@incollection{MairSeelosGanly, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian and Ganly, Kate}, title = {Social entrepreneurs directly contribute to global development goals}, series = {Social Entrepreneurship}, booktitle = {Social Entrepreneurship}, editor = {Mair, Johanna and Robinson, J. and Hockerts, K.}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, address = {Basingstoke}, isbn = {978-1-4039-9664-0}, doi = {10.1057/9780230625655}, pages = {235 -- 275}, language = {en} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {When Innovation Goes Wrong}, series = {Stanford Social Innovation Review}, volume = {14}, journal = {Stanford Social Innovation Review}, number = {4}, issn = {1542-7099}, pages = {27 -- 33}, abstract = {Efforts by social enterprises to develop novel interventions receive a great deal of attention. Yet these organizations often stumble when it comes to turning innovation into impact. As a result, they fail to achieve their full potential. Here's a guide to diagnosing and preventing several "pathologies" that underlie this failure.}, language = {en} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Quand le business devient un outil contre la pauvret{\´e}}, series = {Business Digest, French edition}, journal = {Business Digest, French edition}, edition = {193}, abstract = {{\`A} l'heure o{\`u} tout nouveau d{\´e}bouch{\´e} est un enjeu strat{\´e}gique de taille, peut-on ignorer {\`a} la masse de consommateurs des pays du Sud ? Focus r{\´e}alis{\´e} d'apr{\`e}s « Profitable Business Models and Market Creation in the Context of Deep Poverty: A Strategic View », de Christian Seelos et Johanna Mair, Academy of Management Perspectives, novembre 2007, et l'interview d'Iqbal Quadir, fondateur et directeur du Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship (US), f{\´e}vrier 2009.}, language = {fr} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {When business becomes a tool for fighting poverty}, series = {Business Digest, UK edition}, journal = {Business Digest, UK edition}, edition = {193}, abstract = {Can we continue to categorically dismiss consumers in Southern countries at a time when companies are struggling to find new markets? Based on « Profitable Business Models and Market Creation in the Context of Deep Poverty: A Strategic View », by Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair, Academy of Management Perspectives, November 2007, and the interviews of Iqbal Quadir, founder and director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT (USA), February 2009.}, language = {en} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {El negocio de beneficiar los pobres}, series = {Liderazgo, Estrategia \& Actualidad (Bolivia)}, journal = {Liderazgo, Estrategia \& Actualidad (Bolivia)}, language = {es} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Crear espirales de desarrollo}, series = {Iniciativa Emprendedora}, volume = {48}, journal = {Iniciativa Emprendedora}, pages = {99 -- 108}, language = {es} } @article{MairWolfSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Wolf, Miriam and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Scaffolding: A Process of Transforming Patterns of Inequality in Small-Scale Societies}, series = {Academy of Management Journal}, volume = {59}, journal = {Academy of Management Journal}, number = {6}, issn = {0001-4273}, doi = {10.5465/amj.2015.0725}, pages = {2021 -- 2044}, abstract = {This study advances research on organizational efforts to tackle multidimensional, complex, and interlinked societal challenges. We examine how social inequality manifests in small-scale societies, and illustrate how it inheres in entrenched patterns of behavior and interaction. Asking how development programs can be organizing tools to transform these patterns of inequality, we use a program sponsored by an Indian non-governmental organization as our empirical window and leverage data that we collected over a decade. We identify "scaffolding" as a process that enables and organizes the transformation of behavior and interaction patterns. Three interrelated mechanisms make the transformation processes adaptive and emerging alternative social orders robust: (1) mobilizing institutional, social organizational, and economic resources; (2) stabilizing new patterns of interaction that reflect an alternative social order; and (3) concealing goals that are neither anticipated nor desired by some groups. Through this analysis, we move beyond conventional thinking on unintended consequences proposed in classic studies on organizations, complement contemporary research about how organizations effect positive social change by pursuing multiple goals, and develop portable insights for organizational efforts in tackling inequality. This study provides a first link between the study of organizational efforts to alleviate social problems and the transformation of social systems.