Social Innovation - What It Is, Why It Matters & How It Can Be Accelerated PDF

skoll centre for social entrepreneurship
Working paper
social innovation
what it is, why it matters and
how it can be accelerated
Geoff Mulgan
with Simon Tucker, Rushanara Ali and Ben Sanders
social innovation: what it is, why it matters and how it can be accelerated geoff mulgan
CONTENTS
3 Acknowledgements 27-32 stages of innovation

27 Social organisations and enterprises acknowledgements ABOUT THE AUTHORS
28 Social movements This report is an updated version of a report This paper has been written by Geoff Mulgan with
3 Authors 28 Politics and government published with support from the British Council in input from Young Foundation colleagues Simon
31 Markets Beijing in 2006. We are grateful to the very many Tucker, Rushanara Ali and Ben Sanders.
31 Academia individuals and organisations who have shared their
4-6 Summary 31 Philanthropy thoughts and experiences on earlier drafts, including The Young Foundation
32 Social software and open source methods in our conferences in China in October 2006, as 17-18 Victoria Park Square
well as discussion groups that were held in: London, Bethnal Green
7 Social innovation: an introduction Edinburgh, Oxford, Dublin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, London E2 9PF
7 The growing importance of social innovation 33-35 Common patterns of success and failure Chongqing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, +44 (0) 20 8980 6263
7 The Young Foundation: a centre of past 34 Handling innovation in public contexts Melbourne, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Amsterdam youngfoundation.org
and future social innovation 34 A connected difference theory of and Bangalore. We are also particularly grateful to
social innovation the many organisations around the world who are Printed by The Basingstoke Press
contributing their ideas and practical experience ISBN 1-905551-03-7 / 978-1-905551-03-3
8-12 What social innovation is to the creation of the Social Innovation Exchange First published in 2007
8 Defining social innovation 36-39 What next: an agenda for action (socialinnovationexchange.org). This third edition The Young Foundation
9 Fields for social innovation 37 Leadership and structures suited represents a work in progress and we are grateful
9 A short history of social innovation to innovation to the team at Sad Business School in Oxford for
12 Social and economic change: the shape 37 Finance focused on innovation earlier inputs and for enabling us to share it with
of the economy to come 37 Public policy frameworks that the participants in their world forum on social
encourage innovation entrepreneurship. Any errors or misunderstandings
38 Dedicated social innovation accelerators are our own.
13-19 Who does social innovation: individuals, 39 National and cross-national pools
movements and organisations 39 Research and faster learning
17 The wider context: understanding
social change
40 A global network for action and research
20 How social innovation happens: the uneasy

symbiosis of bees and trees 41-46 Annex 1: Why we need to know more about
social innovation
41 Whats known about innovation in
21-25 Stages of Innovation business and science
21 Generating ideas by understanding 44 Business innovation and social innovation:
needs and identifying potential solutions similarities and differences
23 Developing, prototyping and piloting ideas 44 Existing research on social innovation
23 Assessing then scaling up and diffusing and related fields
the good ones 45 Why what we dont know matters
25 Learning and evolving
26 Linear and less linear patterns 47 Annex 2: 10 world-changing social innovations
48 Annex 3: Suggested Further Reading
50 References
Skoll centre for social entrepreneurship SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
summary (for example, open source software or organic food),

movements (for example, fair trade), and academia
electricity or the internet, depended as much on social
innovation as they did on innovation in technology or
1
Helpman, E (2004), The Mystery
of Economic Growth, Cambridge,
(for example, pedagogical models of childcare), business. Today there are signs that social innovation MA. Following on from Solows
as well as by social enterprises (microcredit and is becoming even more important for economic growth. work Elhanan Helpman estimated
magazines for the homeless). Many of the most This is partly because some of the barriers to lasting that differences in knowledge and
successful innovators have learned to operate across growth (such as climate change, or ageing populations) technology explain more than 60%
the boundaries between these sectors and innovation can only be overcome with the help of social of the differences among countries
thrives best when there are effective alliances innovation, and partly because of rising demands for in income and growth rates.
between small organisations and entrepreneurs (the types of economic growth that enhance rather than
bees who are mobile, fast, and cross-pollinate) and damage human relationships and well being. The key
big organisations (the trees with roots, resilience growth sectors of the 21st century economy look set
and size) which can grow ideas to scale. Innovations to be health, education and care, accounting between
then scale up along a continuum from diffusion them for around 20-30% of GDP, and more in some
of ideas to organic growth of organisations, with countries. These are all mixed economies, strongly
the patterns of growth dependent on the mix of shaped by public policy, and requiring models of
environmental conditions (including effective innovation very different to those that worked well for
demand to pay for the innovation) and capacities cars, microprocessors or biotechnology.
(managerial, financial etc.).
7. Surprisingly little is known about social
4. We describe a connected difference theory innovation compared to the vast amount of
of social innovation which emphasises three key research into innovation in business and science.
dimensions of most important social innovations: In an extensive survey we found no systematic
overviews of the field, no major datasets or long-
n they are usually new combinations or hybrids of term analyses, and few signs of interest from the
existing elements, rather than being wholly new big foundations or academic research funding
in themselves bodies. Some of the insights gained into business
innovation are relevant in the social field, but there
n putting them into practice involves cutting across are also important differences (and so far none of
organisational, sectoral or disciplinary boundaries the big names in business theory have engaged
1. The results of social innovation new ideas environmentalism), or from market dynamics seriously with the field). Some of the small
that meet unmet needs are all around us. They and organisational incentives. Here we look at n they leave behind compelling new social literature on public innovation is also relevant
include fair trade and restorative justice, hospices how innovations have progressed through a series relationships between previously separate individuals but less good at understanding how ideas move
and kindergartