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Local energy policy agendas require commonly defined desirable future visions and collective agenda-setting to spur collaborative action. However, methods designed for multi-stakeholder engagement often do not sufficiently open up deliberative processes to all voices, and efforts to envision desired futures built from current local energy challenges are usually designed by and oriented towards specialists. With this paper, we aimed to explore how the theoretical strengths of storytelling for supporting local policy processes play out in practice. We contrast what the literature states about the potential of storytelling for solving complex challenges and facilitating collaborative processes to the lessons learnt from actually using storytelling in a set of 17 multi-stakeholder workshops across 17 European countries run as part of the H2020 SHAPE ENERGY project. The workshops were each designed around a tangible local energy policy challenge. We found storytelling has unique strengths in terms of enabling significant (un)learning regarding stakeholder relationships, allowing participants to step into others’ perspectives, keeping hold of diversity, and the use of ‘we’ in stories leading to concrete future initiatives. We also note specific learnings about when these outcomes may not be achieved, for example due to fears, traditions, hierarchical structures, as well as the need for sufficient time for planning, facilitator training and stakeholder invitations. We conclude that as an innovative, playful and flexible methodology, storytelling can undoubtedly be a valuable additional tool for policymakers where there is a desire for deliberative stakeholder involvement, and appetite to tailor approaches to local contexts.

Quelles sont les conditions de la maximisation de l’impact, et notamment sa pérennisation, du mécénat de compétence tech au profit des organisations dont la mission relève directement et prioritairement de la gestion du bien commun au service de l’intérêt général ? Telle est la question de recherche que la Fondation Devoteam a posée à l’ESSEC au moment de la mise en place de son programme #TechFor-People, afin de s’assurer de la pertinence de ce programme pour répondre aux besoins sur le long terme des structures de l’ESS (Économie Sociale et Solidaire) en transformation digitale. Afin de répondre à cette problématique l’ESSEC a réalisé une évaluation d’impact social fondée sur les cadres théoriques de la théorie du changement et de la théorie des parties prenantes, avec l’analyse de besoin, une collecte de données qualitatives ex-ante ainsi qu’une collecte de données quantitative ex-ante et ex-post. L’analyse de ces collectes révèle une dichotomie spécifique aux structures de l’ESS utilisant le programme que nous avons catégorisées en Tech Driven d’une part, ou Tech Powered d’autre part, avec des besoins et des conditions de pérennisation spécifiques en fonction de la catégorie qui leur correspond.

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.

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.

Digital innovation is ever more present and increasingly integrated into citizen science research. However, smartphones and other connected devices come with specific features and characteristics and, in consequence, raise particular ethical issues. This article addresses this important intersection of citizen science and the Internet of Things by focusing on how such ethical issues are communicated in scholarly literature. To answer this research question, this article presents a scoping review of published scientific studies or case studies of scientific studies that utilize both citizen scientists and Internet of Things devices. Specifically, this scoping review protocol retrieved studies where the authors had included at least a short discussion of the ethical issues encountered during the research process. A full text analysis of relevant articles conducted inductively and deductively identified three main categories of ethical issues being communicated: autonomy and data privacy, data quality, and intellectual property. Based on these categories, this review offers an overview of the legal and social innovation implications raised. This review also provides recommendations for researchers who wish to innovatively integrate citizen scientists and Internet of Things devices into their research based on the strategies researchers took to resolve these ethical issues.

Methodology for systematic literature reviews (SLRs) is not well developed in public policy compared to the health field. This paper explores use of the health PRISMA protocol for SLRs to guide an SLR of antecedents of trailblazing and adoption of public policy innovation and whether it is a suitable protocol for public policy. Trailblazing is the first two stages—invention and early adoption—of Rogers’ (1995) five stages of innovation adoption in a governmental or organizational population. Completing applicable items in the checklist, a SLR of 87 peerreviewed publications identified 594 antecedents; trailblazing/adoption and empirical/nonempirical studies are distinguished and the theories reflected are identified.

Are the antecedents identified in trailblazing/adoption and quantitative/qualitative public policy innovation studies similar or different? This quantitative study answers this question by identifying, categorizing and analyzing their antecedents, identified in a systematic literature review (SLR). Trailblazing is the first three adoptions of an innovation in its population/ community, adoption is all adoptions, in any organization. If their antecedents were different, this would lend credibility to the idea that they are different phenomena. The criteria for inclusion in the SLR were met by 87 publications; 594 antecedents were identified. Analysis identified 508 unique antecedents, 28 grouped antecedents, 5 factors and 3 clusters.

