On Addressing Societal Challenges: The Influence of Archetypal Biases on Scaling Social Innovation

John Healy (), Jeffrey Hughes () and Gemma Donnelly-Cox ()
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John Healy: Genio
Jeffrey Hughes: Durham University Business School
Gemma Donnelly-Cox: Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Business School

Journal of Business Ethics, 2025, vol. 202, issue 3, No 2, 473-486

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of this article is to encourage greater reflexivity among social innovation practitioners and researchers about the influence of unconscious biases and assumptions on addressing societal challenges. Drawing on previous research and insights gained from our 30 + years’ experience in practice, we present four archetypes of social innovation. Each archetype is rooted in an underlying paradigm of organizational sociology. We outline how the archetypes fundamentally shape how social innovations are prioritized and supported to scale through the influence of unconscious biases. These inherent biases both illuminate and obscure different aspects of social innovation scaling processes. The presented archetypes are significant as they impact the ethical, normative dimensions of social innovation to address societal challenges and opinions about what types of supports should be provided. Through highlighting the different assumptions that underpin each archetype, we advocate for practitioners and researchers to develop greater reflexivity about their own cognitive and normative biases when considering how social innovation scaling can address societal challenges.

Keywords: Social innovation; Scaling; Societal challenges; Biases; Archetypes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-025-05975-1

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