Exploring Social Innovation (SI) Within the Research Contexts of Higher Education, Healthcare, and Welfare Services—A Scoping Review

Abstract

Introduction: Nordic countries face societal challenges for which social innovation may represent solutions. The aim of this scoping review is to explore the concept of social innovation within the research contexts of higher education, ealthcare, and welfare services. Method: A scoping review methodology was used, including a literature search and the identification of eligible studies published between 2007 and 2019, in addition to data extraction and synthesis. Forty-three studies were included in this review. Results: Across the research contexts, social innovation is conceptualized as a set of novel, creative, human-centred, and value-driven processes aiming to bring about change. Qualitative research methods dominate social innovation research. In welfare services, social innovation concerns the relationship between policy and praxis, new forms of leadership and management, and the promotion of societal inclusion and cohesion. Social innovation in healthcare comprises the use of technology to digitalize service, enhance patients’ well-being, and improve service quality. In higher education, social innovation research focuses on educational reforms involving non-profit stakeholders. Discussion: Social innovation is a multifaceted concept related to change at the organizational or societal level, often with various stakeholders working together to create improvements. The lack of a common definition and framework of social innovation makes this concept difficult to measure or quantify, reflecting the dominance of qualitative research methods in the selected research contexts. Across these research contexts, social innovation can be defined and used for various research purposes, which are often political and value-based, with the latter connected to the common good and people’s well-being. Moreover, few social innovation studies have been performed in Nordic countries.

Social innovation and food provisioning initiatives to reduce food insecurity during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Recently, there has been a growing trend in healthcare, education and housing services (see, e.g., Freire & Sangiorgi, 2010 ; Kumari et al, 2020 ; Marchesi & Tweed, 2021 ; Husebø et al, 2021 ). A similar discourse also emerges in the agri-food sector.…”

Unpacking social innovation by nonstate service providers in the challenging social work practice

“…Although research interest in social innovation has increased, to date there is no comprehensive and unified definition of the phenomenon and research on this topic is in a pre-theoretical stage of development (Ayob et al, 2016). There are different interdisciplinary approaches to social innovation and diverse explanations, which can lead to definition confusion (Husebø et al, 2021). This article embedded the understanding of social innovation from the work of Moulaert et al (2013), Maccallum (2019) andOosrelynck et al, (2020).…”

“…Contrary to optimistic views surrounding social innovation, scholars have also highlighted some critical aspects and potential challenges. Although social innovation in the field of social welfare has partly been characterized by the collaborative approach, where public and nonpublic actors share resources and work to improve services (Husebø et al, 2021;Steiner et al, 2021), there are certain challenges associated with the collaborative relations between civic groups and local governments. A lack of political will to cooperate, insufficient legislation, or various bureaucratic contracting logics and pressure on civic actors for professionalization can all contribute to this situation (Eschweiler, Hulgård, and Lykke Noor Ørgaard, 2018).…”

“…Also, scaling up socially innovative services by NGOs can be challenging due to various constraints including high costs, lack of proper funding mechanisms and regulations, institutional barriers, security issues (in fragile states), participatory reluctance by users, or cultural and religious sensitivity issues (Agapitova & Linn, 2016;Westley et al, 2014). It is common for social innovation to be linked to a long-term change at the organizational, institutional or cultural level (Husebø et al, 2021;Moulaert & Maccallum, 2019), but according to Brandsen et al (2015), often temporary innovative initiatives implemented by fragile organizations such as grassroots or NGOs with limited grants mostly result in modest and short-term growth.…”

The Diffusion of Home-Based Reablement in Norwegian Municipalities

“…HBR thus conforms with conventional conceptualizations of social innovation as "a set of novel, creative, human-centered, and value-driven processes aiming to bring about change" at the organizational or societal level, often with stakeholders that collaborate to make improvements. 18 organization's inclination to adopt a new idea relatively earlier than other members of society. 12, 19 Rogers 12 has suggested five adopter categories, which are defined by the number of standard deviations (sd) from the average time of adoption: 1) "Innovators" (observations more than 2 sd from the mean on the left side of the normal curve), 2) "Early adopters" (observations between 1 and 2 sd on left side), 3), "Early majority" (observations less than 1 sd on the left side), 4) "Late majority," and 5) "Laggards" -both on the right hand side of the mean (less than 1 sd and greater than 1 sd respectively).…”