Social Innovation – Social Challenges and Future Research Fields

Abstract

The article at hand discusses social innovations as an increasingly significant subject of discourse within civil society. Based on a growing awareness of the limited problem-solving potential of technological innovations, established control and problem-solving routines, the authors point out the necessity of social innovations. They argue that social innovations will become increasingly important, particularly with regard to the preservation and expansion of innovative capability in companies and societies. Their central thesis is that a paradigm shift is taking place in the innovation system as we transition from an industrial to a knowledge and service society, as a result of which the relationship between technological and social innovations is changing in favor of the latter. At the same time the article criticizes the fact that the debate on national and regional innovation systems deals mainly with the structural, political and institutional requirements for innovative capability at a national and regional level, while social innovation as an independent innovation type is considered only in passing. In order to remedy this situation, the authors first examine the question of what makes an innovation a social innovation, focusing among other things on the connection between social innovation and social change and the diffusion of social innovations. In the next step, they discuss trends and future research areas of social innovation, and analyze how social innovations can contribute to dealing with global dilemmas.