In the recent decades there have been tremendous technological and innovative advances that have shaped the business. Technology Laws like Moore’s, Gates law, Gilder’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law and Less’s Law shows the rate at which technological development has taken place. This has impacted how society as a whole functions and thus had changed the whole business environment and the rate at which new trend and ideas are adopted. It has become important for organisations to develop dynamic capabilities to be able to adopt in these environments where they could easily become redundant in a very short time.
The aim of this study was to assess the use of foresight as a managerial skill to manage business decisions in academic institutions. For this study the primary focus was on higher academic institutions in South Africa.
These higher academic institutions have been operating in a business environment that is highly competitive considering they focus on delivering quality products and services to the communities they serve. These products and services have to be competitive with the rest of the international market and thus they have to ensure they deliver products and services that are relevant to the latest industry trends and technologies. Foresight as a skill is very useful in the early detection of new trends, technologies and assist in the improving the innovation of these organisations.
Exploratory research found that within these organisations there is a strong representation of Flexist’s which are hesitant to adopt new technologies, where they would rather wait till it is tried and tested before adopting the technology. The results also depicted a relationship between the ways these organisations adopted technologies to that of the technology adoption life cycle model. The exact same way new technologies have to cross the chasm in the market was found within the organisations where there were some staff members being early adopter of new technology and the rest pragmatists.
Finally a foresight skill measurement formula had been developed which can be adopted to various industries. It can indicate areas where the organisations need to improve and plot them on an exponential curve showing their rate of effectiveness. The curve also indicates how effective they are at the implementation of foresight. Recommendation for further research in this field can be aimed at getting a better understanding of the relationship between the biographical information such as qualifications, age and years of experience impact the ability of foresight as a skill. / MBA (Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/14953 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Du Plessis, Pieter Du Preez |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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