SIMPACT Working Papers

Volume 2015 Issue 1

Dieter REHFELD &
Judith TERSTRIEP

Solutions to empower and (re-)engage vulnerable and marginalised populations to unfold their hidden potential allowing them to fully participate the social, economic, cultural and political life, necessarily involve institutional change. This in turn necessitates understanding the processes and mechanisms by which social innovations lead to institutional change. Considering the specific nature of social innovations as interactive, generative and contextualised phenomena while maintaining that many practices at the micro-level can add up to patterns and regularities at the macro-level, middle-range theorising (MRT) is proposed as an appropriate method to theoretically underpin and substantiate theoretical advancements towards a multidisciplinary perspective on the economic dimensions of social innovation, identifying the direction of future empirical inquiries.

Volume 2015 Issue 2

Saeed MOGHADMA SAMAN &
Anna KADERABKOVA

Mainly inspired by Murray, Mulgan and Caulier-Grice's approach in identifying inquiry areas in studying economics of social innovation, we have divided the theoretical investigation of economic underpinnings of social innovation in the New Member States of the EU to two parts; micro inquiry and macro inquiry. The micro inquiry concerns social innovation process, while macro inquiry concerns broader socio-economic context in which social innovation gets realized. For sake of micro inquiry, and due to methodological advantages explained, we use Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and its proposed phases in formation of innovation. Relating the transformative phases in ANT framework to dimensions of social capital proposed by Putnam, we characterize the CEE countries, based on their social capital specificities, by hypothesised coherency and consistency of social innovation in their context. For sake of macro inquiry, we implement welfare state typologies as a core concept in political economy, with the view that the specificities of welfare regime in NMSs affect greatly the mission landscape of social innovation. Stemming mainly from two strands of research which has dominated the debate, namely Varieties of Capitalism and Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, we review the literature which has studied welfare regime specifications in the CEE countries.

Volume 2015 Issue 2

Saeed MOGHADMA SAMAN &
Anna KADERABKOVA

Based on literature available about the level of social capital in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, and the connection between the social capital and innovation process stages as envisaged within the framework of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), in Part I we hypothesised about the smoothness, coherence and consistency of social innovation formation in the CEE countries. Furthermore, we characterised the welfare regime typology in the New Member States based on a consensus drawn from the scholars? conclusions. These typologies are deemed to have consequences for the governance models of social innovation activities in the discussed countries. In this part (Part II), in order to test the hypothesised characteristic of social innovation processes in the CEE countries, we have surveyed an expert panel consisting of academicians and SI stakeholders from the CEE countries (from New Member States of the EU), asking them to reflect on questions covering topics related to social capital, social innovations and welfare regime in their respective countries. The results of the survey to a large extent confirm the conclusions of the first part with regard to the context of social innovation activities in the concerned countries.

Volume 2015 Issue 3

Peter TOTTERDILL et al.

Social innovations «meet social needs», are «good for society» and «enhance society's capacity to act». But what does their rising importance tell us about the current state of public policy in Europe and its effectiveness in achieving social and economic goals? Some might see social innovation as a critique of public intervention, filling the gaps left by years of policy failure. Others emphasise the innovative potential of cross-boundary collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, the third sector and the household.

This paper explores the conditions under which the state either enables or constrains effective social innovation by transcending the boundaries between different actors. We argue that social innovation is closely linked to public sector innovation, particularly in relation to new modes of policy production and implementation, and to new forms of organisation within the state that challenge functional de-marcations and role definitions.

Volume 2016 Issue 1

Javier CASTRO SPILA, Álvaro LUNA &
Alfonso UNCETA

The development of social innovation indicators is a pending task in the analysis of innovative processes. There are diverse perspectives that suggest the application of indicators at different measurement levels: the individualistic approach, the regional/national approach, and the organizational approach. The present working paper promotes the notion of Social Innovation Regime (SIR) with the purpose of developing an integrated perspective of the mentioned levels through a series of social innovation indicators. This perspective seeks to understand the relationship between social innovation contexts (meso level - regional level) and social innovation dynamics (micro level - organizational level). Therefore, the SIR suggests a system of indicators to explore a new way of that measuring social innovation.

Volume 2016 Issue 2

Steven DHONDT et al.

In this paper, a conceptual framework is presented to conduct an ex-ante impact assessment for social innovation. The building blocks for an ex-ante impact assessment are goal formulation; developing the relationships between inputs, outputs and outcomes; determining the role of stakeholders to achieve the objectives; calculating the impact; and deciding on the social innovation. These building blocks are sequentially interconnected to each other. In the paper, we present the experience of three cases of social innovation with the framework. The following questions are discussed with results from the three case studies: How can you clarify your social goals and make them more measurable? How can you translate your goals into practical action roadmaps? How do you manage the sponsors and the stakeholders needed in your decision making? What kind of result can you expect from such an ex ante impact assessment? We summarize our lessons for each of these questions. In conclusion, our conceptual framework aims to be a practical guide to both assessor and assessee by structuring the development and decision process. A toolbox has been developed, which consists of a series of steps sprung from our conceptual framework.

Volume 2016 Issue 3

Peter TOTTERDILL et al.

Social innovations «meet social needs», are «good for society» and «enhance society's capacity to act». But what does their rising im- portance tell us about the current state of public policy in Europe and its effectiveness in achieving social and economic goals? Some might see social innovation as a critique of public intervention, filling the gaps left by years of policy failure. Others emphasise the innovative potential of cross-boundary collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, the third sector and the household. This paper explores the conditions under which the state either ena- bles or constrains effective social innovation by transcending the boundaries between different actors. We argue that social innovation is closely linked to public sector innovation, particularly in relation to new modes of policy production and implementation, and to new forms of organisation within the state that challenge functional de- marcations and role definitions.

Volume 2017 Issue 1

Dieter REHFELD & Judich TERSTRIEP

Solutions to empower and (re-)engage vulnerable and marginalised populations to unfold their hidden potential allowing them to fully participate the social, economic, cultural and political life, necessarily involve institutional change. This in turn requires understanding the processes and mechanisms by which social innovations lead to institutional change. Considering the specific nature of social innovations as interactive, generative and contextualised phenomena while maintaining that many practices at the micro-level can add up to patterns and regularities at the macro-level, middle-range theorising (MRT) is proposed as an appropriate method to theoretically underpin and substantiate theoretical advancements towards a multidisciplinary perspective on the economic dimensions of social innovation, identifying the direction of future empirical inquiries.

Volume 2017 Issue 3

Sharam ALIJANI & René WINTJES

The concept of innovation has become broader, across fields and across era, both in terms of 'means' and 'ends'. The mainstream literature emphasizes technological change as driver of economic change and performance. Looking beyond the mere technological and economic aspects, the concept of social innovation emphasizes social processes as 'means' and social purposes as 'ends'. We begin by discussing the difference between technological and social innovation, before proceeding further to investigate the interplay between technological innovation and social innovation. We will argue that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are used in social innovation in many ways and that more investments would be required to fully integrate technology into social innovation processes and phases. The co-evolution of technological and social innovation highlights the importance of policies in support of social innovators, innovation networks as well as technology and knowledge intensive inputs and outputs.