B3EL115 Organizing for grand challenges
Introduction & grand challenges
Central questions in this course:
Why does it seem so hard to tackle grand challenges?
What makes grand challenges so complex?
What is the role of innovation for tackling grand challenges?
How does innovation for impact look like?
How do such innovations differ from business innovations?
What are possibilities and limits of innovations to tackle grand challenges?
Grand challenges
Grand challenges: are formalizations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through
coordinated and collaborative effort.
3 characteristics of grand challenges:
- Complex
“Problem is made up of many components that constantly influence each other. Nonlinear
dynamics mean that these influences are often unpredictable and appear random. Leading to
vicious feedback loops.”
o Ex. Law of unintended consequences -> Cobra effect. When a policy intended to solve a
problem actually makes it worse or even crates a entirely new problem
o Entailing many interactions and associations, emergent understandings, and nonlinear
dynamics
- Uncertainty
“Second, grand challenges confront organizations with radical uncertainty, by which we
mean that actor cannot define the possible future states of the world, and therefore cannot
forecast the consequences of their present actions of whether future others will appreciate
them.”
o Grand challenges are highly uncertain, and the problem cannot be defined from the start
as it will develop and change over time.
o Example: COVID-19 development from a disease -> epidemic -> pandemic
- Evaluative
“And third, grand challenges are evaluative, cutting across jurisdictional boundaries,
implicating multiple criteria of worth, and revealing new concerns even as they are being
tackled.”
o Grand challenges cut across asocial, economic, and environmental domains, affecting
many different sectors.
o Many different stakeholders are involved that have different understandings and therefore
approaches to the problem
- Social issue: people in need of protection a medical assistance
- Economic issue: financial burden on host country’s economy
- Environmental issue: overuse of scare natural resources around refugee camps
o Example climate change: three different understandings
- Profligacy story (extravagant consumption a production patterns of the global North
as causes of climate change)
- Hierarchy story (depicts climate change as a tragedy of the global commons
attributable to het lack of global governance and planning)
- Individualistic story (considers climate change as a minor problem, can be solved)
Understanding grand challenges:
- Simple problems:
, Solving an equation, playing chess, going to the moon
Require elegant solutions: straight forward solutions
- Grand challenges:
Land degradation, managing refugee crisis, tackling a pandemic, reducing CO2 emissions
Require complex problem solving
Wicked problem 4 characteristics:
1. There is no clear formulation
2. Unique
3. No stopping rules
4. Every problem is symptom of another problem
Tackling grand challenges through innovation for impact
Innovation for impact: “The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that
creates sustainable value for society”
Different types of innovation for impact:
- Social -> iris
- Frugal -> inflatable incubator
- Technology -> refugee camp
- Collaborative
- Ecosystem or mission-oriented innovation -> fair trade
Levels: macro (ecosystem innovation), meso (collaborative innovation) and micro (social innovation
and technology for good)
Outcome view versus process view on innovation:
It is time to move from innovation as an ideology to innovation as a process -> article
Outcome view: Meanwhile, organizations that are the main locus of innovation activities are mostly
treated as a black box and we know little about how social innovation develops within these
organizations
Process view: means opening up the black box and considering the different steps and pathways that
lead to the innovation
Linear or cyclical (going back and forth) process view?
- What are advantages of process view on innovation for impact?
o Allows to answer ‘how’ questions (opens up black boxes)
o Lays out the different seps of innovation
o Helps to assess the innovation horizon
o May help to sustain the innovation over time
- What is specific about a cyclical process view?
o Bonus of cyclical process view:
Captures complexity and messiness of innovations
Discloses feedback loops between different steps of the process (also vicious)
Illustrates the (partly) random and overlapping steps
Includes failing as important step
Astro Teller: you must fail in order to succeed (get reinvention of the innovation)
Innovation for impact: different activities and tools
Material on Canvas, https://padlet.com/CorinnaRSM/4cd2cl575rrie0e8
1. Experimentation:
2. Design thinking: to take a problem and look at it form an different perspective. You can
either look from a closer or a further perspective to it. You’ll do this by setting opposites or
extremes, in this way you come up with the less obvious solutions you otherwise wouldn’t
think of.
