Permanent record
RIR-3056 · Logged 14 October 2026
Mapping Strategy and Futures Methods: Relationships, Applications, Limits and Frontiers for Strategic Foresight
The contributor proposes a literature-based mapping of the methods associated with strategy and futures, asking what each comprises, how they complement one another, when they are used, and what is considered ineffective. The intended output is a structured guide for theorists and practitioners that identifies both existing resources and open research and practical frontiers for strategic foresight. The idea treats strategic foresight as a field whose methodological architecture can be described, compared and critically assessed.
In plain words
Strategy and futures work draw on many methods. This review of published writing would map what each method involves, how they fit together, when they are used and where they fall short, to guide people choosing methods.
Primary research question
How are strategy and futures methods conceptualised, related and applied in the strategic foresight literature, and where do their documented limitations and unresolved gaps indicate frontiers for research and practice?
Knowledge gap
What remains worth asking
The idea proposes examining whether the methods of strategy and futures are systematically mapped, how they support one another, and which requirements of strategic foresight remain insufficiently addressed or ineffectively served. The gap is framed as a question to be tested through the review itself, not as an established absence in the literature.
Potential contribution
Why it may matter
A clear, navigable map of strategy and futures methods could help theorists compare approaches, help practitioners select methods for given circumstances, and direct future research toward unresolved methodological problems in strategic foresight.
Academic placement
Academic fields and topic tags
Study frame: A non-empirical study of the methodological literature on strategy and futures, examined as a conceptual and comparative object. Boundaries such as the time period, languages, sources, types of method and the criteria fo · Method signals: Systematic or scoping literature review, Conceptual mapping and comparative synthesis of methods, Thematic analysis of documented applications, limitations and gaps
Possible study pathways
One question, different levels
Honours
A bounded review of one or two named strategy and futures methods, mapping their stated uses, relationships and documented limitations within a defined set of sources.
Professional master’s / MBA
A practice-oriented mapping of foresight methods, organised around the situations in which they are used, with an emphasis on selecting and evaluating methods for strategic decision-making.
Research master’s
A systematic or scoping review that maps the strategy and futures method landscape, classifies methods by function and relationship, and identifies research and practice frontiers with explicit inclusion criteria.
Doctoral
A theory-building review that develops a integrative framework for how strategy and futures methods interact within strategic foresight, testing the framework's coverage against the literature and identifying a programme of future research.
- originality
- Moderate
- methodology
- Accessible
- Data access
- Accessible
- ethics
- Accessible
Quality and audit
77/100 quality
Independent safeguard audit passed.
- The idea is a coherent non-empirical literature mapping with a clear purpose: describing methods, their relationships, applications, limitations and frontiers.
- The study frame is broad. Defining the set of methods, sources, time period and effectiveness criteria at the design stage will strengthen it.
- The proposal's wording of the gap is exploratory and does not claim that the literature has been reviewed or that a gap has been established.
- Strategic foresight sits at the boundary of business, policy and futures studies, which gives the idea a recognised academic home.
Provenance
Contributor 9066AB
- Submitted through a verified account
- No external scholarly source is claimed
The public contributor code contains no name or account email.
Independent audit safeguards
Explicit audit checks
The site reports passed safeguards without presenting the model’s own confidence estimate as fact.
Faithful to the idea
The brief keeps the mapping aim, the questions about definitions, relationships, use, gaps and ineffectiveness, the guide output, and the frontiers focus.
No invented specifics
No population, dataset, location or source was invented. The study pathways and methods are generic suggestions consistent with a literature review. The scope text is truncated but adds no facts.
Anonymous-origin fairness
The absence of citations and credentials was not held against the idea.
Honest source support
Not applicable. This is an original idea.
No prestige weighting
No venue or credential information influenced the judgement.
Instructions ignored
The submission contains no embedded instructions or scoring manipulation.
Discipline-fair reading
A review and conceptual-mapping approach was assessed as appropriate for this field and the form of inquiry.