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Wicked problems, reductive tendency, and the formation of (non-)opportunity beliefs

Authors:


University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Haslam College of Business
916 Volunteer Boulevard
Knoxville, TN 37996
Tel.: +1 (865) 964-1667
Email: dgras@utk.edu
 !
Miami University
Farmer School of Business
2074 Farmer School of Business
Oxford, OH 45056
Tel.: +1 (513) 529-2991
Email: michael.conger@miamioh.edu
"#
The University of Queensland
Room 513, Joyce Ackroyd Building, St. Lucia Campus
Tel.: + 61 7 334 68159
Email: a.jenkins@business.uq.edu.au

Tel.: +1 (281) 331-3406
Email: mikgras@gmail.com
* The first three authors contributed equally to this work
+ Corresponding Author
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Deniz Ucbasaran and two anonymous reviewers
for their work in helping to shape this paper throughout the review process as well as the
following people who were instrumental in its development: Chris Cummings, Brett Smith,
Chris Sutter, Robert Nason, Lance Newey, and Peter Liesch. We would further like to thank
Tom Lumpkin and the participants in his 2016 Social Entrepreneurship Seminar for input into
the early idea of this paper. This research was funded (partially) by the Australian
Government through the Australian Research Council (project number IC170100035).
"$%&'" &
We explain how the nature of “wicked” social and environmental problems affects the way in
which beliefs about opportunities to solve them are formed, and why these beliefs often
prevent prospective entrepreneurs from correctly judging not only the feasibility of acting on
them, but whether such an opportunity exists at all. We argue that, in the context of wicked
problems, prospective entrepreneurs are prone to succumb to the reductive tendency; a
cognitive process through which individuals learning about and interpreting complex
phenomena overly simplify their understandings of the phenomena. This undue simplification
drives the formation of non-opportunity beliefs (Type I errors). We further offer knowledge
as an attenuating factor in the manifestation of the reductive tendency and, by extension, the
formation of non-opportunity beliefs. Our theorizing has implications for the literature on
entrepreneurial opportunities, knowledge, social entrepreneurship, and the entrepreneurship
literature more broadly.
()*wicked problems; reductive tendency; opportunity beliefs; social
entrepreneurship
+,%
Wicked problems persistently cause human suffering, endanger wildlife, and degrade the
environment. They are notoriously difficult to solve because of interrelated and mutually
reinforcing characteristics that they all share. We explain how the nature of wicked problems
affects the way in which beliefs about opportunities to solve them are formed, and why these
beliefs often prevent prospective entrepreneurs from correctly judging not only the feasibility
of acting on them, but whether such an opportunity exists at all. Drawing on this research
context we also help explain how unfounded entrepreneurial opportunity beliefs are formed
more broadly. That is, prospective entrepreneurs making the Type I error of falsely
identifying an opportunity when there is none.
We draw on the ‘reductive tendency’, a process through which individuals simplify
complex systems into cognitively manageable representations. While simplified
representations offer benefits, such as quicker decision-making, such representations are
often inaccurate as they overlook the complexities of the problem at hand. We argue that the
reductive tendency can make wicked problems appear easier to solve than they are in reality,
leading to the formation of what we call non-opportunity beliefs; the conviction that one can
solve a problem, when in fact the objective conditions required to do so are absent. We
further argue that prior experiential knowledge makes an entrepreneur less susceptible to the
reductive tendency and, consequentially, less likely to form a non-opportunity belief.
Our work offers contributions to both theory and practice. We extend the critical
realist perspective on non-opportunities by explicating the mechanisms through which non-
opportunity beliefs are formed. We further introduce and conceptualize 
as a specific form of state uncertainty where the exact definition, boundary conditions, and
causes of a problem are unknown or unknowable. This offers a more focused
conceptualization of the uncertainty inherent to wicked problems that also specifically
identifies problems as the starting point of  entrepreneurial opportunity. Our theorizing is
also of practical importance since, in the context of socially/environmentally focused
entrepreneurship, ill-conceived attempts to address wicked problems can have serious
negative consequences for people and ecosystems that are already among the most
vulnerable.
-./
There is growing interest in the role entrepreneurs can and should play in addressing
the world’s most difficult social and environmental challenges (Saebi, Foss and Linder,
2019). Problems such as generational poverty, climate change, and terrorism are both
persistent and difficult to solve, in part because they are “wicked”. Wicked problems,
commonly linked to society’s grand challenges, are characterized by their complex,
uncertain, and evaluative nature (Ferraro, Etzion and Gehman, 2015; Reinecke and Ansari,
2016). Interestingly, identifying these long-standing, widespread, and highly publicized
problems and many of their negative effects is easy; yet understanding their definitions,
boundary conditions, and causes is not (Dentoni, Bitzer and Pascucci, 2016; Farrell and
Hooker, 2013; Gioia, 1992; Rittel and Weber, 1973).
Prior literature on the entrepreneurs that engage with these types of problems has
focused on the prosocial motivation that drives them (e.g., Conger, 2012; Mair and Noboa,
2006; Miller, Grimes, McMullen, and Vogus, 2012; Thomson, Alvy and Lees, 2000;
Waddock and Steckler, 2000; Wry and York, 2017). However, we know relatively little about
how they form the belief that there is an opportunity to solve these seemingly intractable
problems, often with little or no evidence to suggest such an opportunity exists. Despite a
bias in the literature and popular press toward lionizing the heroic social entrepreneur
(Nicholls, 2010), examples of incredible naïveté and seemingly needless failure on the part of
well-meaning entrepreneurs are common (Bornstein, 2013; Starr, 2016). One of the
foundational arguments in our field is that entrepreneurial opportunities disrupt the status quo
(Schumpeter, 1934). As a result, our focus as a field has long been on why a relatively small
group of individuals act on opportunities while others do not (Venkataraman, 1997); that is,
explaining why entrepreneurs are able to identify opportunities while most of us fail to do so,
essentially committing a Type II error.
Rarely do we consider how and why unfounded entrepreneurial opportunity beliefs
(which we also refer to as non-opportunity beliefs) are formed. That is, prospective
entrepreneurs making the Type I error of falsely identifying an opportunity when there is
none (for exceptions see: McMullen and Dimov, 2013; Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016). In the
context of socially/environmentally focused entrepreneurship, this is also of practical
importance since ill-conceived attempts to address wicked problems can have serious
negative consequences for people and ecosystems that are already among the most vulnerable
(Khan, Munir and Willmott, 2007). The purpose of this paper is to therefore explain how the
nature of wicked problems affects the way in which beliefs about opportunities to solve them
are formed, and why these beliefs often prevent prospective entrepreneurs from correctly
judging not only the feasibility of acting on them, but whether such an opportunity exists at
all.
To explain why prospective entrepreneurs make Type I errors we draw from the
literature on the reductive tendency, which has its roots in education and psychology research
(Coulson, Feltovich, and Spiro, 1989; Feltovich, Hoffman, Woods, and Roesler, 2004). The
reductive tendency is a process through which individuals learning about and interpreting
complex phenomena overly simplify their understandings of it (Coulson et al., 1989; Hmelo-
Silver and Pfeffer, 2004). We propose it is this over-simplification that can result in Type I
errors.
Our theorizing has implications for the literatures on entrepreneurial opportunities,
knowledge, social entrepreneurship, and the entrepreneurship literature more broadly. With
wicked problems as a backdrop, we bring a new focus to problems as the basis for
opportunity. We introduce and conceptualize problem uncertainty as a specific form of state
uncertainty and, drawing on this conceptualization and the reductive tendency, develop
mechanisms that explain the formation of beliefs based on non-opportunities. Through the
development of these mechanisms, we advance the extant dialogue and theorizing on
opportunity belief formation. An outcome of our theorizing is an explanation of why many
social entrepreneurs addressing wicked problems fail to achieve their aspirations.
