What is not social innovation

José Alberto Solis-Navarrete, Saray Bucio-Mendoza and Jaime Paneque-Gálvez

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2021, vol. 173, issue C

Abstract: The theory of innovation, which is mainly associated with business, competitiveness, and generation of economic value, has been enriched by the emergence of new, broader, and more inclusive approaches that contemplate other types of innovation. Among these emergent types, social innovation has gained much academic attention. However, the emerging wealth of definitions and conceptualizations of social innovation generates a growing confusion about what it is and what it is not, that is because until now there are no clear limits to the concept. Therefore, our aim with this paper is to analyze the scope and boundaries of the concept of social innovation and propose what cannot be considered social innovation, which need to be improved with new approaches, this because the standard definitions of innovation are insufficient. We propose a set of necessary elements for considering a phenomenom as social innovation through content analysis of the literature. Our research is timely and relevant because it provides a conceptual framework to use the term social innovation more rigorously, both in academia and in the public and private sectors that have embraced it.

Keywords: Frugal innovation; Grassroots innovation; Inclusive innovation; Positive social change; Traditional innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162521006235
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:173:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521006235

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121190

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().