Involving speakers in research on their linguistic practices has been at the core of sociolinguistics since the inception of the field. In contrast to social sciences, however, sociolinguists have rarely addressed the issues surrounding the participation of those involved and engaged in the research process. This paper aims at reviewing the state of the art and outlining critical dimensions and aspects with relation to participation. We explore previous studies and study designs with the help of the following questions: Who has been involved? How and with what impact have stakeholders participated in different strands of sociolinguistic research? Current developments are presented and reviewed with particular reference to language expertise of those outside academia, as manifested in everyday talk about language, and the link between the production of this knowledge and social inequalities. We point out that the interconnectedness of everyday language expertise and social (in)equality can only be interpreted in highly localised contexts, whose diverse understandings and conceptualisations provide and, at the same time, limit the possibilities of social transformation.

The main aim of the paper is to present the synthesis of the results of methodological analysis conducted on examples of foresight projects executed in chosen companies representing four companies type: small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), nonprofit- organization, international corporations and consulting companies as well as to posit functional approach for the implementation of foresight research within organizations. The empirical part of the study is based on the qualitative approach. A multiple case study methodology is employed. The research objects are sixteen companies experienced in foresight research. The first part of the paper gives an overview of definitions of corporate foresight and the analysis of background that have influence on the conducting of foresight in large multinational companies on one side and SMEs on the other side. In the field of the theory of foresight research, the study demonstrates that there are different motivations for foresight introduction as well as different organizational structure of teams conducting the activities and the approaches that they use. In the practical perspective, the study and a detailed functional foresight approach proposed by authors could be valuable for SMEs who consider implementing foresight research into their strategic planning processes.