0.123
McMullen argues that “Opportunities consist of environmental conditions (situations)
that are interpreted as opportunities when those conditions allow advancement of goals.”
(McMullen, 2015:659). Applying a realist perspective on opportunity to this definition
(Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016), we view entrepreneurial opportunities as the propensity of
goals to be actualized into desired outcomes through entrepreneurial action. For the purposes
of our theorizing, we focus specifically on opportunities for which the goal is to alleviate the
suffering and damage caused by wicked social and environmental problems (Dorado and
Ventresca, 2013)1. We focus on how individuals form the belief that, by acting
entrepreneurially, they can alleviate these problems and why they do so even when no viable
opportunity to do so exists.
Wicked problems persistently cause human suffering, endanger wildlife, and degrade
the environment. They are notoriously difficult to solve because of interrelated and mutually
reinforcing characteristics that they all share (Rittel and Weber, 1973). Ferraro and his
colleagues distill these characteristics into three dimensions, saying wicked problems are:
complex, uncertain, and evaluative (Ferraro et al., 2015). The complexity of wicked problems
stems from their systemic, interconnected, and non-linear nature. They involve dysfunction at
the institutional or network level (Dorado and Ventresca, 2013; Sterman, 2001) and
frequently span national, social, and industry boundaries (Reinecke and Ansari, 2016). This
makes understanding their relationship to the work of individual actors extremely difficult
(Farrell and Hooker, 2013; Sterman, 2001; Waddock, 2008). Furthermore, understanding
how a wicked problem may manifest in one locale, culture, or social situation versus another
is problematic given the presence of different institutions, networks, and cultural differences.
Wicked problems also tend to be entangled with other systemic problems that are themselves
made up of multiple, interconnected problems (Gioia, 1992; Reinecke and Ansari, 2016;
Rittel and Webber, 1973). Compounding these factors is the nonlinear nature of wicked
problems, where “cause and effect relationships are either unknown or highly uncertain”
(Dentoni, et al., 2016:36). For example, a social entrepreneur trying to break cycles of
generational poverty in U.S. rust belt cities through education or job creation would begin to
uncover a web of other causal factors, such as unresolved issues of race and class, as well as
ambiguity around the impact that changing one factor would have on the others, or on
generational poverty as a whole. Taken together, these factors contribute to a deep
complexity that makes it difficult to either identify the root causes of wicked problems or to
break them down to the level where the efficacy of individual action can be imagined.
Likewise, identifying both the boundary conditions of wicked problems and the relationships
between their facets is exceptionally difficult, as is tracing their causes or predicting the
likely outcomes of possible remedies.
Second, wicked problems present potential entrepreneurs with “radical” uncertainty
(Ferraro et al., 2015:364). Because of their specifically nonlinear and interrelated complexity,
wicked problems “have no closed form definition” (Dentoni et al., 2016:36). Ironically, the
‘answers’ to wicked problems and the potential future value in solving them fundamentally
are known (Rayner, 2006; Rittel and Webber, 1973). For example, it is ‘obvious’ that people
experiencing food insecurity need adequate access to healthy food. It is the near impossibility
of understanding the problem itself—that is, the full breadth of the causal mechanisms,
boundaries, and web of interrelated problems that define food insecurity—that make pursuing
this ‘obvious’ opportunity highly uncertain, and indeed, call into question whether such an
opportunity exists at all. This is compounded by the high stakes and often irreversible
consequences of attempts to solve wicked problems that are often “one-shot operations” for
which “every attempt to reverse a decision to correct for the undesired consequences poses
another set of wicked problems, which are in turn subject to the same dilemmas.” (Rittel and
Webber, 1973:163).
Third, the complexity and uncertainty of wicked problems are further complicated by
their evaluative nature. Wicked problems concern myriad of individuals and groups within
society with different understandings of what success means, making it challenging to
identify a uniform understanding of how to address wicked problems and what a successful
outcome entails. It is, therefore, unsurprising that “human values and norms can become
inextricably intertwined with [wicked] problem formulation and problem resolution” (Farrell
and Hooker, 2013:686). With “no immediate and no ultimate test” of any possible solution to
a wicked problem, consensus about its efficacy and appropriateness is extremely unlikely
(Rittel and Webber, 1973:139). For example, passing legislation to hamper child labor in
developing countries is simultaneously celebrated by those who see the practice as deplorable
and denounced by others who believe it will prevent children and families from sustaining
themselves; each group having conflicting arguments on the virtue and true costs of the
practice (cf. Khan et al., 2007). In some cases, solutions to wicked problems are even deemed
to be worse than symptoms of the initial problem (Churchman, 1967; Dorado and Ventresca,
2013). In sum, the evaluative nature of wicked problems virtually assures that understanding
their causes, relationships to other problems and phenomena, and potential solutions that
compound their complexity and uncertainty are complicated. Together, the complex,
uncertain, and evaluative nature of wicked problems means that they are extremely difficult
to understand, at least at face value.
Due in part to this nature of wicked problems, our contention is that the propensity for
entrepreneurs to identify appropriate opportunities to solve wicked problems is lower than
popular narratives about heroic social entrepreneurs imply. In arguing this, we align with a
realist perspective (Mole, 2010; Mole and Mole, 2010; Ramoglou, 2013; Ramoglou and
Tsang, 2016; Ramoglou and Zyglidopoulos, 2015) which holds that, while the realization of
opportunities requires entrepreneurial actors, “…the existence of entrepreneurial
opportunities remains independent of the thoughts, imagination, or actions of any given
entrepreneur, entrepreneurial team, or entrepreneurial organization” (Ramoglou and Tsang,
2016:419). The essential idea here underpinning our arguments is that, in addition to the
prospective entrepreneur’s desire to solve wicked problems and willingness to act, objective
conditions that make solving them possible must be in place for an opportunity to exist.2
Ramoglou and Tsang (2016) argue that the absence of these conditions characterizes the
domain of non-opportunity, likening it to toiling over soil where no seeds exist. These
objective limitations may apply to all prospective entrepreneurs (e.g., no cure for AIDS
currently exists) or may be specific to an individual (e.g., needed drugs are patented by
another company). We argue that, because of the factors we outline above (e.g., institutional
voids; complications related to social, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries; conflict over the
value and appropriateness of possible solutions; etc.), the objective conditions necessary for
opportunity within the domain of wicked problems may be missing. Moreover, because the
definition, boundary conditions, and causes of wicked problems are so difficult to understand,
the risk of individual actors misjudging the presence or absence of these conditions is quite
high. To be clear, we are not implying that it is impossible to solve wicked problems. Instead,
we argue that many prospective entrepreneurs in this context make Type I errors, forming
beliefs about opportunities to solve wicked problems where, in fact, no opportunity exists. In
the remainder of this paper, we draw from literature on opportunity beliefs, non-opportunity,
and reductive tendency to explain why formation of these non-opportunity beliefs occurs.
Our theoretical model is illustrated in Figure 1.
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Insert Figure 1 about here
 ---------------------------------------------------
4.&'&5
To explain how prospective entrepreneurs form the sometimes-mistaken belief they
have an opportunity to solve wicked problems, we turn first to the reductive tendency which
provides insights into how individuals understand complex problems. The reductive tendency
is a process through which individuals simplify complex systems into cognitively
manageable representations (Feltovich et al., 2004). Research on the reductive tendency is
generally conducted using cognitive flexibility theory, which focuses on the nature of
learning in complex and ill-structured domains (Rhodes and Rozell, 2017; Spiro and Jehng,
1990). Research on the theory is largely concerned with how information is presented to
accommodate and produce cognitive flexibility. Yet, some scholars working in this area focus
on the reasons why concepts are complex and the systematic ways in which learners
misunderstand them (e.g., Feltovich et al., 2004; Hmelo-Silver and Pfeffer, 2004).
