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Grand challenges are evaluative, uncertain, and volatile. Robust action strategies of multivocality, participation, and experimentation have been promoted as effective conceptual and practical responses to address these features. However, robust actions suffer from limitations, for example: when many actors have their say, but some actors assume sovereignty of interpretation and shape goals according to their own needs; when stakeholders participate, but fail to mobilize action; or when, despite distributed experimentation, involved actors deviate from joint progress when they face adversity. We propose theory on hybrid organizing, typically situated in reference to small-scale organizations such as social enterprises, has much to offer to meet these limitations in addressing grand challenges. We first conceptualize a grand challenges grid that helps explain the complexity of grand challenges better. We then develop a theoretical model of hybrid organizing for grand challenges, which proposes six ways in which hybrid organizing can amplify robust actions and thereby meet the complexity of grand challenges more effectively. We combine the two fields of research in new ways and thereby promote theoretical advancements in each of them, and specifically at their intersection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing demands from policy and the public urge firms to become more sustainable. Many businesses are reshaping their internal sustainability practices and are changing how they communicate their position on sustainability to external stakeholders. However, there are different combinations between the internal practices and the external communication of sustainability. We conduct qualitative, exploratory research, which combines a large scoping of cases with in-depth analysis to inform our conceptualization of an empirically grounded framework. We contribute to understanding the combinations of internal practices and external communication better and develop four different types of business sustainability: pretending, aspiring, signaling, and fully-fledged. Building on existing literature, we do not present these as better or worse states of sustainability but probe the ethical or pragmatic motives that lead businesses to assume their position. Thereby we uncover that there are justified and ethically questionable reasons for businesses to assume a certain type of sustainability. In contrast to existing literature, which has often assumed a static position, we also scrutinize the transition pathways businesses can take by moving from one type to another. We highlight five potential transition paths and develop strategic recommendations for how managers could foster or prevent such transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has primarily highlighted the ability of social entrepreneurs to solve persistent social problems, but there is also notable research that has shown us the limitations of social entrepreneurship. Consistent with the latter, we argue that a combined 'solutionism' and an action bias in social entrepreneurship can lead to a reductive trap, which unduly amplifies a social enterprise's ability to address a social problem. We further show how social entrepreneurship research, when studying social impact through a standard performance approach or by blackboxing the entrepreneurial process, generates a second reductive trap. Together, the reductive traps propel a vicious circle that impedes organizational learning and limits effective social problem solving. Based on this constructive critique, we argue that alternative conceptual approaches, which value processes and embrace reflexivity, may serve to address these shortcomings. To illustrate our argument, we use Bourdieu's capitals theory to analyze a social enterprise's program to promote prosocial behavior in schools. This allows us to demonstrate how a capitals theory approach can help overcome the identified reductive traps and initiate a virtuous circle between social entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovations create social value, but are severely underfunded. Globally, new public-private initiatives seek to build special financial infrastructures for social innovation. We study these initiatives under the lens of nascent markets and as a new type of financial engineering, which refers to purposeful, public-private efforts of creating new market infrastructures that support social value. We develop a typology of how these efforts pursue modest adjustments or more radical alternatives to capitalism. We also specify the inherent partnership and governance challenges, and how this affects the functioning of markets. First, financing social innovation introduces impact in addition to return and risk as a key criterion for governing markets. Second, there are positive and negative consequences of state intervention in promoting alternative models of capitalism. Third, shaping the social relations and institutional structure of markets in parallel can help unplug Ayn Rand's famous Atlas, who holds capitalism in a deadlock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovation in market-oriented social enterprises (SEs) contributes to both social and financial value creation. In order to develop and evaluate policy programs that promote social innovation to address societal challenges, it is therefore critical to understand how to identify social innovation. However, while the literature on commercial innovation is well advanced, research lacks empirical evidence on the measurement of social innovation. This study addresses this gap by investigating how trademarks and its diverse intellectual property right (IPR) characteristics serve to measure social innovation by SEs. Based on a sample of 925 SEs from Germany, we apply a textual analysis of their corporate websites to assess four dimensions of social innovation (i.e., innovation, social impact, financial, and scalability). In total, we analyze more than 35,000 subpages of SE-websites to construct our dependent variables. Our results show that the number of SEs' registered trademarks relate to all dimensions of social innovation. In addition, we find that certain trademark characteristics predict the dimensions of social innovation in different ways. We provide implications for both policy-makers and social entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergent impact measurement literature grapples with the complexities of social impact. It was recently suggested that management research should turn to welfare economics for guidance. However, prominent conceptual approaches from welfare economics also face three fundamental problems: (1) measurement, (2) attribution, and (3) aggregation. I address these problems by combining the economics literature on productivity and the sociological literature on capitals to develop a capitals approach to social impact. The approach helps shift research to actual measurement of effects on target groups, and provides a framework for analyzing the reverse of positive impact, namely social problems such as inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impact Investing, an investment approach that aims to achieve a combination of social and commercial outcomes and thus create blended value, has gained significant momentum over the last decade. It is often heralded as a panacea because of the urgent need to tackle pressing societal and environmental issues despite global governmental austerity measures and a bleak economic outlook. While we have seen tremendous progress in creating an early-stage impact investing market, the recent COVID-19 pandemic with its political and normative pressures has highlighted that we might not yet fully understand how and whether impact investing actually works, and for whom. While this knowledge gap might be due to the pre-paradigmatic (theory-building) state of the impact investing field, in this symposium we also consider how existing theories might inform our understanding and what we need to look out for when applying theories to the highly heterogenous context of impact investing. We discuss among others that ideas of social justice, progress and cultural individualism might not be recognized accordingly in existing research, and thus that important criteria for impact investing success might be overlooked. This symposium brings together experts from theory and practice and critically examines the nature of impact investing, as well as ways to manage and measure the inherent and manifold heterogeneous logics in these investments. After disentangling what we do (not) know about impact investing the symposium ultimately offers ways forward to research an investment approach that truly recognizes the centrality of beliefs and normative thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's grand challenges call for innovations that enhance societal problem solving. Such innovations unlike conventional "organizational innovation" are not exclusively meant to improve innovators' position in the marketplace through increasing customer satisfaction. Instead, the innovations need to (1) incorporate action on different levels of society, including policy or public discourse, and (2) address and involve a broader range of actors to lead to improved social outcomes. Social innovation is a prototype of such "extra- organizational innovation". I use microfinance as a prime example of social innovation to theorize it as extra-organizational innovation by means of Giddens' structuration theory. I develop a theoretical model and research propositions on innovation (a) mechanisms, (b) actors, and (c) effects that highlight how social innovation is systematically different from organizational innovation. I extend my theorizing to how structuration can help understand other new types of innovation that can be considered extra-organizational on at least one of the two accounts, the magnitude of actors or the multitude of levels of action involved. These types include open innovation, entrepreneurship as method and institutional innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks have been widely studied. Currently, increasing attention is given to brokerage as a key component to the functionality of networks and joint action more general-ly. In particular, brokerage as a process is becoming a more prominent research theme. The process perspective is especially important in context conditions that are 'fuzzy', that is con-tentious, fast changing or flexible, or marked by a large number of stakeholders. To advance our understanding of brokerage as a key process for joint action, we explore it in four such contexts: social innovation, online networks, sustainable business, and urban governance. Brokerage in the Process of Social Innovation Presenter: Gorgi Krlev; U. of Heidelberg Bridging Organizational Knowledge Online: How Bridging Members in Online Groups Increase Knowledge Presenter: Bas Reus; Vrije U. Amsterdam Presenter: Christine Moser; Vrije U. Amsterdam Presenter: Peter Groenewegen; Vrije U. Amsterdam Uniformity versus Plurality in Collaborative Strategies: The Sustainable Coffee Program Presenter: Iteke Van Hille; Vrije U. Amsterdam Presenter: Frank G.A. De Bakker; IESEG School of Management Presenter: Peter Groenewegen; Vrije U. Amsterdam Presenter: Julie E. Ferguson; U. of Amsterdam The Distribution of City Climate Action: How Civic Capacity Enables Green Building Certification Presenter: Christof Brandtner; Stanford U. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovation is receiving increasing interest from management scholars as a potential response to grand challenges and wicked problems. Social innovation occurs in many different forms ranging from action principles to whole new organizational fields, and it can be promoted by firms, nonprofits and government. Because of this richness and complexity, social innovation remains undertheorized. To address this gap, we explore four theoretical lenses on the phenomenon: technical innovation management, entrepreneurship, institutional theory, and economic sociology. We aim at underscoring synergies as well as boundaries between the perspectives, and at providing impulses on theorizing social innovation across the specific theoretical lenses. Technological Innovation Lens Presenter: Gorgi Krlev; U. of Heidelberg Entrepreneurship Lens Presenter: Nevena Radoynovska; EMLYON Business School Institutional Theory Lens Presenter: Bjoern C. Mitzinneck; Groningen U. (RuG) Economic Sociology Lens Presenter: Christopher M. Rea; Ohio State U. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Social capital' denotes the number and strength of bonds between people. Systems of elderly care try to create environments that are similar to people's original living environment. Community oriented housing is a new model provided by non-profits. It is supposed to create supportive relations between people and encourages individuals to be active. Despite the strong connection between care and social capital, there have been no studies systematically comparing these new forms to for instance standard assisted living. This article compares the social capital and other sorts of capital in a population of people 60+ living in either of the models in Germany. It studies various components of social capital, e.g., the social network, mutual support, participation in activities of the facility etc., but also cultural capital (trust) or engagement in taking over communal tasks (political capital). The analysis finds that community oriented models, with few exceptions, create higher levels in the assessed capitals, with the effects on social network strength to and instrumental support from neighbours being the most prominent effects. This has major implications for the provision of services to the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the emergent concept of social innovation empirically. It develops hypotheses on the factors that determine organisations' social innovativeness, located at the levels of organisational behaviour, resources, and structure. To test these it draws on the qualitative in-depth study of seven 'social innovation streams' (SI streams), that is broadly recognised social transformations. Each stream is located within a specific field of activity, ranging from arts to environmental sustainability, and studied across a sub-set of three to four countries out of a group of nine European countries. The case-based tracing of the SI streams yields insights on both, the evolvement of the innovations as well as the traits and relative contributions of involved firms, public agencies and non-profit organisations. The qualitative insights are converted into quantitative data and then analysed in a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) that determines necessary and sufficient conditions for social innovation. The results suggest the favourable combinations of factors are very context dependent and that aggregation is hardly possible across fields. However, a set of organisation traits emerge that seem almost indispensable: most prominent among them social needs orientation, external organisational openness and local embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the social impact of promoting pro-social behaviour in schools. It examines a particular social enterprise intervention in several school settings in Germany. The research takes a novel approach in assessing the effects of the programme and thereby creates general implications for the study of related activities. (1) The analysis focusses on the crea-tion of capitals: mainly cultural (norms and values), but also social (interpersonal connections) and political (engagement). It thereby differs from studies that look at a variety of psycho-social or educational outcomes, often without a connecting conceptual framework for the applied measures. (2) The research is mainly qualitative, with a minor quantitative part, and thus in clear contrast to the overwhelming dominance of quantitative effectiveness studies. The article shows how quantitative accounts of interventions' social impact may remain too shallow. Quantitative research may make interventions' impact appear low, due to the level-ling out that occurs when effects on a variety of different personalities are aggregated in the analysis. It also lacks insights about the 'why' and 'how' of behavioural change and the con-tribution of specific intervention components. The lack of an integrative conceptual frame-work of existing research may furthermore limit the comprehensiveness of the analysis or learnings on the interplay between measures. For example, the present study detects that the intervention's impact in creating social capital was greater than in fostering cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]