Environmental scanning of Iran's tobacco industry: the first step in strategic foresight process

The existence of uncertainties, complexities, and ambiguity is one of the structural features of the tobacco industry for the country's planners in the current era. Traditional planning and strategy tools are no longer appropriate in such a situation. Therefore, the aim of the current research is environmental scanning of the factors affecting the strategic foresight of the tobacco industry in Iran. In fact, this research seeks to answer the question of which environmental factors can be effective in achieving the desired future of the Iranian tobacco industry. Environmental scanning is one of the methods of strategic foresight which is to identify, understand, evaluate, and prioritize responses to environmental issues and changes. The purpose of environmental scanning is to give a timely warning to the decision-makers so that they have enough time to react appropriately. The current research is pragmatic in terms of philosophical basis, exploratory in terms of purpose, and applied-development in terms of orientation. The theoretical community of the research is experts and senior managers of the tobacco industry and academic experts selected by judgmental sampling. To scan the environmental factors affecting the strategic foresight of the tobacco industry, in the first step, 66 environmental factors were counted through a systematic review of the research background using the Meta-synthesis method and interviews with industry experts, and then the most important ones were identified using the Delphi method. The 28 screened drivers of the future of Iran's tobacco industry were categorized into economic, individual, and psychological, smuggling, technological, political and legal, social, governance, environmental, health, and marketing groups.