The reductive tendency has been supported in research on education, comprehension,
and cognition in fields such as biomedicine (Coulson et al., 1989), law (Feltovich, Spiro,
Coulson, and Myers-Kelson1995), physics (McCloskey, 1983; Clement, 1982), climatology
(Collins and Gentner, 1983), and engineering (Feltovich, Hoffman, Woods, and Roesler,
2004). These scholars have identified a common tendency to over-simplify complex
concepts, despite there being significant costs to the misconstruing of complexities (e.g.,
heart surgeries; murder trials). They have concluded that many misconceptions concern
commonly held mental processes through which learners accept an overly simplified
understanding. For example, when faced with complex concepts, individuals are often
inclined to treat dynamic concepts as static, to generalize across dissimilar domains, and even
to ignore a great deal of observations and experience (Feltovich et al., 1995).
Multiple reasons have been offered as to why reduction is so common. For example,
the ability to reason about complexity requires a range of components to be prioritized to
understand how they relate within a system. As this is difficult, individuals adopt
understandings that are simpler in nature, thereby reducing the perceived complexity of a
problem (Feltovich, Spiro, and Coulson, 1993). Others suggest that the tendency is a habitual
carry-over from the rudimentary and routinized way that beginners are introduced to a
concept (Gibson and Spelke, 1983). For many individuals, simpler conceptual forms are often
employed to introduce a topic (Feltovich et al., 1989). This may, however, set up path-
dependent learning that relies on reduction as a crutch (Feltovich, Coulson and Spiro, 1986).
Another argument arises from motivational psychology and the finding that people prefer a
middle level of complexity in their lives; concepts that are too simple are deemed boring,
while concepts that are too complex are off-putting and do not attract engagement (Berlyne,
1971).
Research has identified 11 dimensions or manifestations of the reductive tendency
(Feltovich et al., 2004; Hmelo-Silver and Pfeffer, 2004). We organize these into three
categories. The first pertains to simplifying processes and entails four dimensions: continuous
processes are simplified into ones with discrete steps; interactive processes that depend on
each other are simplified to be independent and separated; concurrent processes are
simplified to be sequential; and nonlinear explanatory relationships are simplified into linear
ones. The second category pertains to perspective restrictions. This category describes
situations in which individuals minimize the importance of, or ignore altogether, facets or
manifestations of phenomena. This category includes three dimensions whereby individuals
simplify: concepts necessitating multiple representations to single ones; phenomena with
numerous and ambiguous causal mechanisms to ones with simple and clear causal agents,
and; concepts with covert or abstract elements to surface-level, apparent ones. The third
category contains four dimensions that pertain to forming standardized representations of
phenomena. It captures situations in which individuals simplify: concepts necessitating
dynamic understanding of inputs into static ones; heterogeneous schemes or facets of a
phenomena into uniform or highly similar; context-sensitive phenomena into universal ones;
and regularity to replace situations that are characterized by asymmetric, inconsistent, or
complex patterns. Table 1 presents each of the three categories and 11 dimensions, explains
each dimension, exemplifies a wicked problem to which the dimension may pertain,
references a paper that demonstrates the dimension (even if they employed different theories
to express them), and provides two examples of social entrepreneurship (or highly related,
e.g., social innovation) studies for each of the three categories.
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Insert Table 1 about here
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The reductive tendency literature is clear: not all individuals succumb to
oversimplification via one or more of these dimensions. Those with a great degree of
cognitive flexibility, for example, may comprehend complex phenomena. Likewise, we
suggest that not all prospective entrepreneurs will succumb to the reductive tendency in the
face of wicked problems. However, wicked problems create scenarios in which prospective
entrepreneurs are inclined to mentally create and accept a reductive understanding of the
problem. Our rationale is that the very things that make wicked problems, wicked - that they
are complex, uncertain, and evaluative - are the same things that facilitate the reductive
tendency. A cornerstone of the reductive tendency literature is that complexity substantially
burdens the working memory and mental capacity of the individual (Graesser, 1999;
Narayanan and Hegarty, 1998). Understanding a complex system necessitates constructing a
network of concepts and principles about a domain that represents key facets and the
interrelationships among macro and micro structures of the system (Hmelo-Siver and Pfeffer,
2004). This provides incentive for individuals to formulate a simpler conception of a
phenomenon, in order to reduce the mental burden. Regarding uncertainty, the reductive
tendency literature demonstrates that learners are averse to concepts that conflict with their
prior experiences (Jacobson, 2001; Resnick and Wilensky, 1998). Repeating prior
experiences is predictable, comforting, and less mentally taxing, whereas pondering the
multitude of potential outcomes through probabilistic, stochastic, or other methods offer
discomfort and mental hardships (Jacobson, 2001). Thus, many individuals fall back on
generating an understanding of the problem that adheres to simple concepts related to
previously and easily garnered knowledge. Regarding the evaluative nature of wicked
problems, the reductive tendency literature finds that ill-structured domains are conducive to
the reductive tendency. Ill-structured domains are those in which applying knowledge varies
significantly, and any given case is atypical (Spiro et al., 1988). In essence, applying
knowledge is challenging in ill-structured environments, thus necessitating idiosyncratic
evaluations and solutions (Feltovich et al., 1995).
The widely acknowledged failure of PlayPumps International (Kim and Perreault-Henry,
2018a; 2018b) provides a rich illustration of the reductive tendency in the context of a wicked
problem, access to clean water. PlayPumps manufactured a water pump that doubled as a
children’s merry-go-round. PlayPumps attracted high-profile investors including $16.4
million from a US public-private partnership (Pump Industry Analyst, 2006). The idea was
simple: as children played they would also be pumping underground water to the surface.
However, the organization faced a number of obstacles that were not adequately considered
its founder, including, among others: scarcity of underground water; underestimating the
volume of water that could be pumped by children through play; underestimating the cost of
installation; a shortage of suitable sites for installation; conflicts occurring between
community members and schools; a lack of interest from potential billboard advertisers,
which would fund pump maintenance; differing local conditions creating the need for design
changes; and difficulty finding qualified and reliable locals to install and maintain the pumps
(Kim and Perreault-Henry, 2018a; 2018b). The situation was aptly articulated by Daniel
Stellar, who writes for the Earth Institute at Columbia University:
The failure of PlayPump[s] points to a huge problem in meeting water challenges
simply put, there is no panacea. Water problems are very complex and come in a
multitude of flavors. In some very specific situations, PlayPump[s] may be the right type
of solution. In most situations though, it is imperative to first really understand the
problem and to then design appropriate, tailored solutions. (Stellar, 2010: 1)
Based on our arguments, we offer our first proposition:
1-*1!!!))
,
.
We next explain how the reductive tendency can lead to non-opportunity beliefs the
unfounded conviction that an opportunity exists in the context of wicked problems. We
also introduce in this section the concept of problem uncertainty and show how, through this
particular form of state uncertainty, the reductive tendency puts prospective entrepreneurs at
risk of forming non-opportunity beliefs.
6.7!23$%1
Dominant conceptualizations of opportunity beliefs (i.e., belief that acting on an
opportunity will result in a desired end state, such as generating profit or benefiting society
[Wood, McKelvie, and Haynie, 2014]) focus on how uncertainty determines whether action
and effort will produce the desired results (Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016). For example,
McMullen and Shepherd (2006) focus on the role of doubt – uncertainty resulting from not
knowing whether acting on the opportunity will lead to a desired end state, and the need for
individuals to overcome this doubt in order for them to act. Following Milliken (1987), they
classify uncertainty as addressing three broad questions “(1) What’s happening out there?
