The worldwide increase in societal challenges is putting pressure on humanitarian organizations to develop sophisticated approaches to leverage social innovations in the humanitarian sector. Since humanitarian problems are complex problems, with the relevant knowledge being hidden, organizational search theory advocates the application of bottom-up and theory-guided search processes to identify the social innovations that solve these. Unfortunately, there has been no theoretical attention to understanding which approaches apply in this context. Further, established theory-guided bottom-up search processes, such as the lead user method, are unsuitable to the humanitarian sector, and we lack practice examples of adequate search processes. To start addressing this gap in theory and practice, procedural action research was done with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to develop a theory-guided bottom-up innovation search process for the real-life humanitarian problem of recurring floods in Indonesia. It revealed that an innovation search process for this context must differ significantly concerning its objectives and the steps to be taken from the lead user method, which was used as a starting point. Further, a comparison of the technical quality and the social impacts of the identified social innovations with social innovations identified through a non-theory-guided bottom-up search process (i.e., an innovation contest) suggests the superiority of this theory-guided search process. With this conclusion and the insights derived throughout the development of the search process, this study makes important contributions to theory development in the social and open innovation literatures and delivers important recommendations for social innovation practice in the humanitarian sector.
Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractOrganizations in the humanitarian sector often face problems that are hard to solve owing to their complexity and high hidden solution knowledge. We investigate two problem-solving governance mechanisms in the case of floods in Indonesia. In our study, we compare the costs and benefits of two open innovation tools for identifying social innovation: an innovation contest and the lead user method.An innovation contest is a challenge among participants, who submit potential solutions to a problem that is posted in an open call. In contrast, the lead user method is a structured search process to identify innovators who have already developed solutions for their own needs or those of their peers. While innovation contests have seen significant attention, there is very little evidence that the lead user method is a suitable tool to identify social innovation. In our study, the contest yielded more than twice as much submissions as the lead user method (60 vs. 25). Our analysis reveals that concepts obtained by the lead user method score significantly higher in overall quality as well as regarding use value, feasibility, degree of elaboration, and social impact. The concepts' novelty do not significantly differ between the two groups. We discuss these findings against the background of the humanitarian sector being torn between capacity overload and the need to overcome a one-size-fits-all approach. By transferring two recognized governance forms for innovation identification from the private sector to the humanitarian sector, we introduce a new path towards empowering local innovators to solve humanitarian challenges.
Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen auf Soziale Innovation und zeigt verschiedene Facetten dieses neuen Innovationsbegriffs auf. Wir geben ferner einen Überblick über den aktuellen Forschungsstand mit Blick auf Perspektiven und Besonderheiten.
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