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This paper aims to propose a new strategic foresight process that combines aspects from science fiction, speculative design and tools linked to organizational processes, first, to generate potential new services and products and, second, to reduce problems associated with the construction of low-impact and irrelevant scenarios for decision-making processes. As a new proposal, it invites reflection and debate.

After reviewing the literature on the key concepts that represent the essence of strategic foresight, as well as the traditional processes to reflect on the future, a proposal for a new hybrid, integrative foresight process that allows moving from imagination to the materialization of scenarios will be presented.

The new hybrid process makes evident the need to articulate strategic foresight with other areas of knowledge and management tools to build scenarios with greater impact on decision-making and greater added value from strategic foresight to organizational processes.

The proposed integrative model articulates tools that already exist, but the originality of the proposal lies in that there are no models that integrate science fiction, speculative design, and other organizational tools in a single process.

The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective biography, ideational versus ideological reading, internal versus external analysis, etc. The chapter outlines key elements about Perroux’s trajectory showing the entanglements and boundaries of science and politics in the transition from democratic to authoritarian rule and vice versa. A particular emphasis on uncertainties and adjustments shows, against the tendency to a teleological explanation induced by a linear interpretation of his career, that different paths were considered by Perroux, but that his choices were nevertheless constrained by the forces of both the scientific and political fields.

A foresight process was put in place to examine potential developments that can affect the world food situation in 2030 to identify the most useful areas for European Union (EU) policy intervention.

Four interactive workshops involving over 100 experts were organised. The structure of the foresight was designed based on the following five objectives: envision the future of food systems, agree on the most crucial drivers of change affecting food security, reach a consensus on a likely vision for 2030, challenge this vision and analyse current policies and policy needs in terms of responsiveness and resilience to food security future challenges.

The study contains four key messages accompanied by several related policy recommendations for the immediate and medium term to enable the EU to contribute to achieving food security by 2030. These refer to the transformation of agriculture production systems, the enabling environment, trends in production and consumption and demand-driven food systems as important determinants of sustainable food security. The study recommends a stronger coherence and coordination between different EU policies impacting food security. The development of urban areas is an overlooked challenge for food security as well as the contribution of trade and demand-side dynamics.

This is one of the very few attempts to look at food security with a system approach. A new paradigm shift is proposed: securing “regular” access to adequate food for the majority of the 8-9 billion people who will live on earth in the period 2030-2050, while addressing the food insecurity of a fraction of that total, is how a future European food security policy should be approached.

Notwithstanding the importance innovation scholars have accredited to design-driven innovation (DDI), no attempts have been made so far to systematically study whether and how this innovation strategy can be used in the retail context in order to gain and nurture competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to make a first step towards closing this gap, and therefore understand whether and how companies involved in retail service can create competitive advantage by the adoption of a strategy based on innovation of meanings.

Due to the complex ecosystem of variables that inevitably influence the problem, the case study approach represents the best option to grasp the different aspects highlighted by the research objectives. The analysis undertook a thorough and systematic comparison with the use of an ad hoc “paired comparison method”, in which common systemic characteristics have been intended as a controlled variable in order to minimise the variance and quantity of factors that can have an impact on the selected case studies; intersystemic differences have been understood as explanatory variables to decree the contribution in terms of novelty in relation to the current paradigm.

The paper provides empirical insights about how radical innovation in meanings can be a very important lever on which retail firms can act to gain and nurture their competitive advantage.

Of course the study has several limitations, which represent however opportunities for future research. The authors say that the findings, given the exploratory nature of the study, cannot be generalised to any population of firms or markets, rather they should be used as a basis to develop theoretical understanding of a complex phenomenon and draw research propositions and hypotheses to be tested in subsequent deductive empirical research.

This paper highlights the importance to think, beyond shopping experience, at the role of new meanings when designing service innovation in retail firms. Although the findings do not have statistical relevance, given the exploratory nature of the study, they suggest that DDI can be a viable option for retail firm managers to improve their firms’ competitiveness.

The study presented in this paper has merit to broaden the generalisability of the DDI model to other industries, different from those where it was initially studied and applied. This is an important step toward conceptualising DDI as a novel management paradigm.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information about each source is provided. The paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Structural analysis is designed to deal with patterns which exist in the human mind and, thereby, impact the ways in which people act and respond to circumstances. As such, structural analysis has value in situations involving consumer choice and preference. Historically, structural analysis, in both literary criticism and consumer research, has tended to be static in nature. Marketing managers, however, are interested in cultural dynamics and what influences consumer preferences and buying patterns as they evolve through time. Here a structural interpretation which is linked to a socio/economic deterministic model, will be used to analyze two popular television series (The Fugitive and Mission Impossible) which were originally aired in the 1960s and were remade into blockbuster feature films in the 1990s. This example will explore the value of a dynamic structural model within marketing management.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information is provided about each source, and the paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This paper aims to contribute to international business research by providing an integrative framework of the factors determining the learning process of outsourcing companies in developing countries.

A systematic review of the literature was performed with an analysis of 84 articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals, published between 2000 and 2020.

The results show that the different factors should be seen as complementary and not mutually exclusive. It is the interaction between macro and micro factors that jointly shape the learning of developing country subcontractors. Moreover, the results of the analysis show that many existing studies have not been based on specific theoretical frameworks.

This study develops a roadmap of the current state of research on the determinants of learning among developing country subcontractors and offers suggestions to guide future research. The authors conclude with a call for methodological advancement and theory development on the topic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study proposes the first comprehensive review of the literature on the factors determining the learning of subcontractors in developing countries. The authors have tried to provide an integrative analytical framework to discuss what has been known and what needs to be known in this regard.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

The findings provide information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.