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What are the implications of the global financial crisis and its aftermath, regionally and globally, for Africa taking a 5‐15 year view? The purpose of this paper is to outline a set of four post‐crisis global economic scenarios to 2020, and will consider their impacts across a range of low income countries.

The scenarios were developed using a version of the morphological scenarios approach, Field anomaly relaxation (FAR). This approach creates a backdrop of internally consistent futures for policy formation and decision making through identifying and analysing the most significant drivers of change within the global financial and political system. This was then linked to a modelling approach to identify country impacts. The work was developed and tested with stakeholders in the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Scenarios are plausible, coherent, multiple views of the future, which enable policy‐makers and managers to evaluate strategy or policy choices under conditions of uncertainty. The work creates a structured approach to reviewing outcomes for growth, poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals for different types of developing economies, against the background of the financial crisis.

The work was conducted for a public sector client in the United Kingdom, with a limited budget and a limited timescale.

The combination of scenarios and modelling, applied to the field of development, enables greater clarity about the choices presently facing developing African nations. In particular, the economic typology used shows that for the majority of African countries, strategies which improve resilience in the face of rising energy costs and possible food shortages will also generate economic opportunities.

Innovatively, the scenarios were tightly connected to a “soft” model which identifies possible pathways, causal linkages and transmission variables between the scenarios and associated levels of economic growth and poverty reduction via key economic variables. This permits more granular interpretation of the scenario outcomes than conventional scenario analysis techniques.

The paper explains how scenarios can be used to create alternative models of markets in way that is useful to marketing managers and the product development team.

The paper outlines the how‐to process for developing and using marketing scenarios.

The paper finds that marketing scenarios can help leaders improve their understanding of future customer behavior; be used with focus groups to test reactions to different products in varying future contexts; be translated into physical environments that help focus groups to “live” in the future; be useful in developing brand strategy and in testing the sustainability of brands; uncover a wider range of choices than those perceived by competitors, facilitating customer preference and longer‐term relationships and explore uncertainty and can help to anticipate new value propositions.

One of the benefits of shorter‐term scenarios is that rather than pointing marketers towards a range of alternative possible industry futures, they are more likely to steer them towards a range of developing market opportunities. Several of the scenarios are likely to play out at the same time in different parts of the market. This means they can help marketers to identify both the sectors where their offering can be competitive and the sectors where it will flounder.

The paper presents several advantages of using marketing analysis tools to analyze a number of potential futures: for example, to gain a perspective beyond the current ones (timeframe, markets, organizational); and also to provide a framework for a discussion of priorities and assumptions that have all ready been made in the organization's “official future.”

This editorial aims to summarize the outcome of the Special Issue exploration on the theme “Is Africa the land of the future?”.

The paper contextualises and synthesizes the set of Africa‐themed foresight papers included in the journal issue.

The exploration concludes that Africa faces a range of internal and external opportunities and challenges. These are historical, geopolitical, economic, demographic, psychological, and intellectual. Key drivers and analyses identified by seven authors are briefly presented.

The restricted number of papers that could be included in the single issue required a narrow selection from a large set of good papers and subject coverage. The issue and editorial therefore only address a few of the key drivers, in addition to some broad, foundational issues.

Neither mere optimism nor pessimism will determine Africa's ultimate trajectory. Concerted ownership, foresight and collective action by Africa's leaders and followers are the key to positive futures for the continent.

The Special Issue is a unique contemporary African foresight contribution, which aims to provide a deeper understanding of the emerging challenges and opportunities for the continent.

Discusses the importance of adopting an integrated approach. The need for a wide range of services is initially required encompassing catering, communication, office furniture, equipment, etc. and all their sundry attachments plus the fabric of the building. Further shows that facilities management of buildings is necessary to operate effectively in business premises.