}, language = {en} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Water is Power}, series = {Impact India. Stanford Social Innovation Review}, volume = {2}, journal = {Impact India. Stanford Social Innovation Review}, number = {Spring 2017}, pages = {24 -- 29}, language = {en} } @incollection{RadekeMairSeelos, author = {Radeke, Joanna and Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Waste Concern: Fixing Market Failures}, series = {Managing Sustainable Business}, booktitle = {Managing Sustainable Business}, editor = {Lenssen, Gilbert G. and Smith, N. Craig}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, isbn = {978-94-024-1142-3}, doi = {10.1007/978-94-024-1144-7}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {557 -- 574}, language = {en} } @article{SeelosMair, author = {Seelos, Christian and Mair, Johanna}, title = {Mastering System Change}, series = {Stanford Social Innovation Review}, journal = {Stanford Social Innovation Review}, number = {Fall 2018}, language = {en} } @incollection{BattilanaButlerKimseyetal., author = {Battilana, Julie and Butler, Brittany and Kimsey, Marissa and Mair, Johanna and Marquis, Christopher and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Problem, person, and pathway: A framework for social innovators}, series = {Handbook of Inclusive Innovation}, booktitle = {Handbook of Inclusive Innovation}, editor = {George, Gerard and Baker, Ted and Tracey, Paul and Joshi, Havovi}, publisher = {Edward Elgar Publishing}, address = {Cheltenham}, isbn = {9781786436009}, doi = {10.4337/9781786436016}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {61 -- 74}, language = {en} } @incollection{SeelosMair, author = {Seelos, Christian and Mair, Johanna}, title = {Social Innovation: Specifying Pathways for Impact}, series = {Research Handbook of Responsible Management}, booktitle = {Research Handbook of Responsible Management}, editor = {Laasch, Oliver and Jamali, Dima and Freeman, R. E. and Suddaby, Roy}, publisher = {Edward Elgar Publishing}, address = {Cheltenham,UK}, isbn = {9781788971959}, publisher = {Hertie School}, abstract = {Outlining both historical foundations and the latest research trends, this Research Handbook offers a unique and cutting-edge overview of the numerous avenues to responsible management. Opening with a conceptual mapping of the field, thought leaders such as Henry Mintzberg and Archie Carroll present foundational and controversial views. Frameworks such as sustainability management, responsible leadership, humanistic and biomimetic management are introduced. Glocal approaches include responsible management with Chinese characteristics, West African Yoruba, and American Pragmatism. Exploring frameworks for the responsible management process, such as theories of practice, and for responsible management learning and innovation, readers are introduced to key methods responsible management research, such as participatory action research. Groundbreaking in scope and depth, this Handbook caters to the responsible management research community, particularly to the Academy of Management and to United Nations PRME signatory business schools. Policymakers and practitioners will benefit from its insight into the latest advances in responsible management research.}, language = {en} } @article{MairSeelos, author = {Mair, Johanna and Seelos, Christian}, title = {Organizations, Social Problems, and System Change: Invigorating the Third Mandate of Organizational Research}, series = {Organization Theory}, volume = {2}, journal = {Organization Theory}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1177/26317877211054858}, pages = {1 -- 22}, abstract = {Organizations across sectors appear to be shifting their ambitions from solving social problems to changing entire social systems. This phenomenon offers a timely opportunity to revisit what came to be known as the third mandate of organizational theory. In this paper we interrogate how organizational scholarship can productively explore and theorize the relationship between organizations and social systems in organized system change - an effort by organizations to alter the conditions that generate the characteristics of social problems and their dynamics of change. As a basis for theorizing organized system change, we develop an analytical scaffold that helps researchers to attend to fundamental aspects of the phenomenon and to achieve parsimony without blanking out complexity. Grounded in realist metatheory and principles, the scaffold reduces ambiguity, provides a backbone for empirical analysis, and favours mechanism-based explanation. We suggest that generating theoretically interesting and practically adequate knowledge on organized system change requires attention to three system realms: First, the subjectively constructed problem realm of systems concerned with processes of evaluating and problematizing situations. Second, the objectively constituted situational realm that attends to factual characteristics of situations and their dynamics of change. And third, the realm of causality understood as the mechanisms that generate both the objective characteristics of situations and the subjective criteria by which situations are evaluated as problems. In concluding, we reflect on the topics of boundaries and power as two promising areas for theorizing organized system change.