Corporate planning , forecasting , and the long wave

Technology will play at least as vital a role in the 21st century as it did in the 20th. Therefore , it is important to address technology-related issues facing futures studies. My own two decades of experience in corporate planning and three in professional journal editing suggest a correlation of technological innovation clusters, corporate planning, and technological forecasting with the well known 50–60-year long wave cycles. We observe the knowledge consolidation associated with the fourth long wave upswing phase, as well as the creative destruction and knowledge innovation corresponding to the fourth downswing. Implications for planners in the approaching fifth long wave upswing are considered. on technological innovation waves, as well as that done by Kondratiev and others on economic prosperity–recession–depression–recovery cycles, suggests a long wave pattern consistent over 200 years[1]. Each such wave lasts about 50–60 years (see Fig. 1 [2, p. 151]). 2 It is observed that the upswing (recovery–prosperity) phase is * Fax: +1-760-360-4070. 1968, editor-in-chief of the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 2 The years given at the top of Fig. 1 should be viewed as approximate. Devezas and Corredine posit that the long wave rhythm is determined by biological clocks, not by economic or geophysical factors [3]. As Fig. 1 suggests, beginning with the Revolution, American wars (with the exception of Korea) have occurred at generational intervals of approximately 25 years, or twice per long wave [2]. However,