Strengthening Transformational Change And Sustainable Knowledge Transfer: Insights From An Engineering Research Organization With An Interdisciplinary Future Orientation

Abstract

Engineering research often tends to take a strong technology-centric view leaving out important driving factors such as political, economic or ecological perspectives. Such a techno-centric perspective hinders the dialogue with important stakeholders inside and outside the organization on long-term socio-economic developments of technologies including opportunities and barriers. It can also be a showstopper to new technologies as external future developments are not fully considered. In this paper, I argue that engineering research needs a wider perspective that considers the past, present and future of driving forces of technologies. Such an approach looks for tipping points from one dimension to another, e.g. from politics to the market or ecology to technology. In widening the perspective throughout the entire technology lifecycle, transformational pathways can be better perceived, analyzed and integrated into the development process. This paper presents case studies from a large engineering organization with more than 10.000 employees using methods from foresight and innovation management like future questions, future theses, scenarios, roadmaps and ai/big data approaches. It is shown how diverse and complex organizations can organize knowledge on technologies and prepare for future technology demand from various perspectives such as politics, sustainability requirements or markets. Furthermore, the presented methods show how interorganizational and interdisciplinary knowledge transfer can enhance external technology transfer.