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Interrelations between creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurial skills of individuals have long been discussed in the literature. Due to the challenges regarding their measurement, most studies focused on the intentions rather than the outcomes. The idea generation that requires creativity is the first stage of social innovation. The young population's creative potentials in participating social innovation practices deserve a special attention as they play a critical role in the innovativeness and entrepreneurship of societies. This study aims to explore the factors that determine the creative intentions of university students that are important in generating social innovation projects. A structured survey based on the literature was conducted among 600 management and engineering students from 3 universities from the different percentiles of the Entrepreneurial and Innovative University Index for 2012 of the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. The survey included questions on the demographic characteristics, environmental factors, motivators, university/institutional context, perceptions and creative thinking attitudes. By conducting reliability and factor analysis, accuracy and validity of data is tested and the impact factors were identified. Findings reveal that visionary attitude, curiosity, exploration and learning, attitude for own creativity, self-esteem, perception about the learnability of creativity, university and social environment are components of creative thinking intentions of students and some of these factors vary by year of study and university.

Des aides financières encouragent l’innovation scientifique en Suisse. Le domaine social est désormais aussi concerné. Comment présenter sa requête pour améliorer ses chances de décrocher un financement fédéral ? Repères et conseils

Participatory social innovation projects often involve the coming together of design researchers, community development groups, and community members to develop (often technological) solutions to social problems or challenges. “Intermediaries” are specific individuals and organisations who contribute to these projects by translating intentions, values and experiences between design researchers and communities. Previous research has not yet critically examined the role of intermediaries in such projects. This paper does so in a project carried out in rural areas of Europe, which sought to test and develop a technology to support the creation of FM community radio stations in isolated areas. We present the project as a biography of infrastructures to provide an account of intermediaries’ interactions during the project's unfolding. We find that how intermediaries shape the social base and ends of the project, and the interpretation of the technology involved, is influenced by their position, goals, and relationships in the process.

The failure of the deterritorialised innovation policy addressing the regions based on the “one-size-fits-all” policymaking made the Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) become the Holy Grail of the European cohesion. This policy strategy is part of a multilevel framework, which encompasses national and regional vectors harmonising transversal strategies and combining different aspects to generate a consistent policy mix. This growth strategy will reinforce the existence of an innovative and knowledge-based society, which aims to raise welfare, promote responsible practices, modernise economic activity and spread prosperity.Sustainable growth will optimise the use of resources, boost the efficiency levels, generate competitiveness and respect the environment. Inclusive growth will promote social and territorial cohesion which is sought after in the convergence policy, which has slowed down the pace after the financial crisis.The development of regional competitive advantages will rely on the establishment of relevant linkages between the Academia and the private institutions in knowledge creation and transfer. In this vein, the University is expected to play a central role, facing important challenges and requiring transformations, mostly in the case of less favoured regions.Productivity raise, construction of comparative advantages, market consolidation and profit maximisation, required to avoid the obsolescence of firms, will rely in the prosecution of innovative activities. Despite being risky, these activities are sought by firms as a source of economic performance increase, being the building blocks of a profit maximisation strategy. The velocity at which innovation occurs will differ among industrial sectors due to their singularities along with other firm structural characteristics, still, those who perform innovative activities are more prone to achieve higher standards of turnover growth and profits. The organisational competences concerning human capital, knowledge absorption, accumulation and diffusion will enhance the innovation capabilities, thus generating advantages. In this path, Universities will be determinant as they may leverage the success of the entrepreneurial innovativeness throughout the provision of relevant knowledge, productive techniques and methods. Absorbing, transforming and exploiting the general knowledge provided by the University will be the firms’ incumbency which will reflect the speed and the success of the individual’s innovative performance. Considering the reinforced role of the Academia as a knowledge producer and therefore inside the innovation process, the existence of incipient connections with firms will be unbearable.What enables and hinders University-firm linkages is, so far, overlooked in the literature demanding for the comprehensive analysis, in particular the causes of its failure, and the accurate policy mix that overcome the situation is vital for a successful RIS3.The singularities of this policy framework require redirection of the tools and actions to be taken such as incentives, grants, loans and subsidisation strategies. Empirical results shed light to the significant difference observed in the classification of the University as a source of information for innovation between public monies recipients and other firms. Among public funding beneficiaries, the Academia is an important source of knowledge to draw upon; conversely, for the other firms, it seems of poor importance the knowledge conveyed in the contact. In general, firms fail to consider the University as a relevant source of information for innovation, which seems to be incompatible with the establishment of smart specialisation strategies.These unexplored connections, which pledge the success of the present innovation policy, and reinforce the importance of its appraisal to fully understand the determinants of University-firm linkages and its connection to public subsidisation, encompassing the identification of the most effective beneficiaries. The econometric estimations, relying on the CIS, were run considering a panel of firms operating in Portugal, which provides the empirical evidence for a moderate innovation milieu which is poorly done so far as most of the studies focus on innovation leader.The findings reinforce the existence complementarities among policy instruments and highlight that new avenues of research should explore other policy instruments such as open innovation frameworks.

