Does Social Innovation Contribute to Sustainability? The Case of Italian Innovative Start-Ups

Abstract

Start-ups, among other enterprises, play a major role in the development and/or commercialization of new technologies and the development of national economies, given that firms are the innovation locus for an entire society. In Italy, a recent regulatory intervention has focused on start-ups creating a framework where innovative start-ups are defined and regulated. Among innovative start-ups, those with a social vocation are of particular interest, since they are understudied in the literature. Indeed, the aim of this paper is twofold: to analyze the relationship between social innovation and sustainability in the latter businesses, and try to understand how sustainability could be fostered through them. Italian cases of innovative start-ups will be studied through content analysis applied to the Social Impact Assessment Document provided by firms. Results show that the Social Impact Assessment Document provided by innovative start-ups explicitly pays attention to social innovation and sustainability in different ways. However, the document does not show the link between social innovation and sustainability. Nonetheless, going through these documents, the link between social innovation and the three aspects of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) clearly emerge and therefore could be better managed.

What Sustainable Development Goals Do Social Innovations Address? A Systematic Review and Content Analysis of Social Innovation Literature

“…Possible indirect effects should be strictly considered and analyzed under the perspective of sustainability. Here, a good point of departure could be the research by Picacarozzi (2017), who analyzed whether socially innovative start-ups contribute to sustainability [76]. In a similar approach, the relationships between the innovators and possible differences depending on the country could also be analyzed.…”

Co-Evolution of the University Technology Transfer: Towards a Sustainability-Oriented Industry: Evidence from Italy

“…These framework conditions have encouraged universities to design specialised TT organisational units (TTOUs)-such as TT offices (TTOs), incubators and science parks-specifically engaged in TT activities such as patenting, licensing, creation of research-based spin-offs and start-ups [54]. Recently, an institutional arrangement introduced in 2012 by the "Start-up Act" has further strengthened the links between universities and industry [62], generating positive social and economic impacts on local communities [63]. In fact, this is the only framework that regulates innovative start-ups by establishing accurate requirements to determine their innovative character.…”

“…This definition is consistent with that adopted by NetVal. Similarly, as various definitions of start-ups can be found in the literature, this study considers a start-up as a new company with a high character of innovation (see for example, [62]) that meets the requirements set by Italian Law and that are adopted also by NetVal and PNICube.…”

Are Italian Start-Ups ‘Born Sustainable’? A Systems Approach to Sustainability Challenges

“…As said at the beginning of the previous section (see Section 3), the relevance of introducing a specific decree on Italian start-ups was related not only to fostering the overall economic development of the country, but mostly to the start-ups' contribution to sustainable development, technological growth, and youth employment (Piccarozzi, 2017). However, the results of the descriptive statistics reported above showed that the Italian start-up PIJ/Volume 4 -Issue 2/2019 ISSN: 2499-1333 scene/ecosystem seems to be not consistent with the objectives of the legislator.…”