Social Innovation at the interface of technology, entrepreneurship and economic institutions

Abstract

Social innovation and social entrepreneurship are increasingly seen as critical to solve social and environmental challenges through novel solutions. While the field of entrepreneurship has begun to embrace and enrich the field of social entrepreneurship, other areas of technology and business innovation are yet to be exploited, to better understand the mechanisms and processes surrounding social innovation. Infusing the social innovation literature with insights from technology and business innovation research, sustainability, and social movements research can yield powerful and meaningful lines of inquiry. More recently, the boundary between technology innovation and entrepreneurship has been transcended to enhance our understanding of technological entrepreneurship that continues to generate an evolving research stream. A similar exploration of the interfaces between technological innovation, social innovation, and entrepreneurship can yield new insights for research and practice. This interest coincides with this year's Academy of Management Meeting theme, “At the Interface.&x201D; In this symposium, we will bring together scholars from various areas such as technology innovation, social movements, sustainability, social enterprise law, entrepreneurship and impact investing to share their perspectives and explore potential commonalities and differences, with the goal of identifying new lines of research in the interface between these areas.