Cet article étudie les caractéristiques des structures de transfert technologique et des laboratoires d’innovation ouverte gérés par les universités et organismes de recherche. Il compare leurs rôles comme intermédiaires des relations science–entreprises en fonction des modes 2 et 3 de production des connaissances proposés par Etzkowitz & al (1997) et Carayannis & al (2009). Basée sur une comparaison de cas multiples en France, nous analysons leur rôle dans le développement des relations science-entreprise. Cet article identifie aussi les modes de coordination entre ces deux types d’intermédiaires. Dans certains cas, ils coordonnent leurs activités de manière ponctuelle alors que, dans d’autres cas, la complémentarité de leurs activités s’organise sur la durée.

Twelve papers examine knowledge, learning, and innovation in order to enhance competitiveness. Papers also explore perspectives of cross-sector collaboration, intrafirm and interfirm connections, gender, and relational marketing. Papers discuss knowledge, learning, and innovation--research into cross-sector collaboration; entrepreneurial competencies and firm performance in emerging economies--a study of women entrepreneurs in Malaysia; whether online cocreation influences lead users' and opinion leaders' behaviors; knowledge and innovation in Portuguese enterprises; social ties and human capital in family small- and medium-sized entrepreneurial internationalization; perceived social support and social entrepreneurship--gender perspectives from Turkey; entrepreneurship challenges and gender issues in the African informal rural economy; the construction of a professional identity of a female entrepreneur; knowledge creation and relationship marketing in family businesses--a case-study approach; the gender question and family entrepreneurship research; a composite-index approach to detecting reporting quality--the case of female executives in family firms; and influencing factors in customers' intention to revisit resort hotels--the roles of customer experience management and customer value. Ratten is Associate Professor at La Trobe University. Braga is Associate Professor of the Technology and Management at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Marques is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Innovation, Markets and Organization Research Group in the Centre for Transdisciplinary Development Studies at the University of Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro. No index.

This paper explores the governance of social innovation throughout quadruple helix partnerships between civil society, business, government, and academic actors. Particular attention is given to the participation of universities in such partnerships as an expression of public and community engagement under broad third mission goals. Quadruple helix partnerships may favour the governance of projects aiming at social innovation, but conflicts and drawbacks can hinder the alignment of partners’ contributions. To tackle this issue, we develop a conceptual framework that points out four key phases in such governance processes: i) identification of a common nexus, ii) building of shared strategies, iii) implementation, and iv) learning feedbacks. We apply this framework to three Italian projects under the new EU Urban innovative actions’ program. Different alignment pathways and barriers in the governance process emerge and are discussed. The results show that quadruple helix partnerships for social innovation work smoothly if a solid common nexus between partners is in place. The University is used as a focal actor to understand the mechanisms underpinning each phase and the role it may play in such partnerships.

The importance of university social responsibility (USR) is given by the commitment assumed by the university towards its stakeholders. This study aims at providing new insights on this topic, by analyzing the level of performance in USR that universities communicate. To this end, a structured procedure in five phases is proposed, analyzing elements of the strategic direction and considering the use of USR indicators which are grouped in the four main areas of impact (organizational, educational, cognitive and social). To do this, a qualitative approach has been followed, supported by the use of text analysis software as well as by frequency and spider diagrams. To illustrate its use and the type of analysis it allows, the procedure is applied to the case of the Catalan higher education system, presenting the results at different levels. The study ends with the discussion of the implications, a list of recommendations and suggestion for future works.

