Social Innovation Potential Research Articles

Research on the mechanism involved in urban social inclusiveness and resident entrepreneurship: Evidence from China

During the urbanization process in China, issues such as the widening wealth gap, class stratification, and social exclusion influenced residents' decisions to pursue entrepreneurship. Inclusiveness is an inevitable trend in new urbanization, and it is also a key factor in promoting residents' entrepreneurship and stimulating the potential for social innovation. Based on three key principles, “fairness, openness, and sharing, “ this paper assesses the relationship, and the internal mechanism driving the relationship, between urban social inclusiveness and resident entrepreneurship. This includes constructing an urban social inclusiveness index, and analyzing data from the 2018 China General Social Survey (CGSS). The key results indicate that urban social inclusiveness has a significant positive effect on resident entrepreneurship. The mechanism analysis shows that urban social inclusiveness can improve the probability of residents being entrepreneurial, by improving risk attitude, promoting class mobility, and expanding social networks. Heterogeneity analysis shows that urban social inclusiveness has a significant impact on the entrepreneurial of local residents, and low-class and high-class residents; urban social inclusiveness has no significant impact on the entrepreneurial choice of transient residents and middle-class residents. Besides, urban social inclusiveness plays a more significant role in promoting residents' choice of survival entrepreneurship, compared with opportunistic entrepreneurship.

Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship: Uncovering Themes, Trends, and Discourse

The world is marked by persistent and recurring socio-economic and environmental changes. The domains of social innovation and social entrepreneurship have gained prominence as catalysts for positive change and societal resilience. Despite the substantial body of literature assessing social innovation and social entrepreneurship, most studies address these topics through analyses of scientific production output or through systematic literature reviews. Conversely, the main objective of this paper is to conduct a thematic analysis of the existing scientific literature on social innovation and social entrepreneurship, published across various geographical contexts, to assess themes, trends, and discourse within these fields worldwide. Therefore, it synthesizes, analyzes, and evaluates the evolving landscape of social innovation and social entrepreneurship research over time, employing a sliding windows methodology. This approach divides the analyzed period into distinct times to meticulously track changes in themes and discourse over time. To accomplish this objective, this paper examines the evolving thematic dynamics of social innovation and social entrepreneurship within the scientific literature, serving as a driver and compelling researchers and practitioners to explore new dimensions in social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Evidence from the analysis is discussed, including the main theoretical and practical implications and proposals for future research. This paper emphasizes the importance of adaptive and resilient approaches within the domains of social innovation and social entrepreneurship and contributes to a deeper understanding of how social innovation and social entrepreneurship evolve and adapt over time, shedding light on the transformative potential of social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

A társadalmi innovációs potenciál és a területi versenyképesség kapcsolatának vizsgálata = Investigating the Relationship Between Social Innovation Potential and Spatial Competitiveness

This study jointly examines the social innovation potential and spatial competitiveness of Hungarian municipalities in terms of competitive advantage and competitive disadvantage. The primary focus of our study is on the link between the factors of social innovation potential and spatial competitive advantage. Based on the social innovation complex index of municipalities and its components, we analyse the spatial pattern of social innovation potential in the country using cluster analysis and explore the possible causes of spatial disparities based on social innovation.

Social innovation potential and economic power: The example of Hungarian districts

Our previous research on social innovation examined the process, levels, and stakeholders of social innovation, as well as its relationship with technical and technological innovation. The present study analyzes the spatial image created by the social innovation potential and investigates its relationship with the economic power of the neighborhoods. The most important conclusion of the study is that the basic territorial inequality dimensions are the same in the case of both the social innovation potential and the district’s economic strength. The difference is primarily to be found in concentration, as economic power is much more concentrated in the capital and the most important economic and tourism centers than the social innovation potential. We can therefore state that developments based on social innovation can solve a lot of the highly concentrated spatial structure in Hungary.

A Dialogue between the Humanities and Social Sciences: Cultural Landscapes and Their Transformative Potential for Social Innovation

