Digital Technologies for Social Innovation: An Empirical Recognition on the New Enablers

Abstract

Even though scholars' attention has been placed on Social Innovation (SI), little evidence has been provided with regards to which tools are actually used to address social needs and foster Social Innovation initiatives. The purpose of the article is twofold. Firstly, the article offers empirical recognition to SI by investigating, on a large-scale, social and innovative activities conducted by start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the world between 2001 and 2014. Secondly, the article intends to capture SI core businesses and underlying complementarities between products, markets, and technologies and show in which way digital media and IT are essentially tracing innovation trajectories over a multitude of industries, leading the current industrial patterns of SI, and continually fostering its cross-industry nature.

How social start‐ups avoid being falling stars when developing social innovation

“…Innovative ideas that target unmet or newly emerging social issues represent an opportunity to create new business models, initiate start‐ups and improve the transfer of knowledge (Nicolopoulou et al, 2017). A social start‐up (SS) can be defined as a start‐up knowingly founded with the aim of meeting a social challenge, often with a disruptive innovation, and thus introducing a positive social impact (Bocken, 2015; Maiolini et al, 2016). SSs play a vital role as possible agents of change as they offer ground‐breaking solutions to complex societal issues overlooked or unsuccessfully addressed by existing organizations (Hoogendoorn et al, 2017; Turker & Vural, 2017).…”

“…SSs play a vital role as possible agents of change as they offer ground‐breaking solutions to complex societal issues overlooked or unsuccessfully addressed by existing organizations (Hoogendoorn et al, 2017; Turker & Vural, 2017). They can create value for society by leveraging collaborations that often occur in spontaneous innovation ecosystems (Cacciolatti et al, 2020; Maase & Bossink, 2010), adopting specific technologies, tools and activities (Maiolini et al, 2016) and sustaining business growth with opportune resources, for example, finances (Arena et al, 2018).…”

The Role of Social and Institutional Contexts in Social Innovations of Spanish Academic Spinoffs

“…Therefore, its application in solving the great societal problems, mainly climate change and health, is more effective. In this regard, although some authors consider that social innovations can occur in different types of technologies of any industry, Maiolini et al [49] stated that social innovations usually appear when technologies or disruptive knowledge are exploited. On the other hand, another relevant argument that justifies the social commitment of ASOs is that, given that these companies are usually publicly funded, this investment is expected to make a return to society in the form of solving social problems from a sustainability point of view [4].…”

El S-commerce: La innovación a través de Medios Sociales

“…Es evidente que las TIC favorecen la comercialización de productos y servicios en una organización, donde el trabajo colaborativo dentro de la empresa y las transacciones entre las comunidades permite el incremento de las ventas en las organizaciones con la utilización de canales de comunicación basados en web social y diferentes plataformas, dispositivos móviles, marketing y e-commerce (Maiolini, Marra, Baldassarri & Carlei, 2016). Esto se ha dado precisamente, porque los procesos de comunicación con el uso de internet han permitido su evolución para llegar al cliente final favoreciendo la competitividad de las organizaciones porque no hay intermediarios (Yan, Zheng, Wang, Song & Zhang, 2015), debido a la facilidad que ofrece la web social para que los usuarios puedan expresar sus ideas creativas respaldadas por la comunidad permitiendo que la empresa adapte sus productos y/o servicios considerando sus preferencias (Fernandes & Belo, 2016).…”

“…El incremento de la tecnología ha permitido el desarrollo de la comunicación entre las organizaciones y las comunidades a través del uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (TIC) favoreciendo el éxito en las transacciones (Guzmán, 2013). El e-commerce se ha convertido en un modelo a seguir para las organizaciones, considerando que la tendencia mundial obedece a la adopción de las TIC, como un elemento favorecedor de las dinámicas comunicativas y un mecanismo de innovación social (Maiolini, Marra, Baldassarri & Carlei, 2016) que ha acercado a las organizaciones y a los consumidores (Webb, Gibson & Forkosh, 2013).…”