While the notion of innovation has a long history in studies on competitiveness as well as in business research, that of social innovation (SI) is relatively new and little is understood regarding the process of SI. In the article, we would like to address this gap and demonstrate how SIs result both as a reaction to gaps but also as a result of enabling environments. Our hypothesis thus agrees that SIs react to system inefficiencies, but refutes that this alone is sufficient in explaining the development of SIs.
The paper builds on the results of SIMPACT, a recently concluded EU research project, where nearly 60 cases of SI across Europe were analysed, with a specific focus on their economic foundation. The research followed a structured qualitative research process: an initial meta-analysis of a relevant number of existing SI cases; the adoption of criteria leading to the selection of relevant cases; the integrated analysis and discussion of a set of business case studies (desk research) and innovation biographies (field research); and the triangulation of the results to draw evidence-based findings and conclusions.
While the idea of SI acting as a reactive agent to negative configurations of the socio-economic setting was easily found in many of our case studies, we also found empirical evidence that this alone is not sufficient to explain the emergence of SI, which requires instead a proactive mindset and attitude, along with a favorable environment (e.g. a qualified intermediary system, public policies, etc.). With regard to the latter, our case studies prove that favorable, environmental (or contextual) conditions are fundamental in establishing SIs and in making them grow. These positive conditions can be found both at the micro level (the local environment of the SI) and at the meso-macro level (the regional or national contexts). Hence, as in the other forms of innovation, SIs are triggered by their «environment of innovation».
Shifting from the analysis of the mechanisms of SI to that of the behavior of social innovators, our empirical research shows that they too possess a reactive and a proactive dimension: social innovators configure their innovations as remedies to the inefficiencies or the lack in public and private provisions (reactive attitude), but they also strive to find new opportunities and to generate new products, processes, and partnerships (proactive attitude). Their proactive behavior seems to be tightly connected with the “mission-driven” nature of SI.
In conclusion, empirical research shows two typologies of opposite motives for the emergence of SI, which are paradoxically combined. On the one hand, we can describe SIs in their reactive aspects, as ways of contrasting negative facets of the environment of innovation. In this sense, social innovation may be interpreted - according to a classical perspective of analysis of other forms of innovation - as a way of filling a gap that may be attributed to the market, to the state or to both.
On the other hand, we can describe SIs in their proactive aspects, as innovations that take shape thanks to the existence of a favorable institutional setting, intermediaries, and support infrastructures. In this sense, favorable environmental conditions may be interpreted as triggers of innovation, again in line with what has already been described in other forms of innovation, as well as in the case of SI itself, with particular reference to the introduction of the concept of SI ecosystems, for which literature is still in its initial steps.
Further enquiry can thus be focused on understanding the differences between SI and other forms of innovation, not in the ratio per se (favorable environmental conditions that foster the establishment and the growth of SIs), but in the characteristics of a favorable environment for SI (factors that can positively influence SI), and in the specificity of the measures that can be undertaken to shape it (policies to support SI).
References:
Baker, T. and Nelson, R. (2005). Creating something from nothing: resource construction through entrepreneurial bricolage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3): 329-366.
Butzin, A. (2013). Knowledge dynamics in innovation biographies: a methodological and spatial perspective. Dissertation, Philipps-Universität Marburg.
Di Domenico, M., Haugh, H. and Tracey, P. (2010). Social bricolage: Theorizing social value creation in social enterprises. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34(4): 681-703.
Mulgan, G. (2006). The Process of Social Innovation. Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 1(2): 145-162.
Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J., and Mulgan, G. (2010). The Open Book of Social Innovation. London: Nesta.
Santos, F.M. (2013). The Life Cycle of Social Innovations. In Osburg, Th. & Schmidpeters, R. (eds), Social Innovation. Solutions for a Sustainable Future (pp. 183-195). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
Weick, K. (1993). Organizational redesign as improvisation. In Huber, G. and Glick, W. (eds.). Mastering organizational change: Enhancing performance through redesign (pp. 346-379). New York: Oxford University Press US.
2. Social innovation and social entrepreneurship
EMES_2017_Rizzo_Deserti_Cipriani.pdf 