Commitment to Grand Challenges in Fluid Forms of Organizing: The Role of Narratives’ Temporality

Abstract

Organization and management scholars are increasingly interested in understanding how "fluid" forms of organizing contribute to the tackling of grand challenges. These forms are fluid in that they bring together a dynamic range of actors with diverse purposes, expertise, and interests in a temporary and nonbinding way. Fluid forms of organizing enable flexible participation. Yet, they struggle to gain and sustain commitment. In this case study of the SDG2 Advocacy Hub, which supports the achievement of zero hunger by 2030, we explore how the temporality of narratives contributes to actors' commitment to tackling grand challenges in fluid forms of organizing. In our analysis, we identify three types of narratives -universal, situated, and bridging -and discern their different temporal horizons and temporal directions. In doing so, our study sheds light on the contributions by the temporality of narratives to fostering commitment to tackling grand challenges in fluid forms of organizing. It suggests the importance of considering "multitemporality," i.e., the plurality of connected temporalities, rather than foregrounding either the present or the future.

Addressing Grand Challenges Through Different Forms of Organizing: A Literature Review

“…Existing research acknowledges the need to link all dimensions of stakeholders (Gegenhuber, Schüßler, Reischauer, & Thäter, 2022;Kroeger, Siebold, Günzel-Jensen, Philippe Saade, & Heikkilä, 2022;Stjerne, Wenzel, & Svejenova, 2022) via various tools, such as scaffolding (Mair et al, 2016), sustainable value chain linkages (Adiyia & Vanneste, 2018), and platforms (Fernando, 2018). However, future studies should further integrate the dimensions of time and goal orientation.…”

“…It remains to be researched how organizing forms solve grand challenges in an ambidextrous manner, thereby satisfying both seemingly contradictory goals -short-term benefit and long-term sustainability -while also uniting actors from different cultures and standards that can complicate common understanding (Grodal & O'Mahony, 2017;Lawrence, 2017). This specifically implies the extremely fluid role and stakeholder dynamics of the most complex forms of organizing (Grodal & O'Mahony, 2017;Berkowitz & Grothe-Hammer, 2022;Kroeger et al, 2022;Stjerne et al, 2022).…”

Wicked Problems and New Ways of Organizing: How Fe y Alegria Confronted Changing Manifestations of Poverty

“…Hence, antenarratives have the power to differentiate and reconcile new characteristics and minimize old ones. Relatedly, we suggest focusing on the concept of constitutive-polyphony (Trittin, & Schoeneborn, 2017) and narratives' temporalities (Stjerne, Wenzel, & Svejenova, 2022) to understand the discursive representation of different voices, opinions and viewpoints when tackling a wicked problem.…”

“…Our study encourages scholars and practitioners to recognize the dynamic complexity of wicked problems, for which solutions are at best preliminary attempts. This calls for greater reflexivity to examine our own values, beliefs, and assumptions in the process of constructing wicked problems and practices of organizing (Stjerne et al, 2022), so as to be open to revising our own definitions and solutions. In sum, organizing for wicked problems requires ongoing encounters with manifestations of the problem in concrete action contexts, and willingness to revise frames and adapt organizing efforts as these manifestations change.…”

Tackling Grand Challenges Collaboratively: The Role of Value-driven Sensegiving

“…Following a sensegiving process, entrepreneurs articulate the aspired vision of their venture to other stakeholders in order to mobilize resources or convince them to become involved (Cornelissen et al, 2012). In this context, previous research has shown numerous forms of sensemaking and sensegiving, such as narratives (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007;Stjerne, Wenzel, & Svejenova, 2022), metaphors (Hill & Levenhagen, 1995), gestures (Cornelissen et al, 2012), framing and decoupling (Fiss & Zajac, 2006), and other forms of communication. However, despite the great potential of values for making sense of and giving sense to ambiguous and complex events, such as grand challenges, our understanding remains limited of how entrepreneurs can actively utilize values to mobilize stakeholders across boundaries to collaboratively tackle grand challenges.…”