A telo-centric approach to rethink grand challenges: Digital wellbeing as an example

Abstract

How can grand challenge-related issues be studied while comprehensively addressing contemporary needs? The literature on grand challenges has been growing, with an abundance of phenomena on which research is undertaken in a piecemeal fashion, without sufficiently offering integrated insights. In this debate essay, we challenge the proposal offered in Seelos, C., Mair, J. & Traeger, C. (2023) The future of grand challenges research: retiring a hopeful concept and endorsing research principles, International Journal of Management Reviews, 25(2), 251–269 on retiring the grand challenge concept. Instead, we advocate for revitalizing, not retiring, so that grand challenges research can be adapted with the ultimate human purpose of achieving wellbeing. We propose that the solution lies in taking a telo-centric approach to navigate the intersections between various grand challenge issues, offering a novel lens to delve into the ultimate end of human endeavours and to ensure the continued relevance of the grant challenge concept. We exemplify the application of this telo-centric approach through the prism of digital wellbeing, demonstrating how it can pave the way for innovative theoretical frameworks, rigorous empirical investigations and practical developments. We conclude by forwarding future directions for research, practice and policy.