Presentation

Abstract

Dear readers, This special edition of RAM-Revista de Administração Mackenzie (Mackenzie Management Review) presents seven articles on Social Innovation. Thirty papers were submitted coming from Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Italy, France, and India. After the first desk review, nineteen papers with a minimum standard of quality were submitted to double blind review. After the second round of review was closed, six papers were selected for publishing. Because of their pronounced contribution to the field of social innovation, Howaldt, Domanski and Kaletka were invited to write a manuscript to this special issue, which then counts seven papers in total. The first article, prepared by Howaldt, Domanski and Kaletka-"Social Innovation: Towards a New Innovation Paradigm", presents first empirical results of the global research project "SI-DRIVE: Social Innovation-Driving Force of Social Change" and introduces key findings of a global mapping of social innovation initiatives. This quantitative mapping is based upon 1.005 social innovation initiatives. "Exploring Various Approaches of Social Innovation: A Francophone Literature Review and a Proposal of Innovation Typology", prepared by Maud Gregoire, propose an in-depth literature review that questions the meaning of the "social" adjective when it is used by authors to qualify an innovation. The paper highlights the different approaches of the concept, their relations to each other and their limits, and illustrates these approaches with concrete examples. Besides, the author builds on these materials to propose an innovative typology that wholly integrates social innovation. "Social Innovation as a Process to Overcome Institutional Voids: A Multidimensional Overview", developed by Manuela Rösing Agostini, Luciana Vieira Marques and Marilia Bonzanini Bossle, propose a theoretical framework to explore social innovation as a response to institutional voids in a multidimensional analysis. To support the framework, six theoretical proposals were developed from theoretical gaps identified in a systematic literature review, started in Web of Knowledge database.