Generativity as a heuristic for impact-driven scholars addressing grand challenges
提出生成性作为一种启发式方法，帮助管理学者通过多元化探究、分配能动性、开展实验和追求预期影响来应对重大挑战，并基于加拿大中小企业气候行动项目进行说明。
In this contribution, we theorize generativity as a heuristic for impact-driven management scholars seeking to address grand challenges through research. We use generativity to connote the engagement of diverse actors in pluralistic inquiry to create conditions for future flourishing. Our theorization applies a pragmatist worldview and builds on insights from the multidisciplinary literature on generativity to envisage researchers as agents of care, collective learning, and transformative change. We synthesize four tenets for researchers seeking both academic and real-world impact. These tenets can support researchers addressing grand challenges by guiding their efforts to diversify inputs, distribute agency, conduct experiments, and pursue prospective impacts. We illustrate generativity in action by drawing on our experience in a transdisciplinary research project on small- and medium-sized enterprises taking climate action in Canada. We show how the four tenets foster generativity to promote an inclusive understanding of grand challenges and a bias toward action, thereby providing an optimistic stance toward addressing issues of social concern.