‘B’ the Change You Want to See: Commensuration Work when Strategizing for a Grand Challenge

Abstract

This study is motivated by a theoretically interesting observation made while in the field: In the process of strategizing for a grand challenge, members of a cross-sector collaboration produced a report card in which ratings are used to assess the ‘water health’ of a critical river basin in the Australian iconic Great Barrier Reef region. Observations show that the report card was continuously adjusted by groups of actors pushing towards one of the Partnership’s three strategic objectives, namely, to generate tangible impact, to demonstrate legitimacy, or to foster members engagement. Although this ‘commensuration work’ appears to coalesce into an objectified depiction of river health, a close examination brings to light how these attempts ultimately infused the artefact with a multivocal quality. Beneficial at first, multivocality eventually lead the artefact to become ‘over-stretched’ thus creating ambiguity around its role in attaining the Partnership’s strategic goals. This study contributes to the strategizing for grand challenges literature by problematizing further the role commensuration plays in facilitating multivocality while exacerbating strategic ambiguity. It also offers a contribution to the literature on commensuration by empirically documenting the micro-practices used by actors to commensurate a grand challenge.