Throughout the last decades, engaging with cultural landscapes has been a scientific, social, ethical, political, and economic imperative that calls for novel theoretical approaches, effective strategies and, above all, participatory action. Facing this multifarious challenge, academic disciplines have to redefine their traditional methods and aims, and demonstrate an openness towards new and risky paths of scientific pursuits. The present paper arose from interdisciplinary cooperation between the humanities and social sciences with the main objective to explore the potential of cultural landscapes as resources for social innovation in rural regions, addressing issues such as out-migration of original inhabitants, unemployment, and an overaging population. Based on an overview of landscape semantics and theoretical approaches, the paper first analyzes (cultural) landscape and social innovation as applied concepts. In a second step, both disciplinary angles mingle into a joint approach. Moving from methodologies to challenges, the authors discuss the Social Grid Model, which allows for an integrated analysis of social networks, institutions, and cognitive frames. They also delve into the Structured Democratic Dialogue as a tool for the revitalization of ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ cultural landscapes by reinforcing the role of local communities. Finally, the authors investigate how such novel ideas for the promotion of tangible and intangible heritage in rural habitats can be employed by example of two intervention regions in Greece (Koumasa) and the People’s Republic of China (Honghe Hani Rice Terraces), and as part of an orchestrated collective action.

Hidden gems: The potential of places and social innovation for circular territories in Bogotá

Urban literature and policy research on social innovation, call for agency building and influence on institutional planning as the main expected outcomes. Empirical evidence for this hypothesis is being tested in some European cities, but the hypothesis does not yet seem sufficiently explored in the cities of the Global South.Focusing on Colombia's capital, Bogotá, this article reports on the potential of Bogotá's urban cultural places as spatial platforms for the manifold manifestations of social innovation and urban policies and planning.The analysis builds on mixed qualitative methods, through a series of case studies, whose description makes it possible to recognize in specific urban places a fertile ground for the generation of the premises for and the materialization of the effects of social innovation. The knowledge produced shows that these places can become intermediaries between bottom-up initiatives and institutional planning, but only if they are networked and structured in a reciprocal loop of exchange and dialogue with both parties.

Social innovation supports inclusive and accelerated energy transitions with appropriate governance

Accelerating energy transitions that are both sustainable and just remains an important challenge, and social innovation can have a key role in this transition. Here, we examine the diversity and potential of social innovation in energy systems transformation, synthesizing original mixed methods data from expert interviews, document analysis, social innovation experiments, a representative survey, and an expert survey. Based on a thematic analysis of these data, we advance four key findings: (1) the diversity of social innovation in energy is best understood when recognizing core social practices (thinking, doing, and organizing) and accounting for changes in social relations (cooperation, exchange, competition, and conflict); (2) governance, policy networks, and national context strongly shape social innovation dynamics; (3) processes of social innovation are implicated by multidimensional power relations that can result in transformative changes; and (4) social innovation in energy generally has strong social acceptance among citizens, benefits local communities and is legitimized in key community and city organizations. We discuss an agenda for 9 future research directions on social innovation in energy, and conclude with insights related to national context, governance, and acceleration.

Organizing for transformative innovation policies: The role of social enterprises. Theoretical insights and evidence from Italy

Transformative innovation policies can provide systemic solutions to socio-environmental challenges because of their “experimental”, “reflexive” and “inclusive” character. We contend that social enterprises can act as catalysts for transformative innovation for the geographically and socially marginalized. Thus, including social enterprises in transformative innovation policies can mitigate the negative effects of innovation-based growth, making policies more socially and geographically inclusive. Following a syncretic approach to the literatures on transformative innovation policies and social entrepreneurship, this paper identifies the key dimensions of social enterprises' transformative innovation potential: directionality (i.e., social goals as the purpose of innovation); social and geographical inclusiveness (i.e., the inclusion of marginalized areas and individuals in the provision of goods or services); reflexivity (in terms of participatory governance and monitoring the achievement of goals); and experimental character (in terms of establishing partnerships with heterogeneous actors). We then assess this capacity through an exploratory cluster analysis of Italian social enterprises. We identify three distinct groups that suggest a range of entrepreneurial approaches from largely transformative to not at all. The transformative innovation readiness of social enterprises has implications for policymakers seeking to undertake pilot schemes and implement actions that support an appropriately transformative innovation ecosystem.

Amadou Hampâté Bâ and the Power of Time in the Social Reconstruction of West Africa

Abstract Engaged for much of his life with the swell and ultimate ebb of the French colonial state in West Africa, Amadou Hampâté Bâ sought to reconstitute African societies apart from the destruction of the preceding century. Trained in ethnology by the colonial state, Hampâté Bâ collected oral histories of the area to gain a greater grasp on the power of local conceptions of social and political forms. He appreciated the power of “tradition,” a controversial view that caused many critics to brand him as reactionary. In contrast, Hampâté Bâ positioned his work as an escape from colonial domination. His work fought against European depictions of static, unchanging African societies by employing what he saw as a more African understanding of time. Embracing nonlinear conceptions of the fluidity of human experience across eras, Hampâté Bâ instead proposed that West Africans look to the past to escape the present and reimagine the future. He extolled the virtues of continuity across the rupture of European modernism, pushing Africans away from European norms while widening the applicability of African sociopolitical ideas across West Africa in a fraught effort founded on the mythic histories of the Sahel. Hampâté Bâ sought universality in the particularity of these myths, a contested process that carried the potential of social innovation, growth, and change without the destruction of foreign domination.

