Needs-Based and Asset-Based Approaches to Social Innovation: A Comparative Framework

Abstract— Social innovation is a term defining both the process and the resulting product or service to solve social issues. Usually it follows a business-like approach starting with identifying needs and ending up serving... [ view full abstract ]

Abstract— Social innovation is a term defining both the process and the resulting product or service to solve social issues. Usually it follows a business-like approach starting with identifying needs and ending up serving these needs by bringing solutions to stakeholders. Unlike business innovation, social innovation aims for maximum social impact. Design disciplines have been leading in the formulation of social innovation processes and methodologies, giving rise to approaches such as human-centered design. Recently, however, some design theorists (see Thorpe & Gamman, 2011; Peters, 2011; Campbell, 2017; see also Manzini 2014) have questioned the prevalent problem-orientation in social innovation: According to these authors, design teams should act as facilitators rather than problem-solvers and empower the communities they work with by exploring their strengths and resources instead of focusing on what the “clients” lack. In short they argue for a shift from a needs-based towards an asset-based innovation process (see Kretzmann & McKnight 1993). However, it is conceivable that needs-based and asset-based approaches to social innovation may be tailored to serve specific contexts. Thus, both may hold a potential to lead to sustainable social change. As a prerequisite to explore this question the authors of this paper aim to develop a comparative framework, which highlights relevant factors to contrast different social innovation processes. In this study we are using five case studies from Thailand to develop and test our model. In the future we hope to include a far greater number of case studies to help us identify correlations between successful social innovation approaches and community contexts.