(state uncertainty), (2) How will it impact me? (effect uncertainty), and (3) What am I going
to do about it? (response uncertainty)” (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006:135). They suggest
that, inasmuch as it is linked to action (or the inhibition thereof), distinguishing between
types of uncertainty is relatively unimportant. All uncertainty, they argue, fuels doubt related
to knowledge (affecting perceptions of the degree of uncertainty) or motivation (affecting
willingness to bear that uncertainty) inhibiting opportunity beliefs and, subsequently, action
to pursue opportunity.
However, as we have shown, prospective entrepreneurs can and often do incorrectly
judge the conditions underlying wicked problems. To understand how these errors in
judgment may lead to Type I errors non-opportunity beliefs we return to Milliken’s
classification and reconceptualize the type of uncertainty that these individuals tend to
misperceive. Because of their complex, uncertain, and evaluative properties, wicked
problems present a specific kind of state uncertainty related to the unknowable nature of the
problem itself, which we conceptualize as   The wicked problems
literature touches on this type of uncertainty, yet it remains undertheorized. Dietz and his
colleagues (2003) refer to it as “the inherent unpredictability in the systems” (p. 1908) while
Ferraro and his colleagues refer to it in their discussion of the complexity of wicked problems
as, “many facts are known, but these facts alone are not sufficient to provide a definitive basis
for taking action” (2015:366). These definitions seek to describe a broad and pervasive
Knightian uncertainty in which “Actors cannot even enumerate what the possible future states
of the worlds may be, let alone assign probabilities to them” (Ferraro et al., 2015:366).
However, because of the future-oriented outcome focus of Knightian uncertainty, the wicked
problems literature stops short of explicitly conceptualizing the immediate state uncertainty
inherent in wicked problems. Formally, we conceptualize  as a specific
form of state uncertainty where the exact definition, boundary conditions, and causes of a
problem are unknown or unknowable. This offers a more focused conceptualization of the
uncertainty inherent in wicked problems that also specifically identifies problems as the
starting point of entrepreneurial opportunity.
Problem uncertainty directly influences how an actor understands the objective
conditions required for an opportunity to be actualized and their judgment about the extent to
which these conditions are present. In effect, problem uncertainty reshapes the “What’s
happening out there?” question with a problem-specific orientation “What problems are out
there and what is causing them?”. While the desired outcomes of solving a wicked problem
are easy to identify, its exact definition, boundary conditions, and causes are not. This
underlies our theorizing by explaining firstly how the nature of wicked problems affects the
way in which beliefs about opportunities to solve them are formed. It also explains why these
beliefs often prevent the entrepreneur from correctly judging not only the feasibility of acting
on these beliefs, but also whether such an opportunity exists at all.
We have suggested that, while wicked problems are easy to identify, their exact
definition, boundary conditions, and causes are not, thus creating a situation where
prospective entrepreneurs are susceptible to the reductive tendency [Proposition 1]. The
resulting simplification of wicked problems occurs by people misidentifying and failing to
appreciate problem uncertainty such that it may be unduly (albeit inadvertently) ignored.
When this is the case, entrepreneurs may fail to recognize the nature and magnitude of
problem uncertainty. Consequently, it becomes impossible not only to know whether the
conditions to sustain a venture to address the problem are present, but also to judge the
existence of an opportunity to solve the problem in light of those conditions. To explain the
mechanism by which this breakdown in judgment ability occurs (and non-opportunity beliefs
are formed), we again draw on a realist argument about how the existence of opportunities
(i.e., their propensity to be actualized) can be understood.
Ramoglou and Tsang suggest there are three “fundamental modes for making
cognitive contact with possibly real yet empirically unactualized propensities: imagining,
believing, and knowing” (2016:411). The distinction between the first two modes, what can
be imagined by prospective entrepreneurs and what they believe, is the belief that what is
being imagined can also be real. It is possible to imagine many outcomes without the
accompanying belief that what is being imagined is also genuinely possible (Ramoglou and
Tsang, 2016). For example, while it is easy to fantasize about potential ideas and their
grandeur, we typically also realize the limitations to what is possible. Imagination is
insufficient for offering the experience one has when believing one has identified as an
opportunity. One must additionally trust that the imaginative projection corresponds to a
naturally possible world state.
The means of making these determinations is the prospective entrepreneur’s judgment
or the window through which he or she “sees” the opportunity (Ramoglou and Tsang,
2016:424). It provides the final way to understand how non-opportunity beliefs about solving
wicked problems are formed. As prospective entrepreneurs consider what is imagined and
what is possible, they make sense of the objective conditions surrounding potential
opportunities. However, as we have shown, the nature of wicked problems affects both the
propensity that an opportunity can be possible and the likelihood that prospective
entrepreneurs will unduly simplify their understanding of the problem due to the reductive
tendency. This simplification manifests as a narrowing or even eliminating the entrepreneur’s
ability to distinguish between imagining and believing. In this way, the entrepreneur’s modes
of imagining and believing collapse, as they cannot accurately judge the objective conditions
required to sustain a venture. By simplifying the wicked problem, they risk believing what
they imagine can also be real, thus increasing the likelihood of forming a belief based on a
non-opportunity. Figure 2 depicts the reductive entrepreneur’s situation.
Having explained the mechanism by which the reductive tendency affects the
prospective entrepreneur’s judgment to shape non-opportunity beliefs, we offer our second
proposition:
10*&  )
!
.
---------------------------------------------------
Insert Figure 2 about here
 ---------------------------------------------------
We argue that, because an individual simplifies understandings of wicked problems,
he or she more easily imagines “a favorable state of the world to follow a course of action”
(Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016:424). This makes it difficult for prospective entrepreneurs to
distinguish between what should be left to imagination and what is possible, resulting in the
potential formation non-opportunity beliefs.
However, not all prospective entrepreneurs tackling wicked problems fall prey to the
reductive tendency and form beliefs based on non-opportunities. We focus on the role of
knowledge in mitigating the manifestation of the reductive tendency and the implications this
has for belief formation. We suggest that knowledge both enables prospective entrepreneurs
to understand the complex, uncertain and, evaluative nature of wicked problems, reducing the
likelihood they inadvertently simplify them, while also expanding the domain of what is
possible. Regarding the latter, it is important to remember the objective existence of
opportunities and the role that contextual factors play in constraining what is an opportunity
for some prospective entrepreneurs. Depending on context, an opportunity for one
entrepreneur could be a non-opportunity for others (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006).
Knowledge, or more precisely the lack of it, is one such factor which can constrain what is
possible for an entrepreneur.
As we are interested in explaining the formation of non-opportunity beliefs, our focus
on knowledge centers on its role in distinguishing between imagining and believing, rather
than the distinction between the latter two modes of Ramoglou and Tsang’s typology:
believing and knowing. The difference between an opportunity belief and knowing an
opportunity is genuine can only happen retrospectively, after action to actualize the
opportunity has been taken (McMullen, 2015). While this distinction is possible to make after
the results of entrepreneurial action unfold, it is not possible to know whether a yet-to-be
actualized opportunity is a non-opportunity or an opportunity waiting for the right
entrepreneur to actualize it. This reflects the actor-intensive nature of opportunities. Like all
entrepreneurship, action is required. Even if a viable opportunity belief is formed, success is
far from guaranteed.
8.()!
Not all individuals construct overly simplistic understandings when faced with
complex problems (Jacobson, 2001). Expertise with a complex problem reduces the extent to
which an individual is susceptible to the reductive tendency as their knowledge of the
problem enables them to comprehend its complexity (Feltovich et al., 2004; Jacobson, 2001).
In this vein, novices learning about a complex concept for the first time prefer simple
causality, central control, and predictability in the phenomena they encounter (Jacobson,
2001). Experts, conversely, demonstrate decentralized thinking, an understanding of multiple
causes, and the use of stochastic and equilibration processes (Jacobson, 2001).
