Type Of Social Innovation Research Articles

Social innovation in question: The theoretical and practical implications of a contested concept

The concept of social innovation has become pervasive among practitioners and academics, though its definition remains elusive. This paper seeks to address this by suggesting a distinction between structural social innovation, which refers to wide social change in scale and scope, targeted versions of social innovation, which can be either radical or complementary to current socio-economic institutions, and instrumental social innovation, when it is used to rebrand previous agendas in a way that is more appealing to stakeholders. These four types of social innovation are discussed referring to practical examples in the literature. We then explore ways in which the concept could be further developed by engaging with the concepts of socio-technical transitions and the foundational economy.

Social innovation: a window on alternative ways of organizing and innovating

The term ‘social innovation’ is used to describe a broad range of organizational and inter-organizational activity that is ostensibly designed to address the most deep-rooted ‘problems’ of society, such as poverty, inequality and environmental degradation. Theoretically, however, this presents challenges because many of the ideas and practices grouped under the label of social innovation may have relatively little in common. In this article, we outline a simple framework for categorizing different types of social innovation – social entrepreneurship, social intrapreneurship, and social extrapreneurship – which we believe provides a useful basis for theory building in this area. We also offer suggestions for future research with the potential to deepen, extend and refine our typology.

Social innovation between necessity and opportunity

The contribution of social innovation to the institutional change has been studied in the case of promoting healthy ageing. While major institutional change is well memorized by the present generation, the iterative approach to social innovation build up, and reaching the critical mass for a leap is viewed in the context of a specific region and social group. Selected types of social innovations are projected in their impact on societal challenges and institutional transformation potential.

Breaking mental models as a form of creative destruction: The role of leader cognition in radical social innovations

Theory building on the unique cognitions involved in the generation and implementation of social innovation has grown in the past few years and general theoretical models of social innovation have been proposed. Drawing from prior research, this paper proposes to extend these models and related propositions by further accounting for different types of social innovation, as well as the different contexts and goals in which they are created in and meant to address. In doing so, it will also investigate some fundamental differences in the cognitions of socially-innovative leaders – such as mental models, knowledge, and cognitive strategies applied – and their impact on the generation and implementation of social innovation. Using a case study approach and drawing from the historic record provided by Guy Debord, leader of the Situationist International, this study will formulate some initial hypotheses about the cognitions he drew from and employed to generate and implement radical, as opposed to incremental, social innovations.

Media Attention as the Outcome of a Diffusion Process--A Theoretical Framework and Cross-National Evidence on Earthquake Coverage

Research on media attention has identified a range of factors that determine whether events are covered as news. However, these determinants have been derived mainly inductively and there is a great variety in their nature and number from one study to the next, partly depending on the type of news events studied. This insufficient theoretical grounding limits the possibilities for research on media attention to connect to wider social-science theorizing. We propose a unifying theoretical framework for studying media attention, which draws on theoretical concepts and research findings from the sociological literature on the diffusion of innovations. Following Rogers’ suggestion to see news as a particular type of social innovation, we derive five factors that influence news diffusion from the source location of an event to an adopting medium: event characteristics, homophily between source and adopter, network ties between source and adopter, the power and status of the source, and selective exposure to similar events or to events from the same source. We apply and test this theoretical framework by analysing the coverage of >1,300 earthquakes in the period 1990–2005 in American, British and Dutch newspapers. Our results strongly and consistently support the theoretical expectations.