trends that can permanently impair earning power, (b) adjusting to strategy decays (by being replicated, supplanted, exhausted, or eviscerated), (c) having a proactive capacity to change. (Dynamism-based concept)

The outcomes include three forms of innovation with respect to (i) one’s traditional business model (renewal), (ii) [business] rules (revolution), and (iii) those organizational values, processes, and behaviors (cognitive, strategic, political, and ideological challenges) that systematically favor perpetuation over innovation.

Kim, Mauborgne [15 p. 77, 80, 83-84]

Managers can adopt a reconstruct-ionist’s worldview: market boundaries and businesses are reconstructed by the actions and beliefs of competing firms. They can create, exploit, and protect blue oceans in the regions where a firm’s actions favorably affect both its cost structure and value propo-sition to clients, i.e. make a major market-creating business offering. (Dynamism-based concept)

The outcomes of ‘blue ocean strategy and strategic moves’ include blue oceans, i.e. businesses not in existence today, unknown market spaces, and untainted by competition. In most cases, new demand is created from within a red ocean (an existing business) by altering its boundaries. The ample opportunity for rapid, profitable growth is exploited.

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Table 3. Managerial foresight (MF) –related elements of three competence-based and one resource-based international BM concepts (published between 1997-2004). Key: Within [ ], the original terms have been replaced with the international construction business–related ones.

Reference (quoted pp)

Elements corresponding to MF as a competence and a process

Elements corresponding to MF as targeted outcomes

Sanchez [16 p. 71-73, 80-82, 90]

In assuring long term viability, strat-egic flexibility is a condition of having strategic options based, in turn, on coordination flexibility in acquiring and using flexible resources; imagin-ing new configurations in resource chains. A synthesis of planning and emergence based on modular product, process, and knowledge architectures constitutes a new dominant logic. (Competence-based concept)

Firms can manage more readily and spontaneously input and output uncertainties by allowing locally emergent strategies and being flexible in coordinating resources in alternative uses. Re-cognizing the flexibility properties of resources permits ex ante an assessment of their relative strategic values over some defined range of imaginable future outcomes.

Sanchez [17 p. 520, 530]

For surviving in dynamic [design] markets, managers can develop five competence modes: (i-ii) cognitive flexibilities in defining alternative strategic logics and management pro-cesses, (iii) coordination flexibility in redeploying resource chains, (iv) resource flexibility, and (v) operating flexibility; assessed via higher-order control loops. (Competence-based concept)

The corresponding outcomes include the five portfolios of (i) perceived opportunities to create value, (ii) approaches to managing value creation processes, (iii) accessible resource chains, (iv) uses of flexible resources in processes, and (v) feasible ways to bring offerings to design markets.

Chiesa, Manzini [18 p. 116-118, 122]

Firms can formulate their dynamic [competence or] technology strate-gies based on the future-oriented internal/external analyses and the understanding of the evolution of the dominant [expertise] paradigm that is able to satisfy future demands. (Competence-based concept)

Managers can (i) identify critical future skill base and (ii) decide which new and existing skill/application combinations to invest in. An invest-ment actions cycle (as a trajectory) may consist of competence deepening, fertilizing, complementing, refreshing, and destroying.

Miller et al. [19 p. 49-51]

In pursuing ‘strategy from the inside out’ capability managers and opportunity managers must balance reflection and action, put time aside to reflect on capabilities and to initiate experiments during joint quarterly sessions. (Resource-based concept)

The best outcomes of reflection are (i) imaginative “re-framings” of the value of resources, experiences, and relation-ships, (ii) explored emerging compet-encies and the opportunities they bring, and (iii) opportunities that shape capabilities.

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4. Synthesizing the most applicable elements for the enhancement of managerial foresight in construction

Herein, a synthesis is made by taking into account only those elements of the 11 international BM concepts that were perceived to be most applicable for enhancing foresight among ICB managers. An element is considered applicable (and included in Tables 4-6) when the author is dealing with it in a way that clearly justifies its use and instructs ICB managers to adopt, to understand, to develop, and/or to exploit this element as part of foresight, i.e. as a competence, a process, or targeted outcomes. The assessment of the high, medium, or low degrees of applicability was excluded due to the single-level writings, i.e. the authors do not reveal any deeper causal relations within their concepts. Foresight management is seen as one of the prerequisites for successful ICB management. It is proposed that a firm’s successful transition depends upon a degree to which the causal thinking of ICB managers will coincide with future developments in targeted markets. A firm can manage its ICB successfully by enhancing and exploiting the foresight of its managers along three modes as follows:

• Mode 1: Foreseeing IB opportunities and their boundaries. ICB managers can deepen the understanding of underlying (hidden) causal demand and supply mechanisms and their future evolution with and without assumed, self-imposed, random, or ‘lucky’ major changes in the future with the help of 5-6 applicable ways (Table 5).

