ABSTRACT

Forecasting the future of teams and businesses in an environment of global so cial and technological complexity is always a precarious business and more so the further ahead we try to envisage their impact. Disruptive changes in technology are complex and seep across and through human society and culture in often-unexpected ways. So some imaginative projection and analysis are re quired for longer-term views to be more than highly speculative. We don’t have jet cars or hovercraft as some speculated. We do have the worldwide web, online ban king social media, free video calls and the ‘Internet of things’ alongside a ‘24/7’ ‘always on’ culture increasingly spreading across global demographic and geographic domains.

Postindustrial enterprises run on intangible assets, such as information, research, development, brand equity, capacity for innovation, and human resources. Yet none of these intangible assets appear on a balance sheet. This is another way of saying that, according to today’s accounting practices, the worth of a brand name like Citibank or Ford has no value.

(Low and Kalafut, 2002, p. 97)