Advancing Phenomenon-Based Research on Complex Societal Challenges: The Case of Homelessness^* Available to Purchase

We advance organizational research on complex societal challenges and showcase the relevance of a system perspective to analyze organized efforts to address homelessness as a social problem. We adopt a phenomenon-based approach to theorizing and generate plausible explanations by analyzing historical accounts of decisions and actions taken to tackle homelessness by various actors across different sectors in the United States between 1960 and 2021. We apply an analytical scaffolding proposed by Mair and Seelos (2021) to examine how organizations intervene in social systems and explicate the causal, situation, and problem realms of homelessness. Attending to these three realms helps to reveal how homelessness was problematized differently over time and to examine how different causal assumptions shaped organizational decisions about developing and scaling solutions to homelessness. Based on our analysis, we develop a series of propositions that capture contextualized insights on the characteristics and consequences of efforts to address homelessness, accounting for linkages between the causal, situation, and problem realms of homelessness. Finally, our analytical and theoretical approach helps uncover the interconnectedness of scaling and scale, providing valuable insights for theory and policy.