FACING UP TO GLOBAL CHALLENGES: IDENTIFYING TECHNOLOGICAL TRAJECTORIES AND PARADIGMS USING VIGILANCE AND PROSPECTIVE PROCESSES

摘要

New economic models make the development of great technological developments a must. These will allow us to face the current challenges and those of the future as well, in order to guarantee sustainability and the growth of different economic sectors. The conceptual framework of technological paradigms and technological trajectories associated to them allow the understanding of the dynamics in the evolution of new technologies in the global context (Dosi; Perez). For organizations that are facing global challenges today, to understand the evolution of trajectories that are relevant for their sectors (or the surging of new trajectories) and the subjacent technological paradigms in such dynamics are crucial for the adaptation capacity and projection of companies in an environment that is becoming more dynamic each time. The identification of such trajectories and the elicitation of paradigms may be supported by the compound use of both vigilance and technological prospective disciplines. This article centers on the interaction between focus and vigilance and prospective tools in order to recognize technological trajectories associated to global dynamics as well as paradigms that take form thanks to new schemes of interaction of the XXI century. In order to take on this investigation, it was begun as a process of Technological Vigilance through which patterns of behavior in the technological environment were identified and which allowed the inference of goals and development landmarks to reach, which are proper to technological trajectory as well as comparisons of current technological developments, recognition of levels of maturity and affinity to performance and functional goals established as landmarks to reach. Afterwards, through Technological Prospective, expectations and subjacent visions are revised in the vigilance as a way to identify possible paradigms that will give way to the visions of the future and desirable future. In this sense, a prospective process supported in the previous vigilance applied to technological trajectories can give an idea, not only of a shared vision, but also of paradigms (or changes in paradigm) that support and transform such visions. Continuing this process, organizations can evaluate sustainability, permanence in time and affinity to globalization in future scenarios, which contributes to a firm base in which company objectives can be defined alongside innovation. As a consequence, there will be an increase in strategic advantages since there can be market positioning previous to that of the competition and in a more solid way. Following the previous logic, certain patterns and technological tendencies can be identified, which are more appropriate in order to face the global challenges in the sectors that are taken on and which serve as an aid to improve competitiveness of organizations and to reduce uncertainty in relation to the future.