Academic literature about the idea of social innovation grew sharply over the last decade, with researchers trying to define its concept and presenting several examples of successful social innovations. However, to support the development of social innovation initiatives is important to have a conceptual framework that allows evaluating its true impact. The purpose of this paper is to identify the boundary conditions for an effective set of social innovation indicators, which will help to have a more informed decision-making process. The main conclusion is that the impact of social innovations can be conceived as a set of results that manifests itself through different time periods, at different spatial scales, and must take into account the value experienced by all stakeholders involved. Thus, since a positive social innovation outcome depends on diverse factors and conditions, being most often context-dependent, it means that rather than imposing a specific set of indicators, based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach a measuring process procedure should be adopted to assess the impact of social innovations.

La mesure de l’impact social est devenue un sujet majeur dans le débat relatif au financement de l’innovation sociale. Plusieurs rapports de référence ont été publiés dans ce sens. Ces travaux récents, en s’inscrivant tous dans le cadre logique de la gestion axée sur les résultats (GAR), également appelée « théorie du changement », renouvellent la construction d’une relation problématique : le lien causal et la mesure de sa preuve. À partir d’une approche institutionnaliste de l’innovation sociale, cet article expose les impasses de la GAR dans l’évaluation des innovations sociales et souligne que d’autres voies sont possibles. Les auteurs proposent ainsi de placer l’aspiration sociale au cœur du processus d’évaluation.

There has been limited study on the role of the startup ecosystem in social entrepreneurship. This article addresses the gap by applying a theoretical framework of startup ecosystem to two social enterprises originating from a Singapore university, examining how they engage with stakeholders to create social impact. WateRoam Pte Ltd is a water innovation startup that deploys cost-effective water filtration solutions to rural communities and disaster-hit locations. Tware is a wearable technology startup with a range of therapeutic products for individuals with autism, stress or anxiety. The two cases provide insights on the ecosystem for social ventures in Singapore. The Finance domain is identified as a potential area of improvement, as there is uncertainty on the appropriate growth trajectory for funding. University incubation and mentor networks are found to be pivotal in extending the Markets domain. Finally, this study highlights the Supports domain in the form of university R&D facilities and accelerator programmes that have been instrumental in strengthening connections. Extending beyond the university context, it is evident that infrastructural resources in the ecosystem are crucial. Policymakers may draw on the experience of countries, like Israel, which have successfully built such support facilities to nurture innovation-based social enterprises.

Analysis of factors (antecedents) influencing the introduction and fate of innovations and their organizations (I&O) has been limited. Most of the innovation literature has focused on introduction and dissemination but not fate of I&O. It often found ideology and politics were not important in introduction of I&O. Glor (2017a, b) studied six factors influencing the introduction and survival/mortality of the first introduction in USA and Canada of ten public sector I&O introduced by the Government of Saskatchewan, (GoS), a Canadian provincial government, 1971 to the present. She reported assessment of their antecedent factors before introduction (Time 1) and those factors again at the time of survival/termination, 15 to 46 years later (Time 2). Introduction and survival/termination are defined by their appearance in/disappearance from Budget Estimates, annual reports and Public Accounts. I&O studied were the full sub-population of income security I&O introduced. A new, valid instrument was used to assess the influences, examining six factors and some clusters thought by three experts to have influenced their introduction and fate. The expert raters responded to 1267 statements (items), 555 pairs between times 1 and 2 distributed on five-point Likert scales. For all ten I&O, the factors ideology, politics, economy, external support, resources and effects were considered. In this paper, factors and clusters of factors are explored to attempt to predict survival or termination in Time 2, using means, analysis of variance (ANOVA), paired t-test and logistic regression analyses. Clusters were considered, such as external/internal clusters, external cluster and external support factor compared to economy factor and internal cluster. The best combination of factors and clusters for predicting introduction of I&O in Time 1 was found to be economy factor and internal cluster (resources, effects). The best combination for predicting fate (survival/ termination) in Time 2 was political cluster (ideology, politics) and external support factor. These results are important for practitioners, to point the way to successful introduction of I&O and for scholars, to understand important influences on fate. The dominance of resource factors in introduction was as expected and consistent with the literature. The capacity to predict either survival or termination had not been studied before: Political factors dominated survival and termination.

In the business ethics literature, the growing interest in social entrepreneurship has remained limited to the assumption that pursuing a social mission will clash against the pursuit of associated economic achievements. This ignores recent developments in the social entrepreneurship literature which show that social missions and economic achievement can also have a mutually constitutive relation. We address this gap adopting the notion of shared value (SV) for an ethical inquiry of social entrepreneurship. Using a sensemaking framework, we assume that the emergence of SV propositions can be captured through the analysis of how social entrepreneurs make sense of events of change, selecting the journey of three exemplar cases for an inductive empirical inquiry. From our findings, we propose three themes for further examination. First, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are mostly shaped by idiosyncratic imperatives that inform both social mission and economic gain from the onset. Second, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV will be likely operationalised as a filtering device, which allows for resilience as well as potentially detrimental blind spots. And third, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are expressed through ongoing transparency. Whilst there are agendas, these are not necessarily hidden but instead are likely put on show for the scrutiny of markets and communities. We hope that this evidence can add more light to our still modest understanding of the ethical groundings of social entrepreneurship.