The evolving information systems (IS) field has been the subject of much research and observation in recent years. Much of the work has been US based. By contrast, this empirical survey analyses the current state of IS practices within UK‐based organizations. The survey evaluates the extent of computer usage within the UK at a general level, as well as focusing on specific areas such as management support systems, IS strategic planning and strategic alignment of business and IS. Where possible, compares the results of this survey with previous surveys and forecasts, and analyses differences. Identifies topics worthy of further investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the province over time has addressed problems that are generic to many jurisdictions in assuring quality: level of aggregation, pooling, definition of new and continuing programs, scope of jurisdiction, role of governors, performance indicators, relationship to accreditation, programs versus credentials, benchmarking and isomorphism. The paper will pay particular attention to the balance between institutional autonomy in promoting quality and innovation in contrast to system-wide standards for assuring quality. The Province of Ontario has had some form of quality assurance since 1969. For most of the period since then, there were separate forms for undergraduate and graduate programs. Eligibility for public funding is based on the assurance of quality by a buffer body. In 2010, after two years of work, a province-wide task force devised a new framework.

The structure of the paper is a series of “problem/solution” discussions, for example, aggregation, pooling, isomorphism and jurisdiction.

Some problems are generic, for example, how to define a “new” program. Assuring quality and enhancing quality are fundamentally different in terms of process.

Although many of the problems discussed are generic, the paper is based on the experience of one jurisdiction.

The article will be useful in post-secondary systems seeking to balance autonomy and innovation with central accountability and standardization. It is particularly applicable to undifferentiated systems.

Implications for public policy are mainly about locating the most effective center of gravity between assuring quality and enhancing quality, and between promoting quality and ensuring accountability.

The approach of the discussion and analysis is novel, and the results portable.

The purpose of this paper is to show that a proactive sourcing strategy can be just as important as a proactive marketing strategy in achieving sustainable competitive advantage.

The paper reports on action research carried out in the UK beef industry, with a focus on the food service supply chain. The methodology is inductive and qualitative, using a multi‐case, multi‐site approach. The supply chains presented in the case were analysed from farm gate to consumer, interviewing multiple participants at each stage of the supply chain.

This study offers some partial support for configuration‐based approaches. However, the case also raises some doubts about the validity of configuration thinking, as it is not the complexity or ambiguity of the relationships that is key in the case, but the fact that brand ownership and contracts create property rights for their owner that create a relatively permanent power resource for Pioneer, the case study company, in its market struggle with its customers and competitors. This interpretation supports the power and property rights views of strategic management rather than the configuration approach.

The research is based upon in‐depth knowledge of the UK beef and red meat industry. It would be beneficial if further in‐depth studies could be undertaken in other agri‐food supply chains to further validate the findings.

Although the focus of this article has been upon choosing appropriate sourcing strategies, the case study has also illustrated the importance for business managers of linking this sourcing strategy with a firm's marketing, and more specifically its branding strategy.

The paper analyses the key differences in demand, supply and power and leverage characteristics in the food service beef supply chain to highlight the need for government agencies, think‐tanks and industry participants to have a more robust understanding of industries before advocating the adoption of any one approach for all UK agri‐food supply chains. This paper should be of value to researchers in this area and to managers responsible for strategy formation in UK agri‐food supply chains.

Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid venture creation represents a significant opportunity for Indigenous peoples to build vibrant Indigenous-led economies that support sustainable economic development and well-being. It is a means by which they can assert their rights to design, develop and maintain Indigenous-centric political, economic and social systems and institutions. In order to develop an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the intersection between Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid ventures, this chapter adopts a case study approach to examining Indigenous entrepreneurship and the underlying global trends that have influenced the design, structure and mission of Indigenous hybrid ventures. The cases present how Indigenous entrepreneurial ventures are, first and foremost, hybrid ventures that are responsive to community needs, values, cultures and traditions. They demonstrate that Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid ventures are more successful when the rights of Indigenous peoples are addressed and when these initiatives are led by or engage Indigenous communities. The chapter concludes with a conceptual model that can be applied to generate insights into the complex interrelationships and interdependencies that influence the formation of Indigenous hybrid ventures and value creation strategies according to three dimensions: (i) the overarching dimension of indigeneity and Indigenous rights; (ii) indigenous community orientations and (iii) indigenous hybrid venture creation considerations.