Temporally balanced management: Increasing long-term performance of the firm via balanced temporal trade-offs

Abstract

Time in management has been gaining traction since the 1980s but its incorporation in practice is still lacking. One reason is the ambiguous nature of temporality and its subjectivity in management. The purpose of this thesis was to study how companies can incorporate temporality into their decision-making by addressing strategic myopia in the corporate foresight practice. The research was performed as a theoretical study where a wide literature review on topics of strategic myopia, corporate foresight, long-term performance of the firm, and business sustainability was first compiled and then used as building blocks for synthesizing a novel concept of temporally balanced management.

Key insights on what competencies and practices are needed to address strategic myopia were compiled. By incorporating them in the corporate foresight practice a framework that describes how a balanced temporality can be achieved and what are the mechanics how it affects the business sustainability and long-term performance of the firm was established. The significance of these findings lies in their novelty; for the first time a study has combined both research of strategic myopia and corporate foresight together to answer not only how to gain valuable information from the business environment but also how to interpret it. This thesis also provides a working ground for future research to expand the concept of temporally balanced management by establishing a clear map of these formerly distinct concepts and how they relate to each other.