This book is open access under a CC BY license. Interest in social innovation continues to rise, from governments setting up social innovation 'labs' to large corporations developing social innovation strategies. Yet theory lags behind practice, and this hampers our ability to understand social innovation and make the most of its potential. This collection brings together work by leading social innovation researchers globally, exploring the practice and process of researching social innovation, its nature and effects. Combining theoretical chapters and empirical studies, it shows how social innovation is blurring traditional boundaries between the market, the state and civil society, thereby developing new forms of services, relationships and collaborations. It takes a critical perspective, analyzing potential downsides of social innovation that often remain unexplored or are glossed over, yet concludes with a powerful vision of the potential for social innovation to transform society. It aims to be a valuable resource for students and researchers, as well as policymakers and others supporting and leading social innovation.
There has been growing interest on business models among academics and practitioners in recent years, as business model describes how an organization creates, distributes and captures value and, therefore, can be considered the DNA of the organization. Recently, factors related to digital transformation, the vital role of sustainability and social aspects, along with an increasing globalization, have pushed towards radical transformations in business models. This book aims to further our knowledge on business model innovation in new contexts of analysis and with new perspectives of investigation. Insights from business model innovation are presented from studies focusing on start-ups, small businesses and large businesses to provide a bigger picture on new dynamics connected to digital transformation, sustainability, new global relationships. As such, the scope is on new ways to create value, new components and dynamics (such as digitalization and sustainability) concerning the key elements of the business model (value creation, value configuration and value capture), and new relationships between actors that may foster business model innovation. It represents a valuable resource for practitioners willing to innovate business models, academics aiming at finding new research lines, and students keen to learn more about business models.
This book draws upon economic and sociological theory to provide a comprehensive discussion of economic space for social innovation, addressing especially marginalized groups and the long-term projects, programmes, and policies that have emerged and evolved within and across European states. It approaches the explanatory and normative questions raised by this topic via a novel approach: the Extended Social Grid Model (ESGM). Taking inspiration from the fields of economic sociology and ethics, this model shows that social innovation processes must be structural, and require change in power relations, if marginalization is to be effectively dealt with via social innovation. Part I of the book sets out the ESGM, including an exposition on the model along with background chapters on innovation, power and marginalization, ethics and social innovation, and empirical methods. Part II explores the model with a focus on social innovation trajectories of social housing, drinking water provision, employment, education, and food provision. It also explores the operationalization of the model with a view to agency and empowerment, as well as social innovation policy in Europe and the use of social impact bonds as a tool for financing social innovation. Part III revisits the ESGM and considers the explanatory adequacy and fruitfulness of the model for innovation research and for theorizing social innovation, addressing questions on the role and limitations of participation in social innovation for the marginalized, the role of capital for creating economic space for capabilities, and how we can approach the social impact of social innovation. This collection of essays presents a diverse range of perspectives on understanding and addressing the key issue of marginalization, and offers key recommendations for policy makers engaging with social innovation across the European Union and beyond.
This volume puts together the works of a group of distinguished scholars and active researchers in the field of media and communication studies to reflect upon the past, present, and future of new media research. The chapters examine the implications of new media technologies on everyday life, existing social institutions, and the society at large at various levels of analysis. Macro-level analyses of changing techno-social formation – such as discussions of the rise of surveillance society and the "fifth estate" – are combined with studies on concrete and specific new media phenomena, such as the rise of Pro-Am collaboration and "fan labor" online. In the process, prominent concepts in the field of new media studies, such as social capital, displacement, and convergence, are critically examined, while new theoretical perspectives are proposed and explicated. Reflecting the inter-disciplinary nature of the field of new media studies and communication research in general, the chapters interrogate into the problematic through a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The book should offer students and researchers who are interested in the social impact of new media both critical reviews of the existing literature and inspirations for developing new research questions.
The United Nations, Australia Post, and governments in the UK, Finland, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and Israel are just a few of the organizations and groups utilizing design to drive social change. Grounded by a global survey in sectors as diverse as public health, urban planning, economic development, education, humanitarian response, cultural heritage, and civil rights, Design for Social Innovation captures these stories and more through 45 richly illustrated case studies from six continents. From advocating to understanding and everything in between, these cases demonstrate how designers shape new products, services, and systems while transforming organizations and supporting individual growth. How is this work similar or different around the world? How are designers building sustainable business practices with this work? Why are organizations investing in design capabilities? What evidence do we have of impact by design? Leading practitioners and educators, brought together in seven dynamic roundtable discussions, provide context to the case studies. Design for Social Innovation is a must-have for professionals, organizations, and educators in design, philanthropy, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. This book marks the first attempt to define the contours of a global overview that showcases the cultural, economic, and organizational levers propelling design for social innovation forward today.