Social innovation has been increasingly regarded as an instrument through which transformative structural change, necessary to address grand societal challenges can be achieved. Social innovations are encouraged by the emergence of innovation systems that support changes not exclusively driven by a techno-economic rationality. In the context of this special issue, there has been both little understanding of social innovation systems within mainstream innovation ecosystem approaches and little analysis of the roles played by universities in social innovation systems. We here focus on the institutional complexity of universities and their field-level dynamics as serving as a potential break on the institutionalisation of social innovation. To deepen our understanding of this, we utilise a literature around institutional logics to foreground characteristics of organisational fields with regard to social innovation. Drawing on empirical data gathered in two public universities located in different countries, we show that in one case the potential of social innovation is undermined by two dominant institutional logics, in the other its permeation across the organisational field is seriously challenged by a more powerful dominant logic. The institutional logic approach is useful to highlighting the barriers to building productive innovation ecosystems incorporating social considerations, and helps to explain the persistent difficulties in reframing ecosystems approaches to reflect wider societal dynamics.

With the advent of smart cities (SCs), governance has been placed at the core of the debate on how to create public value and achieve a high quality of life in urban environments. In particular, given that public value is rooted in democratic theory and new technologies that promote networking spaces have emerged, citizen participation represents one of the principal instruments to make government open and close to the citizenry needs. Participation in urban governance has undergone a great development: from the first postmodernist ideals of countering expert dominance to today’s focus on learning and social innovation, where citizen participation is conceptualized as co-creation and co-production. Despite this development, there is a lack of research to know how this new governance context is taking place in the SC arena. Addressing this situation, in this article, we present an exhaustive survey of the research literature and a deep study of the experience in participative initiatives followed by SCs in Europe. Through an analysis of 149 SC initiatives from 76 European cities, we provide interesting insights about how participatory models have been introduced in the different areas and dimensions of the cities, how citizen engagement is promoted in SC initiatives, and whether the so-called creative SCs are those with a higher number of projects governed in a participatory way.

Innovation is perhaps the buzzword in local economic development policy. Associated narrowly with neoliberal ideas, conventional notions of innovation—like its capitalocentric counterparts, enterprise and entrepreneurialism—may promise higher productivity, global competitiveness and technological progress but do not fundamentally change the ‘rules of the game’. In contrast, an emerging field reimagines social innovation as disruptive change in social relations and institutional configurations. This article explores the conceptual and political differences within this pre‐paradigmatic field, and argues for a more transformative understanding of social innovation. Building on the work of David Graeber, I mobilize the novel constructs of ‘play’ and ‘games’ to advance our understanding of the contradictory process of institutionalizing social innovation for urban transformation. This is illustrated through a case study of Liverpool, where diverse approaches to innovation are employed in attempts to resolve longstanding socio‐economic problems. Dominant market‐ and state‐led economic development policies—likened to a ‘regeneration game’—are contrasted with more experimental, creative, democratic and potentially more effective forms of social innovation, seeking urban change through playing with the rules of the game. I conclude by considering how the play–game dialectic illuminates and reframes the way transformative social innovation might be cultivated by urban policy, the contradictions this entails, and possible ways forward.

People with disabilities are an important actor and target group in social innovation initiatives worldwide, as there is a clear need for better inclusion of this group in society. A way to improve the inclusion of people with disabilities is the development of assistive technology. In practice, people with disabilities often use technologies of which the primary use is not that of an assistive technology. They use the technology for a different use and context than the developer intended – termed 'secondary use'. The current paper studies the factors that are needed to make the secondary use of technology a success. First, a literature review and explorative study in the Netherlands are performed, after which a framework on the secondary use of technology for inclusion, specifically for people with disabilities, is developed.

This paper reports on a long-term collaboration with a self-organised social clinic, within solidarity movements in Greece. The collaboration focused on the co-creation of an oral history group within the social clinic, aiming to record and make sense of a collection of digital oral histories from its volunteers and volunteers-doctors. The process aimed to support reflection and shape the future of the clinic's ongoing social innovation and to transform institutional public health services. Positioning the work of solidarity movement as designing social innovation, the work contributes to CSCW and 'infrastructuring' in Participatory Design aspiring to support social activism and social transformation processes. More specifically, through our empirical insights on the process of infrastructuring an oral history group within a social movement; and related insights about their ongoing participatory health service provision-we provide implications for CSCW concerned with its role in institutional healthcare service transformation.

