Abstract
As we pursue grand challenges, solutions to wicked problems continue to be elusive. As described in Chap. 1, wicked problems cannot be solved through traditional processes because they are unclear and complex in nature. As we seek to find solutions, how we define and conceptualize societal problems contributes to our ability to solve them and meet grand challenges. This chapter introduces the concept of type III errors as a lens for further analyzing the role of social entrepreneurship for meeting grand challenges. We take a deep dive into some of the wicked problems obfuscating our achievement of SDGs 1, 8 and 13, and how they practically relate to grand challenges. In doing so, we re-conceptualize them through the lens of multi-layered disruption and ambivalence to identify inflection points where errors of the third kind emerge, how they might be avoided or learned from, and social entrepreneurship’s role in this process. In short, we end our journey with an academic plea for changing the world through individual- level changes.
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change
—Mahatma Gandhi
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Notes
- 1.
The Guardian provides an overview of the initiative here: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jun/27/kenya-laptops-schools
- 2.
The partnership director at ACS International has posted a blog about the initiative here: https://www.isc.co.uk/media-enquiries/isc-blogs/spotlight-on-acs-international-schools-laptops-for-learning-initiative/
- 3.
We use this wording of ‘single (or wrong)’ because the definition of the type III error is specifically regarding solving the wrong problem, but the wicked nature of the problem of poverty means that we cannot say definitively that the causality in the given example is ‘wrong’, but rather that the cause of poverty is not limited to crime and vice versa.
- 4.
The Grameen bank does not operate in Bangladeshi cities and thus, the notion of traditional collateral is still a communicative mechanism whereby the economic system can process “pay/not pay”
- 5.
The People’s Climate Vote had 1.2 million respondents spanning 50 countries covering the 56% of the world’s population. The full climate vote report can be downloaded here: https://www.undp.org/publications/peoples-climate-vote
- 6.
The same study found that there was a cost decrease of up to 22–34% in upper-middle and high-income countries.
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Costales, E., Zeyen, A. (2022). The Sustainable Development Goals, Complexity, and Errors of the Third Kind. In: Social Entrepreneurship and Grand Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07450-9_6
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