Journal of Product Innovation Management Special Issue Call for Papers: The Role of Innovation in For-Profit Firms’ Tackling of Grand Challenges Guest Editors: Shlomo Tarba, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham, B15 2TY, UK,
[email protected] Mohammad Ahammad, Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS6 1AN, UK,
[email protected] Diana Gregory-Smith, Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle University, 5 Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4SE, UK, diana.gregory-
[email protected] Sir Cary Cooper, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK,
[email protected] Florian Bauer, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK,
[email protected] Motivation for and Aim of the Special Issue The term “grand challenge” (GC) has been coined by the mathematician David Hilbert whose list of important unsolved problems has encouraged innovation in the field of mathematics since the turn of the 20th century (George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016). GCs are ambitious social and environmental goals that harness science, technology, and innovation to solve critical issues at the national and/or global scale (U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2014). GCs are generally seen as complex problems with far-reaching societal implications that lack a clear solution and inherently entail handling a great deal of complexity (Grodal & O’Mahony, 2017; Olsen, Sofka, & Grimpe, 2016; Vakili & McGahan, 2016; Venugopal & Viswanathan, 2019). Each of these challenges could create overwhelming disruptions to organizational and societal systems and various dynamics could result in a collapse of organizations (Rudolph & Repenning, 2002).