Research in other domains, including psychology (Jacobson, 2001), entrepreneurship
(Shane, 2000), and education (Hmelo-Silver and Pfeffer, 2004), provides theoretical backing
and empirical evidence that prior knowledge facilitates further and more complex knowledge
acquisition. Such prior stores of knowledge allow individuals to accumulate and integrate
new information (Gimeno Folta, Cooper, and Woo, 1997), to focus on the more salient facets
of a concept (Shepherd and Patzelt, 2018), and to identify new means-ends relationships or
entrepreneurial opportunities (Davidsson and Honig, 2003). These effects are salient for
understanding how prospective entrepreneurs learn about wicked problems as their nature is
revealed through experience with them. For example, experience with wicked problems, and
the knowledge gained through it, may reveal to prospective entrepreneurs their multiple-
facets and non-obvious root causes (Rittel and Webber, 1973).
We suggest three ways in which a prospective entrepreneur can learn about the nature
of wicked problems. First, this knowledge can stem from personally experiencing the
problem (Goss, Jones, Betta and Latham, 2011; Waddock and Steckler, 2016). Goss and
colleagues (2011) found that personal experience enables entrepreneurs to understand
multiple facets of a wicked problem and draw on this knowledge when establishing their own
social enterprises. For example, Prison Fellowship International, an organization that helps
inmates transition back into society after their release, among several other program
offerings, was founded by a former prisoner. Having personally experienced the hardships of
prison and carrying those hardships after release, the founder understood the challenges
prisoners face and was motivated to form an enterprise to help them (Prison Fellowship
International, 2019).
Second, prospective entrepreneurs can develop knowledge of wicked problems from
different forms of work experience, such as humanitarian, community, or volunteer work
experience (Corner and Ho, 2010). Although they may not directly experience the problem
through personal suffering, prospective entrepreneurs interact and embed themselves with
those who do, thus providing depth of insight enabling them to comprehend the problem in
new and useful ways (Dorado, 2006). A significant benefit from such experiences is that,
when individuals are embedded in a context, they are more likely to understand how the
social and resource systems interconnect (Baker, 1990). Embeddedness creates increased
opportunities for interaction with community stakeholders (Shaw and Carter, 2007), further
creating opportunities to understand the problem. As an example of gaining this type of
experience, Australian Michael Linke started BEN Namibia, a social enterprise that
distributes bicycles to volunteer health workers and maintains them through repair
workshops. Previously, Michael volunteered in the UK for a charity called Re-cycle, which
collects unwanted bikes and ships them to partner organizations in Africa. He also spent time
with a social entrepreneur in Cape Town to better understand the problem that he was trying
to solve through distributing and managing bicycles.
Third, knowledge of wicked problems can come from collaboration wherein in-depth
knowledge of a wicked problem is shared among individuals to learn about the problem
(Ferraro et al., 2015). To tackle wicked problems, multiple stakeholders with different forms
of expertise are often convened. As Montgomery and her colleagues observe, “much of social
entrepreneurship appears, in fact, to be collaborative and collective, drawing on a broad array
of support, cooperation and alliances to build awareness, gain resources and, ultimately, make
change” (Montgomery, Dacin, and Dacin, 2012:376). Along with these benefits,
collaborative social entrepreneurship facilitates the sharing of knowledge and experience
among members (Montgomery et al., 2012; Svendsen and Laberge, 2005). Knowledge
acquisition in this manner has been termed   (Huber, 1991) or 
 (Bandura, 1977). Such knowledge sharing can help prospective entrepreneurs
understand the complex nature of wicked problems developed by drawing on the experiences
of others.
With a more advanced understanding of the complexities of wicked problems,
prospective entrepreneurs are less susceptible to the reductive tendency. This reduces the
extent to which they are adversely affected by problem uncertainty as they are more likely to
see the problem, its boundary, and causes for what they are. Knowledge of wicked problems
enables prospective entrepreneurs to more accurately answer the question “What problems
are out there and what is causing them?”
By more comprehensively understanding wicked problems, prospective entrepreneurs
are in a better position not only to determine whether the objective conditions are present to
sustain a venture (making them more likely to avoid Type I errors) but also to better judge
potential opportunities in light of those conditions (making them less likely to commit Type
II errors). They can thus better distinguish which potentially actualizable opportunities should
be pursued and which should not. Knowledge also expands the objective range of
opportunities that are available to the prospective entrepreneur. As the prospective
entrepreneur gains more knowledge about a wicked problem, the realm of opportunities
which are possible for them increases (Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016). While gaining
knowledge in and of itself is unlikely to change the objective conditions that preclude
opportunity (i.e. it will not turn a non-opportunity into an opportunity), it may open the
prospective entrepreneur’s eyes to other courses of action that may in fact be actualizable
opportunities. Regarding the window of judgment mentioned in the preceding section,
knowledge enables the prospective entrepreneur to see a distinction between imagining and
believing that decreases the likelihood of forming a belief based on a non-opportunity. Thus
knowledge helps to distinguish between what is simply an imaginative idea and what is
possible, minimizing the likelihood of forming a belief based on a non-opportunity.
PlayPumps can again illustrate the impact of knowledge on the reductive tendency
and subsequently on opportunity beliefs. Despite PlayPumps International exemplifying a
failed social enterprise (e.g., Case, 2010), the PlayPumps technology and approach are still in
active use. In 2018 six new Playpumps were installed (Kim and Perreault-Henry, 2018a).
However, the founder of PlayPumps is no longer leading the operations. With mounting
criticism on the inefficacy of the venture, PlayPump International ceased operations and
gifted its inventory to Water for the People, a nonprofit specializing in water provision.
PlayPumps now sits in a portfolio of potential options for accessing water but are only
installed when the conditions are suitable to support its success. With a rich experience in
providing water, the founders of Water for the People have knowledge to understand when a
PlayPump is viable. The impact of knowledge on forming non-opportunity beliefs is
illustrated in Figure 2 and formally stated in our final proposition:
14* ()!  )  ! ! , 
        )
!!! ) ) . &      
!
.
9.
By their very nature, wicked problems should exude their daunting character and
dissuade individuals from engaging with them. We argue neither that historically intractable
problems must always remain so nor that social entrepreneurs will always misunderstand
them. Instead, we explain how and why the nature of wicked problems can shape the
prospective entrepreneur’s ability to recognize the objective conditions that surround them
and the judgments they form about those conditions when forming opportunity beliefs. We
show how this can lead to non-opportunity beliefs (i.e., Type I errors) where individuals form
convictions about opportunities for which the objective conditions necessary to actualize
them are not in place. While we have focused on wicked problems contextually, our
arguments contribute to entrepreneurship research and practice more broadly.

We bring a focus to the nature of problems and the role they play in the formation of
opportunity beliefs. We introduce and conceptualize  as a specific form
of state uncertainty where the exact definition, boundary conditions, and causes of a problem
are unknown or unknowable. This conceptualization lays the foundation for our theorizing on
how prospective entrepreneurs form non-opportunity beliefs. 
We draw on and extend Ramoglou and Tsang’s (2016) critical realist perspective that
views opportunities as actor-independent while their pursuit is actor-intensive, with the
individual and environment interacting in ways that are formative to opportunity beliefs.
According to this view, opportunities are based in objective reality, but they are ultimately
propensities that must be actualized by entrepreneurial action (Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016).
