Social Innovation for Sustainability Challenges

Abstract

Social innovation is concerned with social mobilization and impact, and is increasingly seen as an option to address sustainability challenges. Nevertheless, the concept of social innovation is quite open in character and requires empirical accommodation to establish how it differs from other types of innovation in this setting. This article contributes empirically to the concept of social innovation as it reviews categories of success factors of social innovation against those of five other innovation types (product, service, governmental, organizational, system) in 202 innovation cases that focus on climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials. Statistical analysis with contingency tables is applied to examine the distribution of five kinds of success factors across the innovation types: economic, environmental, political, social, and technological. The results confirm empirically that social innovation is indeed a distinct type of innovation. There are statistically significant differences in the distribution of categories of success factors between social innovation on the one hand and product, service and governance innovation on the other. In addition to the prevalence of social success factors, social innovation is characterized by a lesser emphasis on political and technological success factors.

Social Innovation in Rural Areas? The Case of Andalusian Olive Oil Co-Operatives

“…The processes of social innovation that have generated the greatest impact in the rural area of Andalusia confirm this, such as the early-harvesting and the new practices in farming searching for improving the quality of the final product, since they are supported by the pre-existing social networks in the region fundamentally anchored in the territory by the co-operatives [55]. This assertion is also in agreement with the results of other international studies that focus on the success of social innovation processes when they are carried out from a bottom-up perspective [56].…”

University Teaching in Times of Confinement: The Light and Shadows of Compulsory Online Learning

“…In definitive, organizing university teaching while considering the opinions of the students will allow for a better organization, communication and involvement of all people [50].…”

Can Social Innovation Make a Change in European and Mediterranean Marginalized Areas? Social Innovation Impact Assessment in Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, and Rural Development

“…Positive impacts lead to concrete benefits for the communities in which the SI has taken place [52]: they can be related to the reduction of different forms of marginalization [6,7], to the promotion of sustainable development, and at targeting sustainability challenges [10,53]. As rural marginalization is "part of a broader process of social change, affecting society at large, and not particular to marginal localities [per se]" [16], SI can have several positive effects on social, cultural, and human capital (e.g., increase social relations, boost self-organization and resilience, improve skills) [42,54].…”

“…In this paper we aim to show that SI may play an important role in the development of communities characterized by forms of marginalities, such as physical constraints, limited access to roads or infrastructure, and socio-economic factors such as brain drain and social exclusion [6,7]. Here, SI can offer new solutions to complex and urgent problems, promoting sustainable solutions and addressing sustainability challenges and ambitions, such as the transformation of existing structures towards a low carbon society, climate change mitigation, fair distribution of income, sustainable livelihoods, and lifestyles [8][9][10][11]. SI's initiatives show their commitments towards the creation of social and environmental value, and the delivery of social benefits to local communities [12].…”