This dissertation studies how grand challenge partnerships, i.e., networks of organizations and individuals, integrate and coordinate their efforts towards a shared system-level goal in conditions of absent formal authority. The thesis consists of four individual papers, each exploring the phenomenon of grand challenge partnerships from a distinct organization design perspective: Coordination. How task coordination contingent upon different modes of division of labor unfolds and ultimately influences cooperation. Control. How designers without formal authority can motivate integrable effort among interdependent individual contributors. Channelization. How organizational structures regulate attention in often unintended ways. Crowdsourced search. How rhetorical strategies can stimulate idea sharing in a distant search for solutions to grand challenge problems. Overall, the dissertation illustrates the importance of advancing research on grand challenge partnerships by examining how they solve universal problems of organizing in ways attuned to their specific characteristics. From an organization design perspective, grand challenge partnerships are multi-actor systems with a goal that must find solutions to problems of division of labor, i.e., task division and task allocation (what needs to be done, and by whom), and integration of effort (how to motivate and coordinate effort) – without the use of formal authority. The overarching purpose of the dissertation is to convince the emerging community of strategy, organization, and innovation scholars focusing on grand challenges that goal-directed collaboration—involving many actors with diverse goals, knowledge, and skills—is inherently an organization design problem.
- Behavioral Foundations of Grand Challenge Partnerships: Essays on control, coordination, channelization & crowdsourced search in conditions of absent formal authority
- John-Erik Bergkvist - Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology (House of Innovation)
- Stockholm School of Economics; Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)
- Doctor of Philosophy (PHD), Stockholm School of Economics
- Stockholm School of Economics
- 236
- 9789177313694; 9789177313700
- Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology (House of Innovation)
- English
- Dissertation