OPEN
Introduction: Dimensions of Social
Innovation
Alex Nicholls, Julie Simon and Madeleine Gabriel
Introduction
Social innovation is not new, but it appears to be entering a new phase –
a phase in which it is increasingly seen as offering solutions not just
to localised problems but to more systemic and structural issues.
Nevertheless, the growing set of examples and attendant discourses
and logics of social innovation have yet to coalesce around a single,
common definition, a set of standards or performance measures or an
agreed policy agenda. Partly, this is the consequence of the ‘liability of
newness’ experienced by all new fields of action: namely, they lack the
legitimacy needed to support significant investment or research. It may
also be because the range and variety of action that constitutes social
innovation today defies simple categorisation. Indeed, this fluidity and
diversity may be seen as one of the field’s great strengths in terms of
addressing complex social problems and challenges. So, as yet, there is
no established paradigm of social innovation (see also Nicholls, 2010a).
However, there are strong signs that interest is growing in this insti-
tutional space where innovative thinking and models can address both
problems of social welfare efficiency or distribution and imbalances
and inequalities in social structures and relations. Moreover, inter-
est in this field appears to cut across governments, civil society and
even mainstream businesses and investors. It has also become a topic
for scholarly enquiry and research (see e.g., Nicholls and Murdock,
2012). This book aims to explore the multiple dimensions of social
innovation – both theoretically and empirically – in order to advance
research and contribute to shaping the formation of its boundaries and
to advancing a wider recognition of the opportunities and challenges
of this new phase.
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2 Alex Nicholls, Julie Simon and Madeleine Gabriel
In particular, this volume aims to challenge some of the emerging
normative assumptions about the ‘promise of social innovation’,
namely a general acceptance that it is an unproblematic and con-
sistently positive phenomenon without drawbacks or unintended
consequences. Thus, this collection explores the implications of
social innovation in cross-sector collaborations and hybrid forms,
across several contexts and in multiple country settings to high-
light a range of issues across social innovation models. The research
presented here deliberately ranges across different socio-structural
levels and units of analysis – from micro to macro – in order to offer
multiple insights into the various contexts in which social innova-
tion can operate effectively. Much of the work here also has strong
policy implications: by codifying and analysing practice, its objective
is to inform future policy making in social innovation across coun-
tries. This book also aims to contribute to the critical field-building
project of social innovation that is already underway across a range
of researchers and institutions by augmenting the existing body of
knowledge on this subject with work on new trends and case exam-
ples. In the process, the hope is that the work published here will also
support the building of a community of researchers looking at social
innovation by adding its own, modest legitimacy to working on this
subject. The contents and structure of this volume are considered in
more detail below.
Definitions
At its simplest, social innovation can be seen as ‘new ideas that address
unmet social needs – and that work’ (Mulgan et al., 2007, p. 2). In
practice, social innovations can take the form of specific ideas, actions,
frames, models, systems, processes, services, rules and regulations as
well as new organisational forms. However, more specifically, there
are two interlinked conceptualisations of social innovation, focused
on either new social processes or new social outputs and outcomes. The
first emphasises changes in social relations and often has a focus on
rebalancing power disparities of economic inequalities in society (see
Moulaert et al., 2014a). For example, Mumford (2002, p. 253) sug-
gested that:
Social innovation refers to the generation and implementation of
new ideas about how people should organize interpersonal activities,
or social interactions, to meet one or more common goals.
Introduction: Dimensions of Social Innovation 3
Westley and Antadze (2010, p. 2) subsequently expanded upon this by
noting that:
Social innovation is a complex process of introducing new products,
processes or programs that profoundly change the basic routines,
resource and authority flows, or beliefs of the social system in which
the innovation occurs. Such successful social innovations have dura-
bility and broad impact.
Second, social innovation can be seen as the answer to social market
failures in the provision of vital public goods. This is reflected in the
OECD’s definition of social innovation, which also includes a reference
to the process dimensions of social innovation (2011, p. 1):
Social innovation is distinct from economic innovation because it
is not about introducing new types of production or exploiting new
markets in itself but is about satisfying new needs not provided by
the market (even if markets intervene later) or creating new, more
satisfactory ways of insertion in terms of giving people a place and a
role in production.
In addition to these two meta-definitions, three levels of social innova-
tion can be identified (see Table I.1). First, there is incremental innova-
tion in goods and services to address social need more effectively or
efficiently. This is the objective of many successful charities and not-
for-profits, as well as some so-called ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ (Prahalad,
2006) commercial firms. From this perspective, social innovation may
simply be a good business opportunity. Second, there is institutional
innovation that aims to harness or retool existing social and economic
structures to generate new social value and outcomes. Examples such as
Fair Trade (Nicholls and Opal, 2005) or mobile banking typically exploit
or modify existing market structures to deliver new or additional social
value. Finally, disruptive social innovation aims at systems change. This
is typically the realm of social movements and self-consciously ‘politi-
cal’ actors, groups and networks aiming to change power relations, alter
social hierarchies and reframe issues to the benefit of otherwise disen-
franchised groups. Disruptive social innovation can be characterised by
structured mass participation in political parties or formal membership
schemes of social movements, on the one hand, or loose coalitions of
individuals and interests united by an evanescent issue or technology
such as social media, on the other. Policy entrepreneurs from within
4 Alex Nicholls, Julie Simon and Madeleine Gabriel
Table I.1 Levels of social innovation
Level Objective Focus Examples
Incremental To address identified Products Kickstart (low-cost
market failures more irrigation foot pump)
effectively
Institutional To reconfigure existing Markets M-PESA (mobile banking)
market structures and
patterns
Disruptive To change cognitive Politics Tostan (human rights)
frames of reference to
alter social systems
and structures
Source: Nicholls and Murdock (2012).
