The Research Field of External Search

Abstract

As outlined in the previous chapter, leveraging external knowledge to search for early signs of future developments in the organizational environment has always been an important part of corporate foresight (Becker, 2002a; Rohrbeck and Gemünden, 2008) and has recently been reinforced with respect to the field of open and user innovation (Daheim and Uerz, 2008; Miemis et al., 2012). Following a recent call from literature (Rohrbeck et al., 2015), a stronger integration of foresight research with behavioral theory and in particular external search literature is considered important to gain a deeper understanding of forward-looking external search practices.