This study seeks to understand the nature and process of social innovation driven by mature social economy enterprises, and the innovative capability that supports it. The research examines enterprise capabilities by means of the institutional approach to social innovation and the Resource-Based View theory (RBV). Based on grounded theory, this research focuses on a single case, the creation of the Desjardins Environment Fund (DEF). Launched 25 years ago,1 DEF is the first mutual fund in North America to include extra-financial criteria in its evaluation of business environmental management practices (fund securities) for the information of individual investors. The findings of this empirical research show how a major cooperative bank can generate social innovation and how this entails organizational innovations. The findings also reveal how these innovations benefit from the strategic and process resources that the Desjardins Movement managed to develop while taking into account both its core business (as a bank) and its purpose (as a cooperative). This study shows that the innovative potential of the mature social economy enterprise should not be underestimated.

As an image and location sharing platform, Instagram offers intimate visual access to events, experiences and situations in a manner that is mobile and contextual. Partnering with Australian Red Cross, this paper develops a mixed methodology for using Instagram data to identify and understand individuals’ everyday humanitarian activity in a major urban centre (Melbourne, Australia) outside of the temporal frame of crisis. The research integrates hashtag data collection with thematic analysis in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to use visualise the links between types of humanitarian action, their motivations and contextual situations to precise urban locations. These attributes of Instagram posting practices offer a base layer of information about disparate prosocial action taking place in an urban context. We see this as informing and sustaining a new hybrid mode of promotional and humanitarian communication, evidencing social good ‘place making’ and enabling new forms of visible humanitarian participation.

Stories of community resilience and rapid innovation have emerged during the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. As communities, organizations, and individuals have had to shift modalities during the pandemic, they have identified ways to sustain community well-being. Prior to COVID-19, colleges and universities were hailed as anchors of economic and social resilience and well-being for communities of place. In this light, this commentary highlights stories of rapid community innovation occurring at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region of New York. A series of vignettes are presented showcasing lessons and on-going questions regarding rapid pivots, community values, and diversity and inclusion during (and after) the pandemic. Overall, these insights can inform future local collaborative development efforts post-COVID-19 between colleges/universities and their local community.

Whereas the economic impact of universities is undisputed, the social impact of universities remains vague. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how universities influence firms’ social engagement. Based on survey data of more than 7,000 German firms, our results reveal that universities positively affect firms’ social engagement mainly through teaching activities. Hence, our findings give impetus to a reinforcement of the university mission ‘teaching’ as a central lever for social change and increased social awareness as well as to a reorientation of the third university mission toward social needs. This paper thereby contributes to our understanding of the changing missions and values of universities and adds to the literature by exploring the underlying mechanisms of the social impact of universities. We conclude the paper with fruitful future avenues of research.

University-community engagement is emerging as an important channel for social innovation, requiring universities to act as change agents in their local settings. The role of change agent presents new challenges for universities as it requires going beyond institutional borders to collaborate with non-traditional partners such as informal enterprises, and to stimulate and support innovation that may be seen as relevant to a given local setting only. Universities are thus grappling with finding suitable mechanisms and models for engaging in institutional contexts that are vastly different from traditional formal university- and firm-based settings. Based on empirically rich case study research in a South African township, the paper presents new conceptual insights on how universities can catalyse social change in resource-poor local settings through strategically selecting mechanisms and models of engagement that align with locally-embedded institutions, practices and needs. Four types of engagement models are identified, each relate to different models of entrepreneurship and innovation and thus different modes of learning. The typology distinguishes between dominant, traditional knowledge transfer models, and emergent, socially responsive models that show greater promise for promoting collective agency and effecting systemic social change. The typology can be used to assess current practice and inform future strategies.

We conjecture that adoption of agricultural biotech innovation imposes relationship-specific investments that exacerbate hold-up costs between biotech producers and farmers. Moreover, the increasing presence of biotech reduces biodiversity, which is a significant negative externality on food production across farms. As such, increasing biotech has the potential to exacerbate food insecurity. By contrast, certified organic operations have the potential to have the opposite effect. We examine 15 agrarian states in the U.S. and find evidence strongly consistent with these propositions. We discuss implications for policy, practice, and future research.