PhD Defense | John-Erik Bergkvist successfully defends his doctoral dissertation

The dissertation examined how large, cross-sector partnerships address complex societal challenges, such as climate change or public health, when no single actor has formal authority. It focused on how individuals in these partnerships collectively coordinate their efforts toward shared goals despite no one having the mandate to direct or complete information.  

The opponent at the defense was Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville from the University of Cambridge, UK. After the discussion, the examination committee approved the dissertation. 

What problem did this research address? 

Governments, firms, and civil society increasingly collaborate in so-called grand challenge partnerships to tackle complex societal problems. These partnerships rely on voluntary participation and shared goals, yet often struggle to translate agreement into coordinated action. The dissertation examined how collective effort occurs without the use of traditional management tools, such as reward provision and order-giving contingent on authority.  

Data and research approach 

The dissertation consisted of four papers, each examining these partnerships from distinct organization design perspectives: coordination, control, channelization of attention, and crowdsourced search for solutions. The research combined longitudinal case studies with large experimental methods to study how individual behavior aggregates into collective outcomes. 

Key research findings 

• Even without formal authority, actors can divide labor by collaborative-democratic modes and through knowledge-based self-selection. Individuals can collectively manage interdependencies by building informal information structures and creating local homogeneity to produce or reduce the need for predictive knowledge, enabling them to align their actions to those of others. However, pursuing or preserving predictive knowledge can cause problems of “jointholism” and “alignophilia”.  

• Socialization as a driver of integrable effort can create in-group and out-group dynamics, leading to suboptimal use of human resources and risking cooperation failures. 

• When organizing for complex, multifaceted “missions,” it’s difficult to avoid regulating attention in ways that deviate from the behavioral assumptions underpinning mission-oriented policy literature.  

• Participatory rhetorical strategies suggested to be effective for mobilizing distributed crowds did not have a large effect on their willingness to share ideas or the content of those ideas.   

Together, the findings showed that tackling grand societal challenges is not only about aligning interests but also about designing systems that help people work together effectively. 

Implications for managers and policymakers 

For managers and policymakers involved in cross-sector initiatives, the research highlighted the importance of focusing on organization design—not just high-level governance or consensus-building. Effective collaboration depends on motivated individuals with sufficient knowledge to act.  

👉 Read the dissertation in full:
 https://research.hhs.se/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Behavioral-Foundations-of--Grand-Challenge/991001667099406056 

Supervision committee 

• Magnus Mähring, Erling Persson Professor of Entrepreneurship and Digital Innovation and Chair of the House of Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics.  

• Anna Essén, Associate Professor with the Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology at the Stockholm School of Economics.   

We congratulate John-Erik on his achievement and wish him the best of luck going forward!