This book evaluates the evolution of social innovation in post-Soviet Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Caucasus. Following the dissolution of the USSR, organisations such as the UNDP have encouraged local communities and governments to innovate in order to find solutions to existing social problems. This book demonstrates that progress with social innovations has varied, with countries with low government support such as Uzbekistan struggling, whereas countries with better government support and a more active civil society, such as Armenia and Ukraine, have seen more positive results. Covering the period 2012-2020 and a broad range of countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, this book provides an impressively broad-ranging critical analysis of post-Soviet social innovation. Including social innovations emerging as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, this will be an important comparative study for researchers and practitioners working on social innovation, and to those with an interest in post-Soviet development.
This book helps make sense of the emerging and established social innovations that have disrupted and are disrupting the world of finance. Written in an engaging style, this book offers a systematic study of social innovation in the financial services. It introduces the fundamental concepts of financial social innovations (FINSIs), places them in the context of the broader literature, and provides a new framework for understanding and organising these innovations. The book applies the framework to seven existing FINSIs to illustrate their important components and explore their benefits as well as the more negative or harmful aspects to society. These seven FINSIs are microfinance, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, crowdfunding, mobile banking, impact investing, digital cryptocurrencies, and social impact bonds. The easy-to-follow framework will help to ground the reader’s understanding of FINSIs as the existing ones evolve and new ones are developed. This book is ideal for courses on social innovation, social entrepreneurship, and financial innovation in departments of business, economics, social sciences, and political science.
The one book you need to make a difference in the world. Social innovation and social entrepreneurship are rising forces. As the extent of the world's systemic challenges becomes clear—from climate change to income inequality to food security to healthcare and beyond—more and more of the best and brightest will feel called to become innovators and entrepreneurs who develop and deploy solutions to the world's thorniest problems. But it won't be easy: social innovation is complicated. Solutions require the active collaboration of constituents across the worlds of government, business, and nonprofits. Social innovators and entrepreneurs need a handbook to guide them on the journey to changing the world. This is that guide. Contributions from a who's who of the smartest thinkers and most experienced practitioners in the field provide the knowledge you need to succeed as a social innovator. Topics cover the waterfront, including: High-performance leadership as a driver of social change Design for extreme affordability Scaling social innovation Corporate decarbonization Social innovation and healthcare in the postpandemic world Donor-advised funds and impact investing Case studies from the field bring to life the challenges and opportunities social entrepreneurs and innovators face. Frontiers in Social Innovation is an essential volume for anyone who wants to use innovation and entrepreneurship to make the world a better place.
Recent years have witnessed an increasing awareness of the importance and relevance of creativity in social and psychological life. This has led to an awakening of research into creativity. The book "New Frontiers in Creativity" deals with themes that have emerged due to the expanding boundaries of research in creativity. These concern primarily new perspectives in regard to creativity, discovering of creativity in new populations and nurturing of creativity in new domains and spheres of action. The book presents four new perspectives concerning creativity. The first is a comprehensive model of creativity (by Kreitler) that does justice to the complexity of creativity in terms of the constitutive components, ranging from cognition through motivation, emotions, personality, psychopathology, behavior and the environment, focusing on the rich variety of variables in each of the components and their interactions. Another perspective focuses on creativity in the study and research of creativity (by Runco) by adopting meta-cognitive powerful tactics in the study and nurturing of creativity. A third new perspective describes the innovative methods and findings in neurophysiology of creativity, particularly in brain studies (by Shemyakina and Nagornova). The set of new perspectives is complemented by a description of the social processes characterizing the spread and maintenance of innovative ideas (by Fokas). The innovation in terms of populations is presented in the discussion of creativity in individuals diagnosed with dyslexia (by Cancer and Antonietti), in the controversial sphere of psychopathology (by Thys) and in the elderly (by Cohen-Shalev). Notably, the creativity of all three populations has been increasingly recognized in recent years. The third part of the book is devoted to creativity in various domains, including painting (by Vardi), psychotherapy (by Buzdugan, Grigore and Dinca), engineering (by Engel), architecture (by Casakin), sports (by Santos, Sampaio and Memmert) and nature (by Edlinger). The book includes 13 chapters, written by internationally known experts from different countries -- Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Portugal, Romania, Russia, and USA -- responsible for discoveries in the specific aspect of creativity with which they deal. The different chapters of the book present innovative approaches, based on empirical evidence and innovative methodologies. Thereby they contribute to the setting of the scene for new developments and new applications of creativity in the rapidly changing world that is in increasing need for creativity.
