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This book explores how the State can play a role as an enabler of citizens-led social innovations, to accelerate the shift to sustainable and socially just lifestyles. To meet the twin challenges of environmental degradation and the rise of inequalities, societal transformation is urgent. Most theories of social change focus either on the role of the State, on the magic of the market, or on the power of technological innovation. This book explores instead how local communities, given the freedom to experiment, can design solutions that can have a transformative impact. Change cannot rely only on central ordering by government, nor on corporations suddenly acting as responsible citizens. Societal transformation, at the speed and scope required, also should be based on the reconstitution of social capital, and on new forms of democracy emerging from collective action at the local level. The State matters of course, for the provision of both public services and of social protection, and to discipline the market, but it should also act as an enabler of citizen-led experimentation, and it should set up an institutional apparatus to ensure that collective learning spreads across jurisdictions. Corporations themselves can ensure that society taps the full potential of citizens-led social innovations: they can put their know-how, their access to finance, and their control of logistical chains in the service of such innovations, rather than focusing on shaping consumers’ tastes or even adapting to consumers’ shifting expectations. With this aim in mind, this book provides empirical evidence of how social innovations, typically developed within "niches", initially at a relatively small scale, can have society-wide impacts. It also examines the nature of the activism deployed by social innovators, and the emergence of a "do-it-yourself" form of democracy. This book will appeal to all those interested in driving societal change and social innovation to ensure a sustainable and socially just future for all.

The aim of this paper is to study the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) over small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) innovation and the effect of two mediating variables, debt terms and human capital. Based on a sample of 2825 Spanish SMEs and applying a structural equations modeling, the results demonstrate that the effect of CSR on innovation is mediated by debt terms and by good human resource practices. Part of the positive effect of CSR on innovation occurs through these two variables, which, alone, positively and significantly affect innovation in SMEs. Consequently, the positive effect of CSR practices on debt terms through a decrease in asymmetric information goes further, also having repercussions on innovation. Additionally, the suitable development of human resource practices based on strategies oriented toward CSR allow companies to carry out greater and more efficient innovative activities. This paper contributes to the CSR literature considering the human resource management and the debt access in the relationship between CSR and innovation. The findings reveal important implications for policy makers and managers. For the former, the results show that it would be interesting to carry out actions aimed at assisting SMEs, especially those with fewer resources available, to implement a suitable CSR strategy, supporting sustainable development in SMEs. And, for the latter, CSR‐oriented innovation has proven to be a valuable strategy for more efficient SMEs management because of the multiple competitive advantages it generates.

The fast pace of change brought on by advances in technology have led to significant pressure on companies to innovate to remain competitive and able to meet shareholders' demands. This paper reviews and explores the longitudinal development of business models between 1999 and 2019, focusing specifically on social hubs, as a co-working space for sharing knowledge. The academic literature gives limited empirical examination of social hubs and the extent to which social hub business models are sustainable. This paper (i) critically reviews and draws out the relevant concepts, namely, business model innovation, social innovation and social hubs; (ii) provides a workable definition for the new terminology of social innovation hubs; (iii) develops a deeper understanding of the role of business model innovation in social innovation hubs. The findings show that business model innovation and social innovation are underdeveloped in the literature. Moreover, the social hub business model requires further empirical research in order to capture value creation and sustain financial performance. Recommendations are made for further research to help guide social hubs towards delivering more value-added services to startups and SMEs.

The formation of social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) is a topic that attracts scholars’ attention recently. Previous studies in the literature mention the importance of personal background on the formation of such intentions (Mair and Noboa, in: Social entrepreneurship: How intentions to create a social venture are formed. In “social entrepreneurship” (pp. 121–135). Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2006); Dorado in Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 11:1–24, 2006; Scheiber in VOLUNTAS International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. 27:1694–1717, 2016; Bacq and Alt in Journal of Business Venturing 33:333–350, 2018; Hockerts in Journal of Social Entrepreneurship 9:234–256, 2018). However, these studies often use samples from a limited number of countries and/or regions. The aim of this study is twofold. First, this study aims to examine whether the main antecedents of SEI (major hardship, radical change, encountering others’ hardship, and role model) offered in our previous study (Asarkaya and Keles Taysir in Nonprofit Management and Leadership 30:155–166, 2019) based on a sample from a specific country, is applicable within a global context and across different fields. Second, various functions of the main antecedents that lead to the formation of SEI are explored. The list of Ashoka fellows is utilized, and the personal details of 255 social entrepreneurs are analyzed. There are some common patterns in these narratives, supporting the potential influence of the main antecedents. In addition, the weights of these antecedents vary across different fields; and they have distinct functions through which SEI is formed.

This article explores how health innovation designers articulate are and responsibility when designing new health technologies. Towards this end, we draw on Tronto’s ethic of care framework and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) scholarship to analyse interviews with Canadian health innovators (n ¼ 31). Our findings clarify how respondents: 1) direct their attention to needs and ways to improve care; 2) mobilise their skill set to take care of problems; 3) engage in what we call ‘care-making’ practices by prioritising key material qualities; and 4) operationalise responsiveness to caregivers and care-receivers through user-centred design. We discuss the inclusion of health innovation designers within the care relationship as ‘caremakers’ as well as the tensions underlying their ways of caring and their conflicting responsibilities.

The growing presence of new players – beside those belonging to the institutional and third sectors – committed to supporting social and environmental causes through innovative approaches and tools leads to the profile of a for-profit enterprise increasingly committed to the pursuit of social goals. In the paper, the authors focus their attention on the existence of relationships between innovation and a company's social role in order to assess how innovation affects the social conduct of profit-making enterprises and to determine the birth of a new "hybrid" business model. In order to achieve this goal, research was carried out on a sample of 4,000 Italian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises that claim to operate according to a corporate social commitment, in order to investigate the existence of a relationship between innovative behavior and social and business purposes of companies having different Corporate Social Innovation policies. The data were analyzed using the conditional inference tree, a non-parametric class of tree regression model, which overcomes different regression problems involving ordinal and nominal variables. The results achieved make it possible to fill some gaps in the existing literature, to detect a relationship between technological and social commitment in a company and to open a debate on future research developments.

University intellectual property policies, and the accompanying strategies for incubation of IP via licensing and spin outs, have not received much analysis from academic lawyers. Moreover, despite the success of universities in the UK at generating income from IP, not much is known about how transferable this success is when considered in the light of a rapidly growing middle-income developing economy such as Mexico’s. In this article we analyse critically some of the key tenets of IP policies at universities in the UK to identify what the key legal principles underpinning university innovation are. We further consider the potential application of these principles in Mexico, where so far only a limited number of universities have developed IP policies and strategies in line with the incubator model. We explain how universities in Mexico could implement these research findings in their own IP policies. We further note that the mere provision of an IP policy is not a panacea – on its own it is insufficient for ensuring technology transfer and it may even encourage unnecessary patenting. Further investment in infrastructure and in establishing a culture of incubation and entrepreneurship is also required.

Over the past few decades, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been perceived as an antecedent of competitive advantage. It was, moreover, placed at the top of the business agenda and recognized as a key driver of performance. Under this context, the present study sets to investigate how strategic CSR (SCSR) affects organizational performance and whether firms operating in “controversial” sectors should adopt SCSR activities. To this aim, this study reviews the body of knowledge on the topic, through a systematic review of the literature. After searching for academic publications in the Scopus database and selecting publications based on their relevance, 32 studies have been included in the review. Their analysis sheds light on common findings and contradicting arguments. Results show the main attributes of strategic, as opposed to non-strategic CSR activities. The importance of effective communication of SCSR activities is highlighted. SCSR is linked to “shared value”, as well as to competitive advantage, social innovation and good reputation. Voices of criticism focus on using SCSR as an empty promise that is used to counteract unethical behavior. Finally, more research is needed on the implementation of SCSR activities during recessionary periods.

L’objectif de cette contribution est d’analyser les rôles que peuvent jouer les communautés de pratique dans des démarches d’exploration nécessitant de l’innovation collective. L’analyse se fonde sur une étude longitudinale de 16 mois. Les résultats montrent que des communautés de pratique dédiées à des méthodes d’exploration peuvent jouer un rôle majeur dans l’ouverture des processus d’innovation d’une organisation. Dépassant les fonctions d’un intermédiaire d’innovation, ces collectifs autonomes accompagnent cette dynamique en sensibilisant et en légitimant l’importance d’explorer certains enjeux d’innovation avec des partenaires, en structurant et en animant des démarches d’innovation collective, tout en interprétant et documentant les apprentissages et les résultats liés à ces initiatives.

Human–computer interaction (HCI) is a cornerstone for the success of technical innovation in the logistics and supply chain sector. As a major part of social sustainability, this interaction is changing as artificial intelligence applications (Internet of Things, autonomous transport, Physical Internet) are implemented, leading to larger machine autonomy, and hence the transition from a primary executive to a supervisory role of human operators. A fundamental question concerns the level of control transferred to machines, such as autonomous vehicles and automatic materials handling devices. Problems include a lack of human trust toward automatic decision making or an inclination to override the system in case automated decisions are misperceived. This paper outlines a theoretical framework, describing different levels of acceptance and trust as a key HCI element of technology innovation, and points to the possible danger of an artificial divide at both the individual and firm level. Based upon the findings of four benchmark cases, a classification of the roles of human employees in adopting innovations is developed. Measures at operational, tactical, and strategic level are discussed to improve HCI, more in particular the capacity of individuals and firms to apply state‐of‐the‐art techniques and to prevent an artificial divide, thereby increasing social sustainability.

