A warning trigger: a study of the integration of Weak Signal Theory and the anticipation framework into China's policy to ban plastic waste import

Today, institutions and corporations are situated in a fast-growing environment with constant changers. Many studies have shown that to keep up with the changing world, corporations need to be more innovative. Many of these organization have pursued open innovation by monitoring and converging knowledge to remain competitive. Organizations that can quickly identify changes and even weak signals in their environment and react to them will gain a decisive edge. The term weak signal was first introduced by Ansoff (1975) who claimed that for long-range planning or strategic-planning, and categorized information, organization should examine strong signals and weak signals. Weak signals can become clearer or might disappear over time. As a decision-support tool, weak signals are used to scan the environment and make systems more sensitive to emerging changes. Upon interpretation, the signal becomes characterized not as weak, but as an early warning signal. According to Hiltumen (2010), weak signals can help to break prevailing mental models and encourage organizations to think differently. This in turns, enables them to be more innovative about the futures (Ansoff, Kipley, Lewis, Helm-Stevens & Ansoff, 2018). Weak signals analysis, as a specific firesight methodology, can contribute to the emergence of a learning or adaptive policy-making both in private organizations and public administrations (Metcalfe, 2003)