Bridging the foresight-action gap: A Behaviourally Enabled Strategic Foresight framework (BESF) for SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increasingly operate in environments characterised by technological acceleration, regulatory change, market volatility, sustainability pressures, and shifting competitive conditions. Strategic foresight can strengthen organisational preparedness by enabling firms to identify emerging developments, explore uncertainty, and consider alternative futures. Yet recognising strategically relevant change does not necessarily result in timely organisational response. This conceptual paper addresses this problem by introducing the Foresight- Action Gap, defined as the behavioural and organisational distance between recognising a strategically relevant future development and initiating an appropriate strategic response. Drawing on strategic foresight, behavioural decision-making, digital nudging, managerial attention, and dynamic capabilities, the paper develops a Behaviourally Enabled Strategic Foresight (BESF) framework tailored to the characteristics of SMEs. BESF integrates six functions: sensing, interpretation, anticipation, prioritisation, action, and organisational learning. The framework proposes that context-sensitive digital nudges can reduce specific behavioural frictions within this process while preserving managerial autonomy. Rather than assuming that nudging universally improves decisions, it emphasises friction-intervention fit and organisational context. The paper develops six theoretical propositions and a staged empirical agenda for validating the Foresight-Action Gap and the BESF framework.