Corporate Foresight in High-Tech SMEs: The Transition Environment of Russia

Corporate foresight includes the future-oriented strategies which enable the businesses to respond and adapt to the ongoing future changes in the dynamic environment. Past corporate foresight research is generally focused in the case of large, multinational corporations, but the corporate foresight activities can be as well distinguished in the context of SMEs. Thus, this qualitative multiple case study research is designed to identify the holistic corporate foresight implementation of high-tech SMEs in Russia. It contributes to the extremely limited number of studies in the field by taking into consideration the importance of the transition business environment of Russia in which the business activities of the companies have some differences compared with the Western market economies. The research findings indicate on how the companies systematically adopt the corporate foresight approach in their business field. Firstly, the study highlights the contextual background in terms of main market characteristics and the business environment of Russian high-tech SMEs. Secondly, the research examines the objectives of corporate foresight, namely the background knowledge of corporate foresight term, the rationale, and the purpose of corporate foresight implementation in the company. Thirdly, the study explores the structural features in order to identify the organizational structure of corporate foresight practices and propose three types of foresight companies. Lastly, the barriers and opportunities of corporate foresight adoption are disclosed to suggest practical recommendations for managers of Russian high-tech SMEs. The study concludes that there is a need for systematic implementation of corporate foresight to boost the competitiveness of high-tech SMEs in the transition context of Russia.