Looking beyond the hype: Conditions affecting the promise of behaviour change apps as social innovations for low-carbon transitions

Digital tools, specifically smartphone apps, have emerged as enablers of social innovation for low-carbon transitions by using novel feedback to creatively engage people to act more sustainably, and thus capture the power of collective individual action. Such apps have increasingly been implemented in real-world experiments with positive results in the short-term. However critical reflection is required to look beyond this hype to understand the conditions for longer term impact, thus reaching a transformative social innovation potential. In this paper, we take two exemplary behaviour change apps and perform a cost-benefit analysis to assess the break-even point in number of users to achieve net-positive impact and discuss relevant technical, organisational, political and financial conditions that enable or impede this impact. We find that the required scale-up in users seems challenging, yet feasible. However, guaranteeing that the supportive conditions are available is necessary to warrant the focus on behaviour change apps by research and policy.

Cluster Analysis of Competitive Advantage in Hungarian Settlements Based on their Social Innovation Potential

Cluster Analysis of Competitive Advantage in Hungarian Settlements Based on their Social Innovation Potential

Assessing the Potential of Social Innovation and Local Agenda-Setting within Rural Development Programmes: Insights from Austrian Leader Regions

Abstract Since the beginning of the 1990s, the LEADER programme has been implemented to promote positive development in rural areas in the EU through bottom-up approaches and community engagement. Lately, concerns have been raised about the capability of LEADER to foster social innovation and provide adequate room to manoeuvre for communities to set agendas locally. This paper attempts to engage in this discussion by analysing the implementation of rural development programmes, local ideas and experiences with LEADER and social innovation in four LEADER regions in Upper Austria (AT). Furthermore, the analysis outlines the projects implemented through LEADER to evaluate the possibilities for local agenda-setting. The research shows both the success of LEADER as a tool to instigate bottom-up and neoendogenous development and the need for additional institutional frameworks for community consultations if inclusive and forward-looking visions of rural development are to be fostered.

Public support to socia innovation. The need of a planning perspective

In urban studies social innovation mainly means voluntary, non-statutory, citizen-led or community-led initiatives implemented to respond to unmet or new social needs. Until now the most influential research has overestimated the potential of social innovation to come up with progressive solutions alone without the support of public action. The paper considers public support to social innovation key to encourage local activation in fragile urban areas as well as to insert community-based activation in a strategic planning perspective. In discussing the cases of Barcelona and Bologna, the concluding remarks suggest a reframing of social innovation as a social and territorial construct that might need to be mobilised ad hoc within particular spatial settings.

Bridging Social Innovation in Education and Organisational Learning

This article combines two research approaches so far not connected but mutually reinforcing each other: social innovation and organisational education. On the one hand, theoretical and practical development of social innovation in education is a growing research area. On the other hand, organisational education, through its outlined Research Memorandum Organizational Education, is strengthening research of organisations and learning processes, especially on learning in, by and between organisations. To unfold the potential of social innovation in education, new cooperation and governance structures are needed to integrate all the relevant stakeholders to solve educational demands and mismatches. This is a prerequisite for making the formal education system more receptive to social innovations. The organisational education approach is focusing on a yet neglected part of the social innovation process: the change of organisations by mutual learning processes within an innovation ecosystem bringing together stakeholders from education and research, economy, policy, and civil society. The article shows the connections between both approaches by drawing on examples in practice from different applied research projects.

Elektronische Laborbücher in der Praxis: Folgen und Nutzen digitaler Forschungsdokumentation

Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELN) support transparent documentation of research processes, facilitate project-based team science and scientific exchange with cooperation partners. To foster transparency, cooperation, and knowledge transfer, academic research institutions increasingly support the use of ELN. Using the example of the institutional implementation of ELN at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, this article reflects on the social innovation potential of such a project. Based on the observation that researchers need to adapt routines in order to use ELN effectively and in line with institutional goals, this article emphasizes the social character of digital research documentation and the need to create awareness of this social character at all organizational levels. Furthermore, the development of social practices must be integrated early in higher education.

