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Social Innovation for Sustainability Challenges

Author

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  • Petteri Repo

    (Centre for Consumer Society Research, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland)

  • Kaisa Matschoss

    (Centre for Consumer Society Research, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland)

Abstract

Social innovation is concerned with social mobilization and impact, and is increasingly seen as an option to address sustainability challenges. Nevertheless, the concept of social innovation is quite open in character and requires empirical accommodation to establish how it differs from other types of innovation in this setting. This article contributes empirically to the concept of social innovation as it reviews categories of success factors of social innovation against those of five other innovation types (product, service, governmental, organizational, system) in 202 innovation cases that focus on climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials. Statistical analysis with contingency tables is applied to examine the distribution of five kinds of success factors across the innovation types: economic, environmental, political, social, and technological. The results confirm empirically that social innovation is indeed a distinct type of innovation. There are statistically significant differences in the distribution of categories of success factors between social innovation on the one hand and product, service and governance innovation on the other. In addition to the prevalence of social success factors, social innovation is characterized by a lesser emphasis on political and technological success factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Petteri Repo & Kaisa Matschoss, 2019. "Social Innovation for Sustainability Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2019:i:1:p:319-:d:303649
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Equey, Catherine & Priftis, Athanasios & Trabichet, Jean-Philippe & Hutzli, Vanissla, 2024. "Designing a digital citizen-centered service," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    3. Christopher Meyer, 2022. "Social Innovation Governance in Smart Specialisation Policies and Strategies Heading towards Sustainability: A Pathway to RIS4?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-14, March.
    4. Tetiana Ivanova & Iryna Manaienko & Marina Shkrobot & Yuriy Tadeyev, 2021. "Theoretical Frameworks of Responsible Innovations," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 143-157.

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