Social Innovation, Societal Change, and the Role of Policies

Abstract

Political frameworks and policies have a strong influence on the institutional ecosystem and on governance patterns, which in turn shape the operational space of civil society initiatives. This article aims to explore the social and institutional conditions and policy initiatives that foster or hinder social innovation and the pathways leading from social innovation to institutional change through to actual impacts on policies and political frameworks, in order to understand how policymakers can encourage and enable social innovation. The article builds on an extensive empirical background to develop a heuristic model to facilitate decision making for a policy environment propitious for the emergence of social innovation. The resulting model sets up a triadic configuration of (i) a committed core of key actors, (ii) the benevolent shadow of hierarchy represented by public actors, and (iii) multifunctional and malleable intermediary support structures for a successful development of social innovation initiatives. The model is discussed and validated by reference to three in-depth case studies from differing institutional settings. We conclude that policy should recognize that social innovation will achieve most when the triadic relationships between the state, intermediary organizations, and local actors are working together synergistically.

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

“…In two out of nine cases, the effects of the SI initiatives have become visible even if the initiatives are quite recent, and in one case, the impacts are expected in the future, thus providing directions for planning and policy making. These empirical data are consistent with studies showing that promoting SI in rural and marginalized areas is important, as it has positive effects mainly on the society, economy, and governance (e.g., [17,19,58,76,[82][83][84][85][86][87][88]). By taking the forms of social cooperatives, associations, social enterprises and private-public partnerships, SI proposes innovative solutions, models, services and approaches that tackle different complex social issues (e.g., labor market integration, social exclusion and poverty, discrimination, social service delivery, and disproportionate resource uses).…”

“…SI, as a process of the reconfiguration of social practices, develops new partnerships, collaborations, networks, etc. based on trust, reciprocity, collaboration, and autonomy [57,84,95]. Our empirical results corroborate the literature on the effects of innovations in existing relationships, community ties, and new forms of collaboration to have positive effects on the modernization of public administration, on the reduction of bureaucracy, and on the level of efficiency in the delivery of services in the public sector (governance domains).…”

“…At the same time, SI develops by means of socially responsible businesses in certain sectors of the economy and proposes new economy models (e.g., social economy, collaborative economy) that support the creation of innovative, vibrant, and sustainable societies [15]. Finally, when SI is supported by strong and functioning institutional arrangements, which allows the involvement of non-traditional actors (local authorities) and a cross-sector collaboration (among government, markets, and civil society), it promotes innovation processes in politics and governance which are beneficial for the community in which SI occurs [84]. Nevertheless, it is also necessary to recognize that SIs may create trade-offs which are not always positive, and that do not affect SI actors in the same way.…”

Exploring the Emergence of Innovative Multi-Actor Collaborations toward a Progressive Urban Regime in Madrid (2015–2019)

“…However, the potential of MAC to drive social innovation remains undertheorized. For instance, Lukesch et al [50] (p. 6) argued that "Social innovation initiatives may either challenge the political-institutional fabric or act on invitation, bringing forth the pilot projects and practice examples-called "niches" in transition theory-that policy makers need to put forward and expand their agendas". Such a statement disregards the alternative of SI, which is driven by more horizontal MACs that co-develop agenda issues, support (pilot) projects in relation to common concerns of the different urban actors involved, and have varying degrees of formalization and contribution of the different actors along time.…”

Impacts of Social Innovation on Spatiality in Mountain–Lowland Relationships — Trajectories of Two Swiss Regional Initiatives in the Context of New Policy Regimes

“…For our question-the evaluation of long-term impacts and territorial trajectories in two single cases-the qualitative approach was more promising as it necessarily needs context knowledge which cannot be provided by standardized questionnaires. In contrary, the quantitative tools are useful to measure and compare (short-term) outcomes or to compare a larger number of cases (the quantifiable results are published elsewhere, e.g., [1,54,55], and in the detailed Lumnezia and Neuchâtel/Val de Travers reports [52,53]). Our question was not how and which services in the mountain area are specifically stabilised or expanded; also, it was of less importance whether their position in intranational competition of rural areas could be improved.…”