Introduction & grand challenges
Central questions in this course:
Why does it seem so hard to tackle grand challenges?
What makes grand challenges so complex?
What is the role of innovation for tackling grand challenges?
How does innovation for impact look like?
How do such innovations differ from business innovations?
What are possibilities and limits of innovations to tackle grand challenges?
Grand challenges
Grand challenges: are formalizations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through
coordinated and collaborative effort.
3 characteristics of grand challenges:
- Complex
“Problem is made up of many components that constantly influence each other. Nonlinear
dynamics mean that these influences are often unpredictable and appear random. Leading to
vicious feedback loops.”
o Ex. Law of unintended consequences -> Cobra effect. When a policy intended to solve a
problem actually makes it worse or even crates a entirely new problem
o Entailing many interactions and associations, emergent understandings, and nonlinear
dynamics
- Uncertainty
“Second, grand challenges confront organizations with radical uncertainty, by which we
mean that actor cannot define the possible future states of the world, and therefore cannot
forecast the consequences of their present actions of whether future others will appreciate
them.”
o Grand challenges are highly uncertain, and the problem cannot be defined from the start
as it will develop and change over time.
o Example: COVID-19 development from a disease -> epidemic -> pandemic
- Evaluative
“And third, grand challenges are evaluative, cutting across jurisdictional boundaries,
implicating multiple criteria of worth, and revealing new concerns even as they are being
tackled.”
o Grand challenges cut across asocial, economic, and environmental domains, affecting
many different sectors.
o Many different stakeholders are involved that have different understandings and therefore
approaches to the problem
- Social issue: people in need of protection a medical assistance
- Economic issue: financial burden on host country’s economy
- Environmental issue: overuse of scare natural resources around refugee camps
o Example climate change: three different understandings
- Profligacy story (extravagant consumption a production patterns of the global North
as causes of climate change)
- Hierarchy story (depicts climate change as a tragedy of the global commons
attributable to het lack of global governance and planning)
- Individualistic story (considers climate change as a minor problem, can be solved)
Understanding grand challenges:
- Simple problems:
, Solving an equation, playing chess, going to the moon
Require elegant solutions: straight forward solutions
- Grand challenges:
Land degradation, managing refugee crisis, tackling a pandemic, reducing CO2 emissions
Require complex problem solving
Wicked problem 4 characteristics:
1. There is no clear formulation
2. Unique
3. No stopping rules
4. Every problem is symptom of another problem
Tackling grand challenges through innovation for impact
Innovation for impact: “The process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that
creates sustainable value for society”
Different types of innovation for impact:
- Social -> iris
- Frugal -> inflatable incubator
- Technology -> refugee camp
- Collaborative
- Ecosystem or mission-oriented innovation -> fair trade
Levels: macro (ecosystem innovation), meso (collaborative innovation) and micro (social innovation
and technology for good)
Outcome view versus process view on innovation:
It is time to move from innovation as an ideology to innovation as a process -> article
Outcome view: Meanwhile, organizations that are the main locus of innovation activities are mostly
treated as a black box and we know little about how social innovation develops within these
organizations
Process view: means opening up the black box and considering the different steps and pathways that
lead to the innovation
Linear or cyclical (going back and forth) process view?
- What are advantages of process view on innovation for impact?
o Allows to answer ‘how’ questions (opens up black boxes)
o Lays out the different seps of innovation
o Helps to assess the innovation horizon
o May help to sustain the innovation over time
- What is specific about a cyclical process view?
o Bonus of cyclical process view:
Captures complexity and messiness of innovations
Discloses feedback loops between different steps of the process (also vicious)
Illustrates the (partly) random and overlapping steps
Includes failing as important step
Astro Teller: you must fail in order to succeed (get reinvention of the innovation)
Innovation for impact: different activities and tools
Material on Canvas, https://padlet.com/CorinnaRSM/4cd2cl575rrie0e8
1. Experimentation:
2. Design thinking: to take a problem and look at it form an different perspective. You can
either look from a closer or a further perspective to it. You’ll do this by setting opposites or
extremes, in this way you come up with the less obvious solutions you otherwise wouldn’t
think of.