• Mode 2: Foreseeing IB logics, models, and strategies. ICB managers can co-create a dominant business logic, model, and strategy, and assume a role of a creator or a (r)evolutionary inventor of IBs with the help of 10 applicable ways (Table 6).

• Mode 3: Foreseeing IB organizations, competences, and processes. ICB managers can (gradually or as major shifts) set more challenging goals and also attain them by managing both ICB performance and competitiveness development in balanced, integrated ways, with the help of about 15 applicable principles (Table 7).

Table 4. Suggested Mode 1 of managerial foresight (MF) on future ICB opportunities and their boundaries (and the applicable elements of the 11 international BM concepts).

Future ICB opportunities and their boundaries (Mode 1) MF as a competence and a process MF as targeted outcomes

¤ Business foresight based on many people’s deep insights (creativity, imagination) into trends in engineering, demographics, regulations, and lifestyles and potential implications [11] ¤ Ability to anticipate secular trends impairing earning power [14] ¤ Cognitive flexibility in foreseeing alternative opportunities [17] ¤ Ability to predict trends and to create self-fulfilling prophecies [12] ¤ Reconstruction [15] ¤ Nonlinear thinking [13]

¤ Re-written business rules and competitive space, getting ahead of the business change curve [11] ¤ Strategic soothsaying, advantage vision, and the future market disruption [12] ¤ Understanding of technological revolution and globalization, and predicted attractive businesses [13] ¤ Understanding of expertise paradigm for satisfying demand [18] ¤ Business rules revolution [14] ¤ Options to create value [17]

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Table 5. Suggested Mode 2 of managerial foresight (MF) on future ICB logics, models, and strategies (and the applicable elements of the 11 international BM concepts).

Future ICB logics, models, and strategies (Mode 2) MF as a competence and

a process MF as targeted outcomes

¤ Ability to control the development of key technologies and expertise that will shape the future [12] ¤ Understanding of highly turbulent, chaotic, competit-ive landscape that produces disorder and uncertainty [13] ¤ Strategic (proactive, responsive, networking) flexibility [13] ¤ Ability to adjust to strategy decays by being replicated, supplanted, exhausted, or eviscerated [14] ¤ Cognitive flexibility in defining alternative strategic logics [17] ¤ Dynamic competence or technology strategy formulation based on the future-oriented internal and external analyses [18]

¤ Maximum shares in providing core solutions [and services], positions to shape the applied design solutions and markets, and a road map for future development of core competencies and their constituent knowledge [7] ¤ Aspiration that creates by design a chasm between great aspiration and resources [10] ¤ Competing for the future strategy [11] ¤ Foreseen and created future needs to be served best, temporarily [12] ¤ Business model renewal [14] ¤ Blue ocean strategy and moves, i.e. new businesses, unknown spaces, untainted by competition, by reconstructing them from within an existing business by altering the boundaries [15] ¤ Blue oceans that can be created, exploited, and protected for rapid, profitable growth based on its better cost structure and value proposition, i.e. a new market-creating business offering [15] ¤ Dominant logic as a synthesis of planning and emergence, and locally emergent strategies [16], [17] ¤ Strategy from the inside out with imaginative “re-framings” of the value of resources, experiences, and relationships, explored emerging competencies coupled with opportunities [19] ¤ Cross-border synergies, new expertise, core competencies, local demands balanced with the global vision, engagements in valuable strategies [13]

In particular, the creative foreseeing processes of ICB managers should aim at producing novel competitive outcomes that strengthen their international positions in profitable ways. Novel outcomes may come about through inventions and new core technologies, new principal offerings or pioneering construction solutions, the new ways of performing ICB processes, and/or new (inter)national partners, etc. Each highly novel outcome may, indeed, set a new standard for competition through a focal firm’s interaction with targeted offering markets and/or networked resource markets.

