The Social Impact of Innovation at the Local Level: Microsoft Corporation and Grameen Bank

Zoltan Acs, Connie L. McNeely and Joseph Sany

Chapter 10 in Local Economies and Global Competitiveness, 2010, pp 209-231 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Entrepreneurship has been identified as one of the most important mechanisms for bringing innovation to society (Audretsch 2006; Schramm 2006; Acs and Phillips 2003), and exploring the ways by which the social impact and value of innovation can be determined is critical for understanding the contribution and broad role of entrepreneurship in society today. Accordingly, consideration of the possible social value created through entrepreneurship may prove useful for structuring investigations not only on how innovation might impact society, but also on how the social context operates as an affective factor in entrepreneurial efforts. In other words, societal considerations require and can contribute to a fuller, two-way depiction of entrepreneurship in general. However, investigating the social impact of innovation is not necessarily straightforward and represents both a challenge and an opportunity: an opportunity because of the possibilities for producing social, as well as economic, benefits and a challenge because of difficulties attached to conceptualizing and measuring those benefits.

Keywords: Social Capital; Social Impact; Radical Innovation; Social Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneur (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-29496-7_11

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230294967_11

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