}, language = {en} } @techreport{SeelosSoferBurtonetal., type = {Working Paper}, author = {Seelos, Christian and Sofer, Miki and Burton, Caitlin and Mair, Johanna}, title = {Making Health Innovations Thrive in Africa}, series = {Stanford Social Innovation Review}, journal = {Stanford Social Innovation Review}, doi = {10.48558/XCTW-2515}, abstract = {Many hurdles stand in the way of successful innovation. The case of Zipline, an autonomous drone delivery platform, demonstrates many of the pitfalls of the dominant modes of development in Africa, along with some potential solutions.}, language = {en} } @incollection{SeelosMairTraegeretal., author = {Seelos, Christian and Mair, Johanna and Traeger, Charlotte and Nolting, Fenja}, title = {Advancing Phenomenon-Based Research on Complex Societal Challenges: The Case of Homelessness}, series = {Big Picture Approaches to the Impact of Social Innovations}, volume = {96}, booktitle = {Big Picture Approaches to the Impact of Social Innovations}, editor = {Dorado, Silvia and Haugh, Helen and Wadhwani, R. Daniel and Hamann, Ralph}, publisher = {Emerald Publishing Limited}, isbn = {978-1-83608-528-7}, doi = {10.1108/s0733-558x20250000096002}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {25 -- 50}, abstract = {We advance organizational research on complex societal challenges and showcase the relevance of a system perspective to analyze organized efforts to address homelessness as a social problem. We adopt a phenomenon-based approach to theorizing and generate plausible explanations by analyzing historical accounts of decisions and actions taken to tackle homelessness by various actors across different sectors in the United States between 1960 and 2021. We apply an analytical scaffolding proposed by Mair and Seelos (2021) to examine how organizations intervene in social systems and explicate the causal, situation, and problem realms of homelessness. Attending to these three realms helps to reveal how homelessness was problematized differently over time and to examine how different causal assumptions shaped organizational decisions about developing and scaling solutions to homelessness. Based on our analysis, we develop a series of propositions that capture contextualized insights on the characteristics and consequences of efforts to address homelessness, accounting for linkages between the causal, situation, and problem realms of homelessness. Finally, our analytical and theoretical approach helps uncover the interconnectedness of scaling and scale, providing valuable insights for theory and policy.}, language = {en} } @article{SeelosMairTraeger, author = {Seelos, Christian and Mair, Johanna and Traeger, Charlotte}, title = {The future of grand challenges research: Retiring a hopeful concept and endorsing research principles}, series = {International Journal of Management Reviews}, volume = {25}, journal = {International Journal of Management Reviews}, number = {2}, doi = {10.1111/ijmr.12324}, pages = {251 -- 269}, abstract = {Editorial notes in leading management journals have urged scholars to address Grand Challenges (GC) as an opportunity for producing knowledge that matters for society. This review explores whether current conceptualizations of GC support a productive path for management and organizational scholarship by guiding empirical inquiry, facilitating cumulative theory development, and informing practice. We systematically examine scholarly articles, calls for papers, and editorial notes published in management journals for consistency in how researchers use and define the concept of GC and the scope of associated phenomena and attributes. We find three prominent conceptual architectures in use: discursive, family resemblance, and phenomenon driven. The variety and incoherence of current uses of the GC concept and the lack of efforts to improve its analytical competence lead us to suggest its retirement. Instead, we propose building on the enthusiasm around GC research and using GC as a term to define research principles that collectively help align research efforts and improve theoretical development and practice. The principles we propose capture a genuine origin story for management research on GC.}, language = {en} }