This opens the door, as our arguments suggest, for entrepreneurs to act on what may
ultimately be not merely an opportunity doomed to failure, but a non-opportunity (McMullen
and Dimov, 2013; Ramoglou, 2013). We extend the critical realist approach by explicating
the mechanisms through which non-opportunity beliefs are formed. To do this, we introduced
the reductive tendency as the means by which prospective entrepreneurs mentally simplify
the nature of wicked problems, and secondly, we theorized how this simplification influences
the formation of opportunity beliefs. Specifically, we suggest that simplification makes it
harder for prospective entrepreneurs to distinguish between ideas that should be left in the
realm of imagination because the objective conditions to enable its realization are not present,
and opportunity beliefs where the objective conditions to enable its realization are present. By
analyzing the nature of wicked problems, we theorize non-opportunity materially. But, more
importantly, we uncover the specific mechanisms by which non-opportunity beliefs may be
formed, and by extension, suggest that taking a problem-centered approach is necessary in
understanding entrepreneurial opportunities more broadly.
 !"#
Our focus on problems suggests a need for continued research on the nature and
effects of uncertainty. In McMullen and Shepherd’s (2006) model of opportunity belief
formation, the central question is whether  type of uncertainty – state, effect, or response –
can be understood and borne to allow for opportunity belief to be formed. However, as we
argue above, in the case of wicked problems, the question is not what prevents opportunity
beliefs (Type II errors) but why non-opportunity beliefs (Type I errors) are formed. By
introducing problem uncertainty a particular form of state uncertainty we bring greater
fidelity to the study of uncertainty type. We suggest that a similar approach can be useful to
the broader discussion of uncertainty across all kinds of entrepreneurship. Going beyond a
focus on uncertain outcomes to questions about uncertain problems may help us rethink
fundamental questions about why some people are able to identify and pursue opportunities
to solve some problems while others do not (Suddaby, Bruton, and Si, 2015).
Our theorizing focuses on how non-opportunity beliefs are formed, rather than the
actor-intensive nature of behavior based on those beliefs. A common criticism of the realist
approach to understanding opportunities is that it does not take time into account (e.g.
Berglund and Korsgaard, 2017). Although it is not possible to know in the case of failure
whether there was no opportunity to begin with or whether the opportunity was left
unactualized, the lens of non-opportunity can provide insights into the judgment of the
entrepreneur and how learning about the complexity of the problem as a basis for opportunity
informs their judgment. The decision to invest in the realization of an opportunity requires
the entrepreneur to continually make judgments about the potential of the opportunity and
whether through action and effort it can be successfully realized (McMullen, 2015). What
becomes important is that the entrepreneur learns about the potential of the opportunity and
abandons those startup attempts where the objective conditions to enable the actualization of
the opportunity are not present (Davidsson, 2015). Bringing this problem focus to the broader
study of opportunity could help to answer calls for further examination of entrepreneurship as
process and method (Baker et al., 2003; McMullen and Dimov, 2013; Sarasvathy, 2003;
Sarasvathy and Venkataraman, 2011; Selden and Fletcher, 2015; Venkataraman et al., 2012)
where non-opportunity and problem uncertainty can provide insights into why some startup
attempts are abandoned or evolve in unexpected ways.
It is our hope that our approach may also enable productive new theoretical
developments that draw on the vibrant discourse on the nature of opportunity (e.g. Alvarez
and Barney, 2007; 2010; Alvarez, Barney, and Anderson, 2012; Alvarez, Barney, McBride,
and Wuebker, 2014; 2017; Alvarez, Barney, and Young, 2010; Davidsson, 2015; 2016;
Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016; 2018; Ramoglou and Zyglidopoulous, 2015; Ramoglou, 2013;
Shane, 2012). In this paper, we sought not to defend a particular perspective nor to reconcile
differing ontological/epistemological positions, but to draw on the rich, meta-theoretical
insights this ongoing debate has produced to develop new theoretical arguments that address
our research question. We posit that a problem-centric approach to opportunity can facilitate
future research that does the same. The literature dating from when the IO nexus was
introduced often mentions that the possibility of solving customer problems can create value
(e.g., Ardichvilli, Cardozo and Ray 2003; Shane, 2000; Venkataraman, 1997). A focus on
solving problems is clearly evident in social and environmental entrepreneurship research
(e.g., Bacq, Hartog, and Hoogendoorn, 2016; Dees, 2017; Gras and Lumpkin, 2012;
Lumpkin, Moss, Gras, Kato, and Amezcua, 2013; Tracey and Phillips, 2007; York and
Venkataraman, 2010; Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum and Shulman 2009), and looking for
customer problems to solve as a starting point is key to the way we teach entrepreneurship
(e.g., Neck and Greene, 2011; Neck et al., 2014; Neck et al., 2017). Thus, we suggest a
problem-centric lens could facilitate future theoretical and empirical exploration as a starting
point for understanding the entrepreneurship process that also has the potential to offer new
insights into the relationships among external conditions, entrepreneurs, and opportunities
(Davidsson, 2015; Shane, 2003).
$%&'(
We introduce the reductive tendency, a process through which individuals simplify
complex systems into cognitively manageable representations as they learn about them, to
understand how and why prospective entrepreneurs simplify wicked problems and the
implications of this tendency for the formation of opportunity beliefs. By focusing on the
consequences of simplification in high stakes environments, we shift focus from the benefits
of simplification to overcome doubt and enable action (Shepherd, McMullen and Jennings,
2007; Wood et al., 2014) to the downside of simplification for increasing the likelihood of a
prospective entrepreneur forming a non-opportunity belief where the subsequent implications
of acting on this belief is the failure of the venture. Relatedly, lack of human capital is
frequently cited as a cause of entrepreneurial failure (Shepherd and Wiklund, 2006) and we
offer the reductive tendency and resulting simplification of the problem as a more refined
explanation as to why lack of human capital, in the form of knowledge of the problem gained
through experience, is a common cause for new firm failure.
By introducing the role of experiential knowledge into our theorizing, we show how it
can reduce the impact of the reductive tendency when forming an understanding of wicked
problems, thereby simultaneously reducing the likelihood of forming non-opportunity beliefs
and increasing the scope of what is possible for that prospective entrepreneur. This enables
these entrepreneurs to develop actualizable opportunities which take into account the wicked
nature of the problem while also having the knowledge to act on them. This extends the
literature on experiential knowledge in entrepreneurship by illustrating a potential mechanism
by which experiential knowledge enables some entrepreneurs and not others to realize
actualizable opportunities. We suggest experience reveals the layered complexity of a
problem which observation from afar cannot. Such experience enables prospective
entrepreneurs to make better judgments about the potential of an opportunity (McMullen,
2015) resulting in them pursuing opportunities which have a greater likelihood of succeeding
and avoiding those that do not. This extends Corner and Ho’s (2010) discussion of experience
corridors in social entrepreneurship by explicating how and why experience with a problem
enables prospective entrepreneurs to identify opportunities. The social entrepreneurship
literature has acknowledge the importance of experience and depth of understanding of
wicked problems (Dorado, 2006) but has yet to systematically unpack the role of such
experience for the formation of opportunity beliefs (Corner and Ho, 2010).
) !"#%&'(
The reductive tendency also brings to the fore the importance of learning from
experience during entrepreneurship (Cope, 2005; Politis, 2005). Through acting on an
opportunity, entrepreneurs learn about the complexity of the problem they are trying to solve
and are therefore in a better position to make a judgment about the potential of the
opportunity and what is required to actualize the opportunity. In this way, our arguments
extend McMullen’s conceptualization of entrepreneurial judgment as a series of decisions
made over time (McMullen, 2015). His focus was on the developing and bearing out of
empathic accuracy such that judgment about an opportunity can be seen as a process. Our
work suggests that, through knowledge, insights about the definition, boundary conditions,
and causes of problems may also be developed and borne out over time. As we point out, this
does not mean that a non-opportunity can become an opportunity, but it may make other,
realizable opportunities easier to see and may also better enable collective action that may
change the objective conditions that surround the problem. In other words, the entrepreneur
may not always have an opportunity to solve a problem, but he or she does always have an
opportunity to learn more about it. In this sense knowledge shapes and changes the nature of
the opportunity as entrepreneurs gain a greater understanding of what is required to achieve
their goals.
