9.1 Limitations
9.1.3 Research Process Limitations
Without an already approved discourse in regards to Scenario Planning we are running a risk of weakening the validity of our findings by using semi-structured expert interviews. The experts that we use have in some cases a different perspectives and understanding of the discourse for Scenario Planning, which we have applied in this thesis.
In order to limit the risk of the above we attached an abstract in the email we sent to the interviewees. By doing so we ran a risk in regards to jeopardising validity by potentially assimilating the approach taken by our interviewee. In the end we found it important due to our goal of obtaining empirical data from the expert’s based around the same discourse of Scenario Planning.
Our experience as interviewers was limited at the time when we conducted the interviews. This could mean that our interviewees have been able to deliver a message that could potentially an either positive or negative bias, which can have had an effect on validity.
9.2 Future Research Perspectives
In the process of writing the thesis an extensive amount of literature has been processed expanding our insights on Scenario Planning. From the point of commencement the understanding of the tool has developed enormously and throughout our writing process new and different perspectives has kept appearing. Many of the perspectives altered our ongoing approach to the thesis as our increasing level of knowledge opened new and interesting paths. The fact that things appear clearer in hindsight is nothing new; however it is interesting to assess all the different approaches that could have been taken in the research.
An obvious idea to what future researchers could investigate is what insights other theories than System and Evolutionary Theory could produce. Many scholars call for Scenario Planning to establish theoretical roots, and hopefully our study has contributed to this, however many other theories could be relevant in applying to Scenario Planning (Chermack, 2004). Examples could be: Learning theory, cognitive development theory, decision theory and performance improvement theory (Chermack, 2004). Even repeating our choice of theories could have been interesting in terms of knowing whether the results would equal ours, or deviate significantly.
Another potentially interesting approach to Scenario Planning could be to assess the actual performance implications the tool give rise to. Throughout the Scenario Planning community there is widespread agreement that the tool has unique capabilities that are valuable for almost any organization. This seems to be supported by the extensive use of Scenario Planning among businesses however very little evidence
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actually exist on the concrete results derived from applying the tool. An interesting research topic could be a quantitative assessment of what the tangible benefits are from deploying Scenario Planning in an organization.
Investigating the following tangible topics in an in-depth company case-study could for example be interesting: “How much cost did Scenario Planning save the company?”, “how did the employee learning patterns develop?”, or “has the organization developed significantly after applying Scenario Planning?”
Achieving hard data on topics like mentioned above would strengthen the understanding of Scenario Planning from an quantitative point of view, providing a tangible understanding of the benefits of using the tool.
Integrated in above research lies a central question of how to assess the value of Scenario Planning. Value might derive from actual cost savings that can be achieved by applying scenarios, whereas other savings are related to the increased understanding of the contextual environment. Related to these difficult questions appear further research into how the value of employees mental models changing can be assessed. All of this would have to be part of a value-assessing investigation, which definitely would provide interesting knowledge.
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