Technological innovation is the new backbone for companies. Exploiting and exploring new knowledge increase the chance of survival in the current dynamic market. Alongside, there are countries were be an innovative need to face up social and political challenges. This has transformed their economy, spreading an entrepreneurial mindset mingled with the willing to help a local community. This phenomenon is called social entrepreneurship which is leveraging new economies and building wealth, environmental system. In this vein, the present research seeks to offer qualitative research on 142 social entrepreneurs in an emerging country. The scope is to analyse if social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial characteristics, and entrepreneurial ecosystem influence innovation. As emerged, technological innovation is affected by the first two factors but the entrepreneurial ecosystem is still not supportive. New, several activities should be organised by the government to assist entrepreneurs, whereas, the entrepreneurs are socially motivated to build up his enterprise.

- Features interdisciplinary expertise from economics, law, technology and social science on the practice of co-creation - Provides best-practices and management approaches to successful co-creation - Enables research-based and practice-relevant understanding of the background and concepts around co-creation

The rapid pace of technological developments played a key role in the previous industrial revolutions. However, the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) and its embedded technology diffusion progress is expected to grow exponentially in terms of technical change and socioeconomic impact. Therefore, coping with such transformation require a holistic approach that encompasses innovative and sustainable system solutions and not just technological ones. In this article, we propose a framework that can facilitate the interaction between technological and social innovation to continuously come up with proactive, and hence timely, sustainable strategies. These strategies can leverage economic rewards, enrich society at large, and protect the environment. The new forthcoming opportunities that will be generated through the next industrial wave are gigantic at all levels. However, the readiness for such revolutionary conversion require coupling the forces of technological innovation and social innovation under the sustainability umbrella.

Nowadays, people are aware that many of the social changes and problems facing humanity cannot be solved by economic development or technological change alone. In recent years, many researchers have called for more attention to be given to social demand and social change. Although the concept of social innovation is still vague, solving social challenges through social innovation is considered to be important. At the same time, researches have been conducted on the importance of social enterprises and social entrepreneurs as players in social innovation. In addition to these researches, the roles and activities of firms in promoting social innovation should be focused on. This paper explores Japanese firms' social innovation activities by analyzing newspaper articles. The results show that firms tend to undertake social innovation by connecting their regular or core businesses with social innovation activities rather than building an innovative way to create social innovation.

Rapid changes in business along with better informed customers threaten the traditional sales and procurement process. Thousands of sales and procurement people are threatened with extinction, yet all is not destined to be doom and gloom. A new way of partnering between these two roles can, in fact, create significant value for both organizations. Sales and procurement professionals have a bright future ahead of them if they can respond to six trends that the authors have identified in the business-to-business world. Each trend offers an opportunity to develop a new skill for sales and procurement professionals and adopt a new practice. Because these practices are not yet widely adopted as "best practices", the authors coin them "next practices." These trends include: working together to solve complex problems; organizing problem-solving networks across company boundaries; creating processes for live cross-company engagement; facilitating data driven, cross-company interactions fed by digital platforms; providing new personal experiences for individuals and lastly (and most importantly) creating new sources of value for firms. If these trends are adopted by organizations, the ability to co-create means providing significant value to both the sales management team at the supplier and the purchasing management team at the customer. With the alternative being that these job functions will be replaced by web-based or channel-based alternatives that will do most of what they do today at a fraction of the cost. Increasingly, there is no middle ground anymore. SAMs and senior buyers will either evolve into high value-added sales and procurement professionals, or disappear.

Corporate social innovation is also called sustainable innovation. Corporate social innovation is about creating a good business by having sustainability as a focal point when the corporation develops a new product or service. This entails developing products or services which may relieve some of the world’s problems, such as disease, contaminated water, CO2 emission, hunger, or the lack of education. CSI is also referred to as CSR innovation. CSI is useful for businesses which work with innovation and/or CSR (corporate social responsibility).

Définition. "The attention paid to social innovation and the resources involved in the promotion, research, and implementation of social innovation increased, most remarkably after 2008, when the concept became the subject of mainstream policies in high places."

Social entrepreneurship is commonly used to qualify all economic initiatives that serve social and/or environmental mission and that reinvest a large part of their surpluses in support of their mission. Although this definition is not yet stabilized and its boundaries remain unclear, it focuses on the aim to achieve both economic efficiency and social innovation. It takes place within a context of great uncertainty about the future of welfare states and their capacity to meet new societal needs, of financial and budgetary constraints that force public authorities to develop new forms of interaction between public and private sectors, and therefore, of need to build new responses to societal challenges that are sustainable socially, economically, and environmentally. Within this context, all sorts of initiatives that can be qualified as social innovations are gaining interest.