The impact of sectoral changes on individual competences: A reflective scenario-based approach in the creative industries

• We conceptualize the role of individuals in foresight literature.
• We develop an approach to integrate individuals' competences in scenario studies.
• We conducted a scenario study in 2010 for a scenario horizon for the year 2015.
• Reflective analysis in 2014 compares the results with real-world developments.
• We discuss overlappings, unanticipated impacts and our learnings.

Many foresight studies concentrate on technological foresight and its impact at the organizational level. However, often these studies overlook the soft factor of employee competences which is critical to adopting technological and organizational changes and to developing the necessary innovation capabilities. This study investigates the theoretical and methodological underdeveloped relationship between technological innovation and social initiated change and the impact on individual competences in a dynamic sector. The setting of our study is the turbulent creative industries as a whole, where creative and artistic expression merges with changing technological progress. In a scenario study we mainly conducted in 2010, we developed a scenario model for competences to combine individual competences with a scenario approach to investigate how competences are important to the sector shift or need to be enhanced in the future. We use primary qualitative data from expert interviews and workshops and secondary data from industry reports to identify thirty-seven influence factors. An influence matrix calculation and a cluster analysis are used to project three different scenarios presenting how future developments of the creative industries will influence the competences needed for creative occupations. Now, five years later, we reflect the accuracy of the developed scenarios via a comparison of today's situation with the situation in the scenarios. We discuss theoretical contributions for the foresight literature and practical implementations for the future of work in general, and in particular for the creative industries case.