Exploring social innovation through co-creation in rural India using action research

Abstract

Purpose Social innovation (SI) has been promoted by policymakers for addressing all kinds of social issues in the context of diminishing government resources. It is, however, difficult to assess the efficiency of SI-based public policies, as the process of SI itself remains largely nebulous. The purpose of this paper is to better understand this process with a focus on its early stage, until the point of identifying a socially innovative idea and in the context of disadvantaged rural communities in India. Design/methodology/approach Co-creation workshops were facilitated to generate socially innovative solutions in villages, using co-design technique. Following an action research approach, qualitative data was collected to produce case studies. Findings This study found that SI was appropriate for addressing development challenges in rural India. Facilitated co-creation was successful in involving all citizens and effective in generating SI. The authors developed a framework of generating SI through co-creation that gives a more precise understanding of the SI process. Practical implications The authors propose a method for co-creating SI that can be of significant use for practitioners. Findings can help design better and more socially impactful public policies. Originality/value This paper focusses on understanding the process of generating SI, using a participatory approach. It is the first work that has been conducted of this sort in the context of Indian rural villages.

Sustainability education and community development in higher education using participatory and case based approaches in India

“…This can be achieved through different teaching approaches, such as inter and transdisciplinary learning, participatory action research (Cebrián, 2017; Cornet and Barpanda, 2021), active and experiential learning (Dieleman and Huisingh, 2006; Kolb, 2014), service learning (Brower, 2011), and problem-based learning (Ryan and Cotton, 2013; Sipos et al , 2008; Thomas, 2009) among others. The common limitation to all these approaches is the way in which they have been applied so far and that they mostly remain campus-based.…”

Making Digital File Management Successful: A Grounded Model of DFM Adoption in the Public Sector

“…Other scholars mention that careful selection of participants is needed to ensure a diversity of views in rural communities where different perspectives co-exist, giving equal weight to proposals from professionals versus the rural community (Lazo-Porras et al, 2020). In the rural India, Cornet and Barpanda (2020) find that it is particularly important to equip rural citizens with proper knowledge on the matter discussed so that they can relate it to their own problems. Often participants had difficulties doing co-design activities, which had to be adapted to ensure rural citizens could make significant contributions (Coetzee et al, 2012).…”

“…First, scholars find that co-creation in the public sector results in new ideas and solutions in both urban and rural contexts (Bentzen, 2022;Bentzen et al, 2019;Cornet & Barpanda, 2020). Citizens' inputs help to conceptualize new public services with a variety of expertise or perspectives that have not been discovered before (Putra & van der Knaap, 2020).…”

“…Although previous studies have explored the role of citizens, practices to engage citizens, and potential benefits in the co-creation of IT-enabled solutions in the public sector (Baka, 2017;Mačiulienė, 2018;Rodriguez Müller et al, 2021), few of them have explicitly explored the link between participation in co-creation processes and citizens' adoption of the co-created ITenabled solutions (Tsekleves et al, 2017). Moreover, there is not enough studies exploring the co-creation process in rural areas where citizens may be less familiar with information technologies (Bon et al, 2020;Cornet & Barpanda, 2020). Existing studies emphasize the potential of co-creation in rural contexts, but existing knowledge about citizens' role and co-creation's impact on IT adoption is still limited.…”

Social innovation: relationships with social and human capitals, entrepreneurial competencies and growth of social enterprises in a developing country context

“…From the practical perspective, innovation is also admired by entrepreneurs as an important factor that can potentially contribute to high growth and success of an enterprise. Nevertheless, to date, there is only limited evidence to demonstrate these relationships in the context of social innovation and social entrepreneurship, and knowledge and research is still in its infancy and understudied (Cornet and Barpanda, 2020; Lubberink et al , 2018; Sassmannshausen and Volkmann, 2016).…”