Changes in the social and technological innovation potential of the Visegrad (V4) regions (2001–2019)

For more than a century, technical progress and innovation have been at the forefront of economics. This is one of the reasons why the importance of innovation has been recognised by economic policy makers and the concept has become part of the public narrative. However, this does not mean that research has come to an end, which would in any case contradict Schumpeter's theory of the need for change and renewal. Despite the wealth of knowledge we have, we can state that there are a number of recurring (e.g. social and ethical aspects of innovation, etc.) and new (e.g. spill-over effects of innovation, the effectiveness of public intervention in supporting the development of innovation networks, etc.) questions that can be asked about innovation. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, the cyclical COVID crisis starting in 2019 and, not least, the Russian-Ukrainian war, the peripheral regions of the post-socialist countries of Europe are falling further behind. Research, development and innovation investment, already extremely low, has further declined and the economic outlook has worsened. Social innovation may therefore be of particular importance in these regions. Our study has two main parts. First, we briefly review the place and role of innovation in economic thinking and assess the definitions of social innovation; in the second part we analyse the differences in the NUTS2 regions of the Visegrad countries in terms of the ranking of technological and social innovation potential.

Social innovation in Russian cities: Assessing service management potential

The article presents a method for assessing the potential of social innovations in the cities of the Russian Federation based on the use of quality of life indicators provided by VEB.RF. The social innovative potential is the presence of a set of socio-economic development conditions that positively influence the creation, dissemination and use of innovations, both technical and managerial, in the provision of social services. In the course of the study a hierarchical clustering of the cities according to the obtained comprehensive assessment using Ward’s method was carried out. It was established that the cluster with high potential for emergence and development of social innovations includes only two cities out of studied 51 ones, the largest number of cities are included in the cluster with low level of potential. A high level of potential has been identified in small single-industry towns, with a homogenised population engaged in high-tech industry, with a high level of self-organisation and civic engagement. The population of cities with the lowest levels of potential is characterised by high levels of fragmentation, which is not compensated by higher levels of income. The key factors determining the potential are the activity of interaction within communities and the presence of organisations that carry out their activities in the social services sector. Thus, it can be assumed that increasing the potential for social innovation in Russian cities depends on the communication competences of local authorities and the establishment of a functioning system of social entrepreneurship, which brings to the fore the problem of integrating modern effective management methods into the social services sector.

The relationship between social innovation and digital economy and society

The information age is also an era of escalating social problems. The digital transformation of society and the economy is already underway in all countries, although the progress in this transformation can vary widely. There are more social innovation projects addressing global and local social problems in some countries than in others. This suggests that different levels of digital transformation might influence the social innovation potential. Using the International Digital Economy and Society Index and the Social Innovation Index, this study investigates how digital transformation of the economy and society affects the capacity for social innovation. A dataset of 29 countries was analysed using both simple and multiple linear regressions and Pearsons correlation. Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that the digital transformation of the economy and society has a significant positive impact on the capacity for social innovation. It was also found that the integration of digital technology plays a critical role in digital transformation. Therefore, the progress in digital transformation is beneficial to social innovation capacity. In line with the research findings, this study outlines the implications and possible directions for policy.

The Transformative Potential of Social Innovation for, in and by Education

One of the most important challenges for our society is how we view and organise learning and education. To respond to this challenge the European Commission stimulated a debate in order to generate forward-looking policy ideas. A specific topic addressed is the likely future development and importance of social innovation in education. The basis for this paper is a specific foresight study investigating future trends in education and supporting elements, especially with regard to the Europe 2020 strategy and the ‘Future of Learning’ agenda. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide a vision of the future of social innovation in education and derive implications for the education system and policy.

Introducing the adopter perspective in social innovation research

It is generally well-accepted in innovation research that consumer/user adoption of an invention is key to its diffusion. Despite general awareness about the importance of the adopter perspective in innovation diffusion, the majority of the literature on social innovation, hardly addresses the adoption-side of innovation diffusion. Social innovation potential therefore often remains under-utilized. In this paper the result of a review of 468 (predominantly English language) publications on social innovation is provided (based on Web of Science), searching for the adopter perspective in social innovation research. The findings show that, although some hints at the role of adopters, and their environment, can be found in the literature, attention for the willingness and capacities of potential adopters is meager in peer-reviewed publications. Propelled by high policy expectations, at the national as well as European level, scientific interest in social innovation has been booming over the last decade. Without a proper understanding of social innovation diffusion dynamics and adopter willingness and their interactions with existing institutions, expectations may not be fulfilled and specific social innovation policies that have been emerging across Europe may not be able to achieve intended policy goals.