Probing the Future : Developing Organizational Foresight in the Knowledge Economy

Requisite variety has influenced concepts of environmental relations of organization for almost half a century. This article develops the concept of ‘requisite foresight’ on the basis of its roots in cybernetics and extends its applicability to contemporary knowledge management. Organization theory incorporating a temporal aspect and reaching for ‘requisite foresight’ challenges a dualistic and rigid interpretation of organizational environment. If considered within a network of organizations ‘distributed knowledge’ paves the way for ‘requisite foresight’. A ‘foresight’ approach explains prevalent perspectives in new e-business applications, like supply chain management and customer relationship management. Concluding, ‘requisite foresight’ merges strands of reasoning useful to the expansion of organizational models in the knowledge economy.