Content area
Full Text
It has been widely accepted that innovation plays a central role in technological and economic development. As a result, the study of innovation – that is, how to stimulate, nurture and diffuse it – has maintained a top position on the agendas of researchers, managers and policy makers. However, despite these acknowledged technological and economic outcomes, the social benefits associated with innovation can be less obvious, difficult to measure and take time to become apparent.
Social problems related to climate change, resource scarcity, depopulation of rural areas and the uneven distribution of resources, are becoming increasing complex (Westley et al., 2011). These problems are “wicked” in nature – that is, they “have no closed-form definition, emerge from complex systems in which cause and effect relationships are either unknown or highly uncertain, and have multiple stakeholders with strongly held and conflicting values related to the problem” (Dentoni et al., 2016, p. 36). Furthermore, advances in technology, economic growth and globalization have done little to solve these problems, or have led to the emergence of others (Dees, 2007). Researchers and practitioners are increasingly recognizing the need for social innovations to bring about transformative changes to how we do business, implement policy and interact with others to solve complex problems (Goldenberg et al., 2009; Westley et al., 2006), especially in the face of restricted access to capital, changing demographics and environmental degradation.
Despite heightened interest in the role of social innovation for addressing wicked problems, consensus on its definition and theoretical framework is lacking. Perhaps due in part to the difficulties associated with defining, intervening in and observing changes in complex challenges at a systemic level, researchers have veered away from developing strict theoretical parameters for studying social innovation. Pol and Ville (2009) identify four broad categories of definitions for social innovation. The first conceptualizes it as the “prime mover of institutional change” (p. 879), focussing on impacts on social structures; the second emphasizes improving the quality or quantity of life (e.g. Young Foundation, 2007); the third accentuates the goal of social innovation to improve the public good; and, the fourth views it as a way to intervene in addressing problems not addressed by business markets. In each case, the importance of scaling social...