Abstract
While the adoption of Social Innovation (SI) in the
governance and policy domain has fueled a rapidly
expanding scholarly literature, this field has become
characterized by conceptual ambiguity and a diversity of
definitions and research settings. This present situation
inhibits the integration of findings. This paper traces
the content, scope and relatively short history of modern
social innovation research across disciplines by applying
network and bibliometric analyses, and explores their
relevance to innovation studies. Based on data from 172
publications, we analyze scholarly works that directly
address the social innovation topic, allowing us to
identify the precedence, dynamics and the current map of
social innovation research as an emerging field of study.
Our analysis suggests that the SI field is grounded in
four distinct intellectual communities arising through a
somewhat organized diffusion process: 1) Community
Psychology; 2) Creativity research; 3) Social and
societal challenges; 4) Local development. The interest
of SI in the areas of management and entrepreneurship is
only very recent and is currently reflected within
existing communities. We forge conceptual bridges between
the two (currently very separate) domains of social
innovation and innovation studies, and the implications
of our finding for further research and policy are also
discussed.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1923-1935 |
Journal | Research Policy |
Volume | 45 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- social innovation
- social entrepreneurship
- social value
- social technology
- bibliometrics
- integrative literature review