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.

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.

Nous présentons dans cet article les résultats d’une enquête sur les politiques publiques de régulation de l’intelligence artificielle et en particulier sur les stratégies mises en œuvre dans des cadres socio-politiques aux échelles nationales, européennes et internationales. La France a créé des instances dans lesquels des « frottements » entre acteurs différents sont possibles, comme les groupes d’experts ou le Partenariat Mondial sur l’Intelligence Artificielle. Nous considérons que le travail de la part de l’ensemble des groupes sociaux, impliqués dans les instances que nous observons, est consubstantiel à la régulation. Les acteurs publics et privés s’organisent pour échanger et interagir de façon structurée, notamment par la mise en place de ces instances, comme le PMIA. Les dispositifs et instruments, auxquels les différents acteurs participent, contribuent à conférer un sens aux activités de régulation. Notre hypothèse repose sur l’émergence d’un « modèle français » de la régulation qui tend à promouvoir la « confiance » et dont le sens est de parvenir à l’acceptabilité sociale de l’IA.

Cet article est une réponse prospective aux besoins de l'Internet des Objets en termes de simplicité d'utilisation, de gestion de la sécurité et de préservation de la vie privée. Nous proposons de satisfaire ces besoins à travers une plateforme d'intelligence collective utilisant des cartographies sémantiques en réalité augmentées pour récolter les interactions des utilisateurs avec des objets connectés. L'association de l'intelligence collective et des cartographies sémantiques permet d'envisager un design de connaissances où les capacités d'action des objets connectés sont facilement compréhensibles et modifiables par les utilisateurs. Dans ce dispositif, les technologies de blockchain sont utilisées pour partager en sécurité l'expression des utilisateurs et ainsi augmenter la confiance dans l'Internet des Objets et par la même contribuer au développement d'une réflexivité collective sur les usages de ces écosystèmes sociotechniques.

L’Union européenne comme les pouvoirs publics français peinent à trouver des solutions aux crises agricoles. Le secteur laitier n’échappe pas à la règle. En 2016, quelque 7000 consommateurs français ont activement participé à la coconstruction d’une filière laitière guidée par un objectif social : améliorer les conditions de vie des producteurs. L’innovation repose ainsi sur une nouvelle méthode de fixation du prix de vente du lait conditionné. Nous montrerons par cet exemple ainsi que par d’autres exemples en France que ce type de coconstruction constitue une innovation sociale inversée. Cette dernière tire parti d’un demi-siècle d’apprentissage fondé sur l’institutionnalisation du « caractère équitable » d’un bien, lequel est au coeur du commerce équitable Nord-Sud. Le label « équitable » n’est donc plus réservé aux seuls pays en développement. Nous analyserons également la portée des technologies numériques (TN) qui réduisent la « distance sociale » entre producteurs, implantés au Sud ou au Nord, et consommateurs. Ainsi, les consommateurs peuvent arbitrer à travers les TN, et ce, dans plusieurs filières.

Commonly, social innovation is defined as new ideas proposals to the needs of humans. However, there is a lack of a well-definition comprehensive leading the fragmentation of field research. On the other hand, the contribution of universities for social innovation development is still less investigated. In this sense, this study intends to explore interrelations between universities and social innovation in relation to different lines of investigation employed. For this, a content analysis was applied to results obtained by Cunha et al. [1]. Five categories of analysis were defined. Findings revealed that there are a number of studies that applied qualitative research to investigate practical examples of social innovation inside of universities and few empirical studies. A link among keywords social innovation, higher education, and social entrepreneurship was found. Furthermore, the analysis showed that there is not a leader country but a distribution across several countries, where Spain and United Kingdom stand out. Thus, this result suggests that it would be helpful to develop an instrument to measure academics’ engagement with social innovation research and practice. In addition, this research contributes to current knowledge regarding the role of universities in social innovation model, providing new theoretical and practical insights of investigation.