Table I.2 Dimensions of social innovation
Dimension Social process Social outcome
Individual Co-Production (Southwark Lost-cost Healthcare
Circle) (Aravind Eye Hospital)
Organisation Wiki-Production (Wikipedia) Work Integration Social
Enterprise (Greyston Bakery)
Network/ Open Source Technology Non-Traditional Training and
Movement (Linux) Education (Barefoot College)
System Microfinance (Grameen Bank) Mobile Banking (MPESA)
Source: Nicholls and Murdock (2012).
state structures can also drive disruptive social innovation by focussing
on reforming democracy and enlarging or deepening citizens’ roles
within it.
Social innovation can also be defined in terms of the level of its action
or impact from the individual to the systems level (micro-, meso- or macro-
level). Such levels or dimensions can be mapped against the two main defini-
tions of social innovation focused either on new social processes or on new
social outcomes (see Table I.2). These differing levels of impact point to the
complexity of performance measurement on social innovation and empha-
sise the need for clarity about the unit of impact of a social innovation.
Social innovation can also be considered in the context of the
more institutionalised fields of social entrepreneurship (Dees, 1998;
Nicholls, 2006) and social enterprise (Alter, 2006; Nyssens, 2006).
In this setting, social innovation can be seen as the biggest field of
Introduction: Dimensions of Social Innovation 5
action encompassing any new idea or model that addresses a social (or
environmental) need. Social entrepreneurship can, then, be seen as a
subset of social innovation – the organisational enactment of social
innovation ideas and models.
Finally, drawing upon theory from design thinking, Murray et al.
(2010) set out the key stages of the development of a social innovation
as a nonlinear process. This model is characterised by a series of key
inflection points where the development of an innovation moves first
from prompts and proposals to prototyping (an important part of the
design process), then to sustainability and, finally, to scale.
It should also be acknowledged that social innovation is not, in and
of itself, a socially positive thing. Social innovation may have a ‘dark
side’. This could be evidenced in several ways:
• Socially divisive or destructive objectives and intentions (e.g., secret
societies or extreme political parties)
• Deviant or unintended consequences that achieve negative social
effects (e.g., by excluding some groups from the focus of social goods,
services or change)
• Operational failure, mission drift or strategic co-option by an exter-
nal party (e.g., Tracey and Jarvis, 2006)
It is well understood within innovation studies that innovations
will create value for some and destroy it for others. This underlies
Schumpeter’s (1942) notion of ‘creative destruction’. In the context of
social innovation, however, the idea that social innovations might cre-
ate winners and losers is rarely, if ever, articulated. Phills et al. (2008)
appeared to recognise the potential for a dark side of social innovation
in a definition that emphasises improvement rather than change as a
central feature:
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)
Moreover, this conceptualisation also highlights a potential bifurcation
of value creation and value appropriation within social innovation that
renders the interests of the individual (social) innovator secondary to
wider social value creation (see Nicholls, 2010b, for a similar argument
in the context of social investment).
6 Alex Nicholls, Julie Simon and Madeleine Gabriel
Clearly, social innovation is a complex and multi-faceted institu-
tional space that is still subject to competing discourses and definitions.
Moreover, as is illustrated in this collection, social innovation can have
a ‘dark side’ that challenges normative assumptions that (social) innova-
tion is always positive (i.e., improvement rather than just change). It is
important, therefore, to be aware that social innovation from one stake-
holder perspective may look and feel very different from another – social
benefit is always contingent. As such, in terms of this collection, social
innovation can be seen as:
Varying levels of deliberative novelty that bring about change and
that aim to address suboptimal issues in the production, availability,
and consumption of public goods defined as that which is broadly
of societal benefit within a particular normative and culturally con-
tingent context.
Drivers
As Moulaert et al. (2014b) noted:
Socially innovative actions, strategies, practices and processes arise
whenever problems of poverty, exclusion, segregation and depriva-
tion or opportunities for improving living conditions cannot find
satisfactory solutions in the ‘institutionalized field’ of public or pri-
vate action. (p. 2)
As such the growth of interest in social innovation as a field or set
of tools and models reflects the failure – for at least some sections of
society – of established systems (technology, markets, policy, governance,
etc.) to deliver well-being and economic prosperity. This can be seen,
fundamentally, as a distribution problem in terms of both mainstream
innovation policy and democratic reform. Social innovation can be
viewed, therefore, as partly a response to patterns of modernity that have
marginalised certain populations and that see the individual citizen as
essentially an economic/consuming actor, not as an active participant in
collective decision-making. From this perspective social innovation is a
sense-making process that, first, frames key issues and then proposes alter-
native worldviews (functioning much like the classic social movement:
see Davis et al., 2005). This reading of the drivers of social innovation
emphasises addressing sub-optimal configurations of social relations via
new models of empowerment, engagement or political mobilisation.
