The Theories Which Inform Social Innovation

Vienna.
The final plenary session at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 for today begins with Geoff Mulgan, whose brief is to outline a range of social innovation theories. He begins by posing a question: how do we know whether such theories are right or wrong? How can we test them – especially perhaps in such an emerging, novel field? Social innovation seeks to address certain problem areas – poverty, climate change, social exclusions, … –, and so by its nature is a sprawling field; the questions we must always come back to are what do we need to know, and how do we need to act?

There are plenty of pressures for innovation and productivity in public sectors, and civic society continues to evolve, leading to shifts in what public institutions are expected to do; funding for innovation, to date, tends to be spent on technology innovation rather than on service or social innovation, however.

Geoff’s work has been to map the meanings used by the field and its patterns of practice, rather than to start from a specific disciplinary perspective – this shows the various competing groups attempting to define it, from policymakers through NGOs and industry to researchers and other stakeholders. In his work, he has adopted a definition of social innovation as ‘innovations which are social in both their means and ends’; such simple definitions are needed in order for the field to progress.

So, practice rather than theory is a starting point, then; this examines prompts for innovation (problems, opportunities, new knowledge, new policy, etc.) and the processes which emerge from them, ideally through to genuine systemic change. Some of this has been gathered on the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) Website, too.

Various policies now drive such work: through funding, incubation, commissioning, legal frameworks, and co-production, for example. Social innovation parks, exchanges, camps, funds, incubators, intermediaries, offices, and other support structures have now emerged as well; the Social Innovation Europe platform, for example, is also a platform for policy.

But what about the theories, and their uses? The first of these is plasticity, which turns social innovation into a political project by working against the present, critiquing the social sciences, and advocating constant experiment as a political strategy and social ethos. This sees social change and social innovation as organic and driven by trial and error. But how can the public be persuaded to embrace such experimentation?

A second is the theory of social change, which focusses on social movements, the relationship between structural change, studies micro projects, and connects the personal to the formal and political. But how useful are they – how can they be utilised?

Third, evolutionary theory, which focusses on the dynamics of mutation, creativity, selection, replication, and growth as innovative processes. Out of evolutionary theories emerges a diagnostic frame that can be applied to almost any field – but how universal are these patterns?

Fourth, Hegel and Nonaka both point to a dialectics of synthesis, antithesis, and synthesis; an inversion of power and recreation. This is about dynamics of externalisation and internalisation, of social innovations and knowledge about social innovations, and may be especially useful in organisations. How can we apply these insights at the level of societies rather than organisations, however?

Fifth, entrepreneurial innovation: this theory holds that entrepreneurs break with established habits, and therefore may be exceptionally rare, but is this true? What do we know about the relative contributions of entrepreneurs, their networks, and their teams?

Sixth, complexity theory, which studies elements of the system including feedback, attractors, emergence, the edge of chaos, and the complexity generated by simple elements; this is also about how different fields will use or interpret social innovation. Again, how useful is this?

Seventh, innovation studies: this covers disruptive innovation, failure on the way to success, and open innovation, for example. It posits that deep craft may be the key to innovation, and re-domaining a source of radical change. What of this fits with social innovation, what doesn’t, and why?

Eighth, techno-economic paradigms: these theories attempt to examine why particular innovations thrive at particular times, and study the interrelationships of technological change, social and institutional innovation, and the financial crisis. Can we develop datasets which show these patterns, can we prove or disprove these theories?

Ninth, the purposes and measures of success for innovation. Well-being is now being positioned as a common goal, pointing to capabilities, empowerment, and other metrics for distinguishing the good and bad, providing a test for projects, enterprises, policies, and societal programmes. Do these really bridge the divide between the normative and the positive?

Finally, theories on the nature of knowledge itself: this suggests that ideas are tools that people devise to cope with the world in which they find themselves; that ideas are socially constructed rather than simply produced by individuals. Is this true, and if so, can it be tested? The nature of knowledge matters hugely in the context of social innovation.

Social innovations, then, tend to originate in contradictory spaces, moving from the personal to the societal. They depend on a wide range of actors,each with their different ways of working, and gaining traction when they attract vital resources. This diversity makes the work of the social innovation researcher and the social innovator so difficult. This has connections with a much wider family of evolutionary processes, which are also concerned with the formalisation and internalisation of of early ideas; they gain resonance when they achieve a fit with wider patterns of change. The fundamental goals of social innovation are worthy, but specific innovations are time-specific and liable to decay.

Social innovation as a field is truly global in its sources, then; this is a new phenomenon emerging in real time as we speak. This needs to both deepen within disciplines and develop more interdisciplinary aspects; it needs to pay attention to measurement, metrics, and decision-making tools; it needs to develop testable hypotheses and seek out surprises; it needs to better orchestrate knowledge and build up its deep craft: what do practitioners need to know? Nothing is as practical as a good theory, as Kurt Lewin has said; especially in the current environment, such theories are more important than ever.