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Table 6. Suggested Mode 3 of managerial foresight (MF) on future ICB organizations, competences, and processes (and the applicable elements of 11the international BM concepts).

Future ICB organizations, competences, and processes (Mode 3) MF as a competence and

a process MF as targeted outcomes

¤ Ability to build, at lower cost and more speedily than compet-itors, core competencies spawn-ing unanticipated products [7] ¤ Ability to consolidate firm-wide expertise into competencies that empower businesses with core/end services, and solutions to adapt to changing opportunit-ies [7] ¤ Willingness to challenge managerial frames [10] ¤ Strategic resilience is a capa-city for reconstruction and proactive change [14] ¤ Strategic flexibility is a condi-tion of having options, e.g. cog-nitive flexibility in exploiting management processes [16], [17] ¤ Capability and opportunity managers must balance reflection and action, put time aside to re-flect on capabilities and to init-iate experiments [19]

¤ Competitiveness and the best core competencies for developing core solutions [7] ¤ Creating stretch, a misfit between resources and aspira-tions, is the single most important task [10] ¤ Accelerated offering-development cycle, alliances, and employee involvement programs [10] ¤ Transformed firm is revolutionary in result and evolutionary in execution [11] ¤ Alternative configurations in resource chains, flexible resources, and their uses based on modular service, process, and knowledge architectures, over some defined range of imaginable future outcomes [16], [17] ¤ Portfolio of approaches to managing value creation ¤ Operating flexibility, ways to bring offerings to markets, and managed input/output uncertainties [17] ¤ Critical future skill base, investments in new and existing skill/application combinations, investment actions cycle/ trajectory consisting of competence deepening, fertilizing, complementing, refreshing, and destroying [18] ¤ Transformed firm in a new (temporary) state of equilib-rium during the periods of destabilization [13] ¤ Organizational values, processes, and behaviors (cognit-ive, strategic, political, and ideological challenges) that systematically favor perpetuation over innovation [14]

5. Putting forth concluding remarks

Herein, the concluding remarks are put forth on the validity of this paper, the advancement of foresight-related (international) BM concepts, and collaborative research as follows. (a) The validity of this review is assessed to be fairly high in terms of (i) the focus on the eligible BM concepts (with the exclusion of upper, corporate level concepts and the lower, partial ones), (ii) the competence-relatedness (instead of a sole competence-based focus), (iii) the pre-limited contextual originality (limited to the businesses of focal firms based in one of the OECD countries, (iv) the reviewed 17-year period of publishing, (v) English as the only language (with biases in author nationality profiles), (vi) the selected channel (the 42 journals), (vii) the search comprehensiveness (the e-browsing of the abstracts, issue by issue), (viii) the identification of foresight-enhancing/exploiting international BM concepts (based on Oxford English Dictionary’s definition), (ix) the neutral, documented, low-inference coding and exposure

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(Tables 1-3) as well as the synthesis (Tables 4-6), and (x) the exclusion of a review of the methodological attributes of the 11 references (due to the missing information).

There is definitely room for (b) the advancement of applied, foresight-related ICB management concepts within the four disciplines of construction management and economics, real estate development, project management, and industrial management. Prior new major advancement efforts, some complementary sub-reviews should be, however, conducted among BM and ICB concepts published via monographs, edited books, conference proceedings, and construction-related journals. For example, any foresight-related concept ‘designer’ will benefit from the preunderstanding [20] of what causal mechanisms are inherent in globalization, digitalization, energy saving technologies, sustainable environment-policy making, etc. that all influence future ICB management. In Tables 1-3, it was enough to modify the elements of the 11 BM concepts only to some extent to accommodate their principal applications to ICB management. Nevertheless, the varying degrees of uncertainty remain coupled with the possible high applicability of the reviewed elements due to a fact that the authors have been originally targeting the generic or non-ICB contexts. Namely, one can easily find many counterarguments such as those of Maister [21 p. xv-xvi] who has posited that construction-related design firms must manage customized activities where little can be reliably made routine. Principles from industrial or mass-consumer sectors are not only inapplicable but they may be dangerously wrong. Instead, these problems may require their own “management theory”.

Finally, this reviewer is (c) foreseeing a high potential for the future advancement of managerial foresight concepts through collaborative research between interested scholars across many other disciplines such as strategic management, organization theory, economics, system and complexity sciences, psychology, architecture, engineering, and arts.

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