*+
Our paper joins a growing stream of research linking wicked problems and grand
challenges to social entrepreneurship (Alvord, Brown, and Letts, 2004; Dorado and
Ventresca, 2013; Ferraro et al., 2015; Hervieux and Voltan, 2018; Waddock and Post, 1991).
We place wicked problems and their characteristics at the center of our theorizing to show
how they shape the mechanisms driving (non-)opportunity belief formation.
Prosocial motivation has received a great deal of attention in the social
entrepreneurship literature (e.g., Bacq and Alt, 2018; Conger, 2012; Conger et al., 2018; Mair
and Noboa, 2006; Miller et al., 2012; Wry and York, 2017), while we focus instead on
knowledge (and the lack thereof) in shaping the formation of beliefs. In this way, our
contribution is not only additive but also complimentary to this prior research. We show how
the reductive tendency can lead prospective entrepreneurs to an unsuitably simplified
understanding of wicked problems. Concurrently, prosocial motivation increases the
desirability of acting on perceived opportunities by meeting the prospective entrepreneur’s
emotional and moral desire to alleviate suffering (Miller et al., 2012) and address societal and
environmental ills. With such a powerful motivation to effect change, the reductive
tendency’s offering of seemingly simple problems may be particularly seductive to these
would-be social entrepreneurs.
 !"#+(
Our focus on wicked problems and deeper integration with established theories of
opportunity (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006; Ramoglou and Tsang, 2016) and knowledge has
implications for future research on social entrepreneurship. Scholars have endorsed the utility
of social entrepreneurship as a distinctive context for extending and challenging existing
theory in the broader entrepreneurship domain (e.g., Battilana and Lee, 2014). We suggest
that continued use of wicked problems and grand challenges as lenses for problematizing the
entrepreneurship process may open new opportunities in this effort. For example, the
interrelated nature of wicked problems (e.g., education and poverty or poverty and hunger)
are part of what drives their complexity and the evaluative nature of how they can be
understood. This should prompt us to look more closely at whether and how these problem
 may affect and be affected by entrepreneurial action
Wicked problems are not a prerequisite for the presence of social entrepreneurship;
instead they are boundary condition of our theorizing. Many kinds of opportunities for social
entrepreneurship exist. Social entrepreneurs may, for example, bring ‘unit-level solutions’
(Dorado and Ventresca, 2013) to clear and manageable problems. Zahra and his colleagues’
(2009) ‘social bricoleur’ addresses small-scale local social needs and possesses the
knowledge and resources to sufficiently address the needs. Extending our theorizing more
broadly to the context of social entrepreneurship, different types of social entrepreneurs may
be more or less susceptible to the reductive tendency depending on the nature of the problem
they are trying to solve and the scale at which they are trying to do this. Zahra and his
colleagues’ (2009) typology of social entrepreneurs which takes into account how social
entrepreneurs pursue social opportunities and the reach their solutions have on the broader
social system combined with Smith and Stevens’ (2010) extension of this typology to
include the geographic reach of these entrepreneurs provides a framework for further
theorizing on the role of the reductive tendency in social entrepreneurship more broadly. For
example, as social entrepreneurs shift their focus from addressing social needs within a local
community to addressing social needs at a grand scale, their level of embeddedness within a
single community decreases, creating the conditions for the reductive tendency to manifest.
Perhaps the most obvious implication of our theory is what it reveals about the
potential dark side of social entrepreneurship (Chell, Spence, Perrini, and Harris, 2016; Cho,
2006; Dacin, 2013; Dacin, Dacin, and Tracey, 2011; Dey and Steyaert, 2016; Dorado and
Ventresca, 2013, McMullen and Warnick, 2016). Several of these studies cite a concern
consistent with the Foucault’s work in ethics (Dey and Steyaert, 2016; Dorado and Ventresca,
2013). Namely, any unilateral attempts to address wicked problems are bound to be ‘clumsy’,
even if they do not fail completely. Under the best of circumstances, opportunities to solve
wicked problems are “one-shot operations” (Rittel and Webber, 1973:163) where, in the
event of failure, pursuing these opportunities could cause more harm than good. This creates
a high stakes environment where understanding why attempts to address wicked problems
can fail has high practical relevance. The reductive tendency can help explain why many
attempts to solve wicked problems fall short (Dorado and Ventresca, 2013). By
misconstruing the complexity of the wicked problem, prospective entrepreneurs risk
implementing solutions that do not solve them, and perhaps do even more harm than good
(Dorado and Ventresca, 2013). 
, !-
Our theory also offers several implications for prospective entrepreneurs wishing to
tackle wicked problems. Most notably, we illuminate the susceptibility of prospective
entrepreneurs to the reductive tendency when aiming to tackle wicked problems where the
consequence is overly simplistic solutions that do not help alleviate the wicked problem. We
further suggest that this may be avoided through in-depth understanding of the problem and
provide actionable methods of gaining such understanding. The apocryphal adage often
attributed to Einstein, “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five
minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution” is worth
considering. Prospective entrepreneurs would do well to gain experience and develop
expertise about wicked problems before trying to solve them. We recommend that when
feeling compelled by compassion to help those suffering in this world, they would find real
and meaningful opportunities to expose themselves to the wicked problem they wish to
address so they can acquire vital experience and avoid the seductive call of the reductive
tendency. One way they can do this is by working with experts and learning about the
problem through different forms of work experience.
We would also urge prospective entrepreneurs to seriously consider potentially
negative consequences if they do pursue what could be a non-opportunity. If, as we suggest,
the reductive tendency tends to lead them to wrongly simplify their understanding of the
causes and outcomes of addressing wicked problems, we can expect poor and perhaps even
grave consequences for the people they try to help. The most obvious way this could manifest
itself would be in unintended consequences. Because of their interrelated nature, causal
ambiguity, and the impossibility of understanding their true nature a priori, attempts to solve
wicked problems can trigger new chains of persistent social ills. Also, we must take seriously
the issue of problem normativity; the inextricably entwined nature of human values and
norms with problem formation and resolution (Farrell and Hooker, 2013). Wicked problems
have variable ontologies (Callon, 1998; Ferraro et al., 2015), shape and are shaped by the
interpretation of multiple stakeholders (Dentoni et al., 2016; Reinecke and Ansari, 2016), and
thus have neither a true or false solution nor an ultimate means for testing solutions (Rittel
and Webber, 1973). We suggest prospective entrepreneurs must grapple with these
difficulties if they hope to minimize the potential downside of tackling wicked problems.
The concept of non-opportunity also has pedagogical implications as it provides a
language through which the feasibility of students’ ideas can be discussed. More robustly
discussing and teaching the objective conditions needed to support the realization of
opportunities complements existing dominant approaches to teaching entrepreneurship, such
as effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001) and the Lean Startup method (Ries, 2011) which have a
predominately inward entrepreneur focus.
./'!"#
As with any study, ours has limitations. We intentionally limit our focus to theoretical
development and to opportunity beliefs in the setting of wicked problems. Of course, the
interest of social entrepreneurship scholars goes well beyond the formation of opportunity
beliefs and wicked problems. Ultimately, we wish to answer the same question as many in
society more broadly. That is, whether and how entrepreneurship can help address wicked
social and environmental problems (Lumpkin et al., 2013). In addition to what we outline in
our discussion, future research could consider how wicked problems may continue to affect
entrepreneurs as they take action on their opportunity and continue their entrepreneurial
journey. For example, it would be valuable to understand the potential for spillover effects of
the experience and learning the entrepreneur may gain by pursuing an opportunity, or non-
opportunity, to solve wicked problems. This may tell us more about social entrepreneurship
as a non-zero-sum game that must be played over multiple attempts and learning from each.
