Abstract
Interest in social innovations (SIs) from both the academic and the policy side is growing. Nonetheless, we still know little about which sustainable development goals (SDGs) SIs already address. Furthermore, only little is known about who the innovators developing and implementing SIs are. In this paper, we aim to bring more clarity and structure to the field of SIs. Firstly, a systematic literature review was conducted, before a content analysis was used to analyze the definitions used with regard to similarities. Secondly, all case studies described in the reviewed articles were then further systematically analyzed in order to identify the social or environmental problems addressed and the innovators involved. For the purpose of classifying the diverse types of problems, we used the globally known and broadly accepted 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). Results showed that most SI case studies deal with an improvement of health and well-being. Furthermore, our study illustrates that there is a pronounced difference in the focus of SIs between developing and developed countries. Concerning the innovators, our results indicate that five types of innovators are fundamentally involved in developing and implementing SIs: social entrepreneurs, NGOs and non-profits, public institutions, civil society, firms, and social enterprises. Our definition analysis as well as the identification and classification of the innovators and addressed social needs bring much-needed clarity and structure to the field. However, our systematic review shows that SI is still in its infancy and it will be interesting to see where the field will head.
Highlights
The concept of social innovation (SI) has gained significant attention and interest in recent times
Given the wide topic range of social needs addressed by SI case studies, we found it indispensable to use a categorization system to bring some structure to the field
Based on a systematic literature review, the bibliometric part of this study does support the growing academic interest in SI discovered in previous studies, but it shows a literal boom of published articles in the field of SI within the last two to three years
Summary
The concept of social innovation (SI) has gained significant attention and interest in recent times. SIs are considered suitable for solving many of the most challenging problems facing today’s society and for mitigating inequalities inherent to traditional solutions [4,5]. They address a wide-ranging field (e.g., from sustainable consumption [6,7] to health issues [8,9] or from sustainable energy [10,11] to sustainable cities and communities [12,13,14]). An example of an SI from the 20th century is provided by the development of the Quebec community-housing sector [20]
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