Scenarios and the Delphi Method -A Perspective from the Contributions of North American Authors

This article seeks to identify the North American contributions to the
foresight framed in studies on scenarios and the Delphi method. For this
purpose two search equations were made in the Scopus database, with
the keywords “foresight, “Delphi Method” and “Scenarios. In order to
find papers on Delphi applications and scenarios, based on the results
obtained, an in-depth analysis was carried out on the documents of
authors from the United States and Canada. In the search equation one,
focused on scenarios, 66 papers were found, and 50 papers in the search
equation focused on the Delphi method. From these 116 papers, 20 were
studies conducted by authors from North America. Among the most
important results, the contributions against methods and techniques
used for Delphi such as Delphi policy, focus groups and WEB Tool for
Delphi in real-time are highlighted. In scenarios, they made
contributions in serious games, game cards, imaginative narratives, and
sensitivity analysis. It was also found that North America, in the sample
analysed, has collaborated with 17 percent of the total of papers for
scenarios, and in Delphi, 14 percent. In scenarios that take into
consideration the top five countries, North America contributes 30
percent – a figure higher than the 20 percent of France, which is
considered the country of origin of the scenarios. Whereas with Delphi
in the top four countries, North America is the region that contributes
the most, with 25 percent, equal with Japan.
Key words: Foresight, methods, scenarios, Delphi, North America.