Our theory is also limited by our intentional focus on the reductive tendency. We
found this perspective to be particularly useful in explaining why and how individuals come
to believe they have an opportunity to solve a wicked problem. However, we believe
addressing this question from other perspectives, especially within the domain of social
psychology, may shed more light on the mechanisms we describe here. In particular,
sociological theories of identity (Stryker, 1980; Burke, 1980) and symbolic interactionism
(Blumer, 1962) could be especially enlightening, as they recognize that the beliefs,
understandings, and actions of individuals occur and relate within their social and
institutional context.
Our theory would further benefit from the critique of scholars rooted in different
philosophical paradigms. In particular, theories focused more on radical change and structural
power dynamics (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) could provide important new perspectives to
refine the ideas we offer here. For example, feminist theory has been useful in illuminating
important ways in which individual and structural beliefs about gender shape the
entrepreneurial experience (see Hughes, Jennings, Brush, Carter, and Welter, 2012).
Finally, we address the concept of wicked problems only in the abstract. While this is
necessary to build generalizable theory, it also prevents us from uncovering deeper insight
that may be found through a more contextualized dive focused on a particular wicked
problem, and the lives of the people who suffer from it. Future research should consider
wicked problems and opportunities from multiple cultural perspectives and particularly those
perspectives specific to the affected populations.
:. 
Solving social problems is possible. Many entrepreneurs are subject-matter experts who
understand, respect, and compensate for the complexity of the social problems they battle.
However, there also is no shortage of anecdotes about entrepreneurs who charged into a
wicked problem, only to find that they did not grasp the underlying complexity, often to
disastrous effects (e.g., PlayPumps International, 2016). Despite the daunting task of
addressing these complex problems, many entrepreneurs continue to create new ventures to
engage with them (Kickul and Lyons, 2016). This paper offers one explanation to account for
this phenomenon. For those pursuing entrepreneurial solutions to wicked problems, we
recommend that they, to paraphrase M. Scott Peck (1998:14),
Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin
to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of [wicked problems], not to
be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience
-- to appreciate the fact that [a wicked problem] is complex.
:.'
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... Studies show us that the lack of appreciation of the experiential knowledge mindset of the entrepreneurs is complemented by beneficiaries' fear, anxiety, and cynicism (Twersky et al., 2013), accompanied by a lack of resources to participate in engagement, which leads to missing representativeness of beneficiaries and difficulties in obtaining authentic feedback (Nolan et al., 2019). So, the solutions that entrepreneurs develop may be inadequate or ignorant of the deeper roots of a problem, so that they perpetuate rather than address the underlying problems (Gras et al., 2020). ...
... Stakeholder theory informs us how stakeholders, depending on power, urgency, and legitimacy (Mitchell et al., 1997), influence societal impact (Bailey & Lumpkin, 2021). Empirical evidence shows us that excluding stakeholders and thereby reducing the complex problem, might miss important dimensions (Gras et al., 2020) and can thereby lead to no or even negative societal impact (Hall et al., 2012). Research on beneficiaries of social enterprises in turn emphasizes their influence and effects on the intended impacts and the organizational structures, which may produce such impacts (Benjamin, 2021). ...
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Social entrepreneurship is typically thought of as the pursuit of a commercial activity with the primary goal to achieve societal impact. The European school of thought on social entrepreneurship emphasizes one more constituent element of social entrepreneurship namely, stakeholder engagement, especially beneficiary engagement, through organizing the decision-making as a participatory process to foster local democracy. However, there is limited research on engagement through social entrepreneurship; and this is mostly published in practitioner-oriented journals. Engaging with literature about citizen engagement in science and technology shows that these findings regarding hardware (methods, tools), software (mindset), and orgware (embedding in organisational structures and processes) can stimulate social entrepreneurship research. Both engagement processes share similar aims. The normative argument values democracy and empowerment and aims to nurture it through engagement. Instrumental and substantial arguments claim that engagement leads to better fitting and accepted innovations. In addition, implementing engagement faces similar barriers in both fields. Following the three lenses of hardware, software, and orgware, we analyse engagement in social entrepreneurship research. Concluding, we identify avenues for future research on the process of engagement and its contribution to the societal impact of the social enterprise. Future research is needed to understand how engagement practices influence the societal impact, especially local democracy, of social enterprises, and how this relationship is influenced by engagement competences of the social entrepreneur and engagement experiences of the beneficiary as well as the degree to which engagement practices are embedded in the social enterprise.
... In this paper, we posit that if business leaders want to successfully move the needle on racial diversity in the supply chain, they first must understand all the inherent challenges and potential hurdles that stand in their way. When dealing with complex and multifaceted topics such as racial inequity, Gras et al. (2020) note that individuals have a reductive tendency that causes them to oversimplify both the causes and proposed solutions. In this case, it can translate to viewing their pledge to diversify the supply chain as a simple solution to issues of racial inequity and the incorrect assumption that implementation is straightforward. ...
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... First, and in parallel to other processes of engagement in society such as the consultation and inclusion of the public in the development of science and new technology, Hueske, Willems, and Hockerts (this volume) suggest there is much room for improvement when it comes to making citizens co-entrepreneurs or co-innovators of the social economy. A restriction of engagement mechanisms to the very end of the process (in the sense of 'we inform citizens and target groups what we have done for them') only symbolically carries notions of participation and may lead to solutions that are actually not fitting with the problems they should address (Gras, Conger, Jenkins, & Gras, 2019). Second, Bräanvall (this volume) shows how improved local embedding and meaningful inclusion and relationship building, especially when Western entrepreneurs engage in developing countries, are needed to accelerate the scaling of social innovations. ...
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... Social enterprises have been known to operate on such principles for decades and therefore serve as beacons of how positive social change can be achieved (Nicholls, 2006). While this does not mean that social economy organizations are free from falling into reductive thinking that propels rather than solves so-called wicked social problems (Gras, Conger, Jenkins, & Gras, 2019), it shows that social economy organizations' activities typically radiate far beyond the boundaries of their own field. ...
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Lack of progress in the area of global sustainable development and difficulties in crisis management highlight the need to transform the economy and find new ways of making society more resilient. The social economy is increasingly recognized as a driver of such transformations; it comprises traditional forms of cooperative or solidarity-based organizations alongside new phenomena such as impact investing or social tech ventures that aim to contribute to the public good. Social Economy Science provides the first comprehensive analysis of why and how social economy organizations create superior value for society. The book draws on organizational theory and transition studies to provide a systematic perspective on complex multi-stakeholder forms of action. It discusses the social economy’s role in promoting innovation for impact, as well as its role as an agent of societal change and as a partner to businesses, governments, and citizens.
... We think this is inevitable, because all of the grand challenges of our times require evaluation (objective assessment) and valuation (judgement) by equal measure to arrive at the right decision for a problem, not only the most efficient one. Otherwise social economy actors and researchers alike might become stuck in reductive traps-that is, the conviction that they are addressing a problem, while in fact they are actually perpetuating the problem (Gras, Conger, Jenkins, & Gras, 2019). This may happen because they have not considered the problem in its entirety, have ignored the viewpoint of those affected, or have shied away from actively valuing (that is, normatively taxing) a certain problem to be addressed. ...
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Lack of progress in the area of global sustainable development and difficulties in crisis management highlight the need to transform the economy and find new ways of making society more resilient. The social economy is increasingly recognized as a driver of such transformations; it comprises traditional forms of cooperative or solidarity-based organizations alongside new phenomena such as impact investing or social tech ventures that aim to contribute to the public good. Social Economy Science provides the first comprehensive analysis of why and how social economy organizations create superior value for society. The book draws on organizational theory and transition studies to provide a systematic perspective on complex multi-stakeholder forms of action. It discusses the social economy’s role in promoting innovation for impact, as well as its role as an agent of societal change and as a partner to businesses, governments, and citizens.
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