Tackling Grand Challenges Pragmatically: Robust Action Revisited

In this article, we theorize a novel approach to addressing the world’s grand challenges based on the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism and the sociological concept of robust action. Grounded in prior empirical organizational research, we identify three robust strategies that organizati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization studies Vol. 36; no. 3; pp. 363 - 390
Main Authors: Ferraro, Fabrizio, Etzion, Dror, Gehman, Joel
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2015
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Action
Challenges
Climate change
Distribution
Experiments
Organizational research
Organizations
Poverty
Poverty alleviation
Pragmatism
Strategic planning
Studies
Theory
U.S.A
Uncertainty
Valuation
complexity
robust action
uncertainty
pragmatism
evaluativity
ISSN:0170-8406, 1741-3044
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In this article, we theorize a novel approach to addressing the world’s grand challenges based on the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism and the sociological concept of robust action. Grounded in prior empirical organizational research, we identify three robust strategies that organizations can employ in tackling issues such as climate change and poverty alleviation: participatory architecture, multivocal inscriptions and distributed experimentation. We demonstrate how these strategies operate, the manner in which they are linked, the outcomes they generate, and why they are applicable for resolving grand challenges. We conclude by discussing our contributions to research on robust action and grand challenges, as well as some implications for research on stakeholder theory, institutional theory and theories of valuation.
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ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840614563742