FOR A TYPOLOGY OF THE UNKNOWN OF GRAND CHALLENGES ACTIONNABLE BY ENGINEERING DEPARTMENTS

Marie-Alix Deval (), Sophie Hooge () and Benoit Weil ()
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Marie-Alix Deval: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ISTEC - Institut supérieur des Sciences, Techniques et Economie Commerciales - ISTEC
Sophie Hooge: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Benoit Weil: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The contemporary transitions of climate change, technology evolution, and social inequality present profound challenges for engineering project management. It requires the coordination of a multitude of stakeholders who are facing diverse forms of unknown ranging from technology robustness to reassuring social expectations about the solutions to develop. In other words, technological managers and experts are witnessing a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, comprising a "messy mix of emergent problems, unintended consequences, cacophonous stakeholders voicing contradictory demands, changing technologies, evolving knowledge, and new and untried business models" (Mahdavian et al., 2021). These are the so-called Grand Challenges (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015; George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016; Ika & Munro, 2022). This study explores how grand challenges impact the nature of unknowns addressed by engineering actors in their project management. To respond to this question, an initial section seeks to comprehend the nature of problems encountered at the inception of engineering projects. To this end, two fields of literature have been crossed - the management of the unknown as a risk in engineering projects versus as a generative resource at the genesis of design activities – resulting in a fine description of unknown' specificity for grand challenges where goals are unclear and consensus lacking. Our results describe how they impact the nature of unknowns addressed by engineering actors in their project management. Firstly, through a historical analysis of innovation projects within a century-old automotive manufacturer, we propose a typology of unknowns addressed by engineers—desirable, undesirable, endogenous, and exogenous—and examine the processes required to manage them, including endogenization and desirabilization. Secondly, we demonstrate that the unknowns generated by grand challenges represent a densification and complexity beyond those traditionally managed by engineering experts, necessitating new knowledge management processes focused on a collaborative elicitation of unknowns diversity and undesirability. From a scientific perspective, this research enriches the understanding of unknowns in design activities and adapts this concept to the context of grand challenges. From a practical perspective, it provides actionable insights for engineering departments to address these unknowns independently, without relying on ecosystemic coordination.

Date: 2025-07-25
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Published in Academy of Management Proceedings, 2025, 2025 (Issue 1), https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/AMPROC.2025.253bp. ⟨10.5465/AMPROC.2025.253bp⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05167270

DOI: 10.5465/AMPROC.2025.253bp

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