Grand Challenges and Business Education: Dealing with Barriers to Learning and Uncomfortable Knowledge

Abstract

In this article, we explore some of the barriers that prevent learning about grand challenges. By grand challenges, we refer to transformational social and environmental issues and the critical barriers toward addressing them. Despite recent research contributions, initiatives, and calls for action to focus on such concerns, relatively little is known about the different barriers that hinder learning about grand challenges. To explore these issues, we draw from Rayner's (2012) concept of uncomfortable knowledge, defined as knowledge that is disagreeable to organizations because it may challenge their value base, self-perception, organizing principles, or sources of legitimacy. Focusing on the example of recent programmatic attempts to advance "responsible education" in business schools, we identify three barriers to learning about grand challenges: Cognitive overload, emotional detachment, and organizational obliviousness. We conclude by outlining several implications on how to overcome these barriers, adding to recent academic and policy debates on how to make

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

“…The question of how organizations' networks interpret such information overloads, weighing their importance and relevance, needs further exploration. Thus, it might be relevant to analyze how networks manage the high initial costs of learning the necessary digital and media skills (Gatzweiler, Frey-Heger, & Ronzani, 2022) .…”

How Organizing Matters for Societal Grand Challenges

“…Organizational scholars, like other academics in business schools, are in an ideal position to engage in conversations with the business leaders of tomorrow, who will likely have the capacity to make decisions that can affect grand challenges in different ways, positively and negatively. Research shows that raising awareness about such topics in business school curricula is a critical yet often underemphasized aspect of how academics can have an impact on practice and society more broadly (Campbell, 2007;Gatzweiler et al, 2022).…”

Diaries as a Methodological Innovation for Studying Grand Challenges

“…The burgeoning literature on grand societal challenges spans a variety of spheres (e.g., Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015;Gatzweiler, Frey-Heger & Ronzani, 2022), addressing, among others, poverty alleviation (Pradilla, Bento da Silva, & Reinecke, 2022) to affordable health care (Rauch & Ansari, 2021). However, there is still much to learn about how individuals at the frontline of these challenging contexts, experience and cope with extreme situations involving human suffering.…”