The concept of social innovation is quite a polysemy. Some authors believe that every innovation can be characterized as social for at least two reasons. First, the development of some new goods and service can contribute to the improvement of people’s lives (e.g. the discovery of a new drug) and hence benefit society in general. Second, other authors like Callon (2007) reckon that even technological or business innovations are social because they involve the participation of various social actors and the transformation of social structures in order to be adopted and diffused. There are two main fields where the concept of social innovation has been systematically mobilized: social entrepreneurship on one hand, and local development on the other. Let us develop them respectively. First, the relationship of social innovation and social entrepreneurship is found in various papers such as Leadbeater (1997, 2007), Dees (1998), Kramer (2005), (Peredo and Mclean, 2006), and Dees and Anderson (2006). They explicitly distinguish two schools of social entrepreneurship; the social enterprise school (known as the earned income school of thought) and the social innovation one.

“..many adherents think of “ social entrepreneurs” simply as those who organize and operate businesses that support a “social” objective, even if they do it only by making money to subsidize more direct, social-purpose activities” (Dees and Anderson, 2006:41). The social innovation school has focused on “social entrepreneurs (who) play the role of change agents in the social sector, by:

· Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value).

· Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,

· Engaging in a process of continuous innovations, adaptation, and learning,

· Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and

· Exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created” (Dees, 1998:4)

Similarly, in his book “How to change the world: Social entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas”, Bornstein uses the terms social innovators and social entrepreneurs interchangeably and defines them as “people with new ideas to address major problems who are relentless in the pursuit of their visions, people who simply will not take “no” for an answer, who will not give up until they have spread their ideas as far as they possibly can” (Bornstein, 2007:1). This origin of social innovation is at the heart of Ashoka, an organization founded in the US in 1980 by Bill Drayton and now operating worldwide, which aims to identify, support and support this kind of exceptional individuals in order to promote social change. This entrepreneur-based view of social innovation is rooted in a typical frame of mind of English-speaking countries which mainly celebrates individual initiative and entrepreneurship as well as leadership and personal success. Social innovation can be defined both as an outcome and as a process just like innovation in general (Deakins and Freel, 2009). In a book Murray and al. (2010:3) reckon that: “Our interest is in innovations that are social both in their ends and in their means. Specifically, we define social innovation as new ideas (products, services and models) that at the same time meet social needs and form new social relationships or collaborations. In other words, they are innovations that are both good for society and improve society’s capacity to act”. This definition of social innovation underlines both the outcome and the process dimensions. In the next two sections, we develop these two fundamental conceptions of social innovation respectively.

2. Social Innovation as an Outcome:

Most approaches defining social innovation adopt a normative point of view, with respect to its outcome. In this perspective, Phills and al. (2008), suggest the following definition of social innovation. They define social innovation to mean: “A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals” (p.36). This definition emphasizes the importance of the object, i.e. the result of social innovation with no regard for the process which led to this outcome. Moreover, this definition is made of three parts each shedding light on a specific dimension of the concept of social innovation. First, according to theses authors, “to be considered an innovation, a process or outcome must meet two criteria. The first is novelty: Although innovations need not necessarily be original, they have to be new to the user, context, or application. The second criterion is improvement. To be considered an innovation, a process or outcome must be either more effective or more efficient than pre-existing alternatives. By sustainable we mean solutions that are environmentally as well as organizationally sustainable-those that can persist to work over a long period of time” (Phills, Deiglmeier et al. 2008: 37).Chambon et al. (1982), Mulgan (2007:5), new does not essentially mean totally new or unseen but rather different or substitute or more effective than existing practices. Second, according to Phills and al. (2008), social means that the new solution must specifically and explicitly address a social problem, i.e. a situation which has pessimistic impacts on people’s lives and well-being (e.g. unemployment, delinquency, alcoholism, etc). Third, the value created by this new solution is not first and foremost captured by individuals or companies for their own personal good or profit but rather accrues to society in general. In other words, the core mission of any social innovation must be the creation of social value rather than private value, i.e. gains for entrepreneurs, investors. Indeed, “many innovations deal with social problems or meet social needs, but only for social innovations is the allocation of financial and social value tilted in the direction of society as a whole” (Phills, Deiglmeier et al. , 2008:39).

3. Social Innovation as a Process:

From a process point of view, the next step consists in understanding how social innovation emerges, is adopted and then diffused. In other words: the process of social innovation. From our literature review, first it appears that “the starting point for innovation is the awareness of a need that is not being met” (Mulgan, 2007:21). In fact, the emergence of social innovation seems to be related to specific conditions in the socio-economic context of a given society. Such contexts usually reveal the market and state failures to adequately address peoples’ needs and dislocations. When looking back in time, it appears that some of the major social innovations have taken place in contexts of great social and economic crises. This observation implies that in a context of crises the potential for social innovation is higher. A second characteristic which appears as crucial in the process of social innovation is the involvement of a complex network of formal or informal partnerships between various stakeholders, i.e. “ any group or individual who is affected by or can affect the achievement of an organization’s objectives” (R.E. Freeman and Mc Vea, 2001: 189). “In most cases the success of the innovation will rest on the participation and involvement of a wide variety of interests- the users and beneficiaries of the innovation as well as the producers and suppliers” (Murray et al., 2010: 30). As for the process itself, the work of Mulgan (2006 and 2007) appears as pioneer in its attempt to conceptualize the mechanisms of social innovation. According to him, there are four stages in the process of social innovation. In a first stage, “the starting point for innovation is an idea of a need that isn’t being met, coupled with en idea of how it could be met” (Mulgan, 2006: 149). This idea draws back to the conditions of necessity already mentioned here-above. Once identified, “ needs have to be tied to new possibilities”. New possibilities can be technological or organizational. They can also stem from new knowledge. “New social ideas are rarely inherently new in themselves. More often they combine ideas that had previously been separate” (Mulgan, 2006:151). Combining existing elements to spawn a novel solution to a problem is one of the main qualities of innovators as already underlined by Schumpeter. According to Mulgan (2006: 151), “the second phase of my innovation process involves taking a promising idea and testing it in practice”. Most of the ideas are quickly turned into prototypes. These rarely survive their first encounter with reality. To the first failures, social innovators respond by improving their products or services. This early stage is a period of high uncertainty. Resources are scarce and mobilizing non-market resources (donations, subsidies, etc.) can be decisive in helping ideas through this phase. Once a prototype has proven itself workable in practice, it needs to be grown and replicated on a large scale. In this third phase, “often the innovative and creative ‘bees’ (social entrepreneurs or inventors) need to find supportive ‘trees’ (big organizations with the machineries to make things happen on a big scale)” (Mulgan, 2006:153). In fact, whereas small initiatives are particularly good at innovating, bigger organization are more likely resources to scale up the activity. Scaling up the activity requires skills which differ significantly from those of innovators. Furthermore, it must be highlighted that the scaling up and diffusion is seen by most authors as a crucial feature of social innovation. Scale is supposed to distinguish social innovations from mere inventions and isolated experiments. In their multiple case studies, Alvord et al. (2003: 4) are explicitly interested “social entrepreneurship that creates innovative solutions to immediate social problems and also mobilize ideas, capacities, resources, and social a arrangements required for long-term, sustainable, social transformation”. The cases they have selected are widely recognized as “innovative efforts to solve persistent social problems that to some extent have been doing well in scaling up their impact and at least potentially catalyzing social transformation”. Kramer (2005) also insists on the importance of scalability and massive diffusion of social innovations. He refers to the social entrepreneur as “one who has created and leads an organization, whether for profit or not, that is aimed at creating large scale, long-term, and systemic change through the introduction of new thoughts, methodologies and changes in attitudes” (p.6). Finally, the last stage in the process of social innovation highlights the importance of learning and continuous adaptation as the context and needs evolve. In fact, many innovation turn into forms this may be very different from the first prototypes. The four-stage process which has just been described provides a useful framework to understand how social innovation works. However, one must realize that these stages are not often consecutive. “Some go quickly to scale and then have to adapt fast in the light of experience; often, the end use of an innovation will be very different from the one that was originally envisaged; sometimes action precedes understanding and sometimes taking action crystallizes the thought. And always there is an iterative circling back as new insights change the nature of the innovation” (Murray, Caulier-Grice et al., 2010: 9).

CONCLUSION:

Social innovation is in its very infancy as research area. In fact, the literature on this topic is mainly concerned with defining the concept. At first view, this concept seems fragmented and refers to different realities to different people. Nevertheless, when confronting the different uses and conceptions of social innovation, there appear more similarities and complementarities than one would expect beforehand. Our literature review has reveled that social innovation can be examined through two complementary lenses: the outcome and the process. Most authors focus on one or two of these dimensions but by combining both we obtain a stronger and more comprehensive definition of social innovation.

REFERENCES:

1. Alvord, S.H., Brown, L.D., et al. (2003). Social Entrepreneurship and Social Transformation: an exploratory study. The journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 40 (3), 260-282.

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3. Callon, M. (2007). L’innovation Sociale: quand I’economic redevient politique. In J-L. Klein and D. Harrison (Eds.), L’innovation Sociale: emergence et effects sur la transformation des Societes (pp 17-42) Quebic: Press de I’ Universite du Quebec.

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13. Mulgan, G (2007). Social innovation. What it is, why it matters and how it can be accelerated London: Young Foundation.

14. Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J., et al . (2010). The open book of Social innovation, Social Innovator Series. London: NESTA

15. Peredo, A.M., and Mclean, M. (2006). Social entrepreneurship: A Critical review of the Concept. Journal of world Business, 41 (1), 56-65.

16. Phills, J.A., Deiglmeier, K., et al. (2008, Fall). Rediscovering Social Innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fall.

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Received on 13.02.2017 Modified on 10.03.2017

Asian J. Management; 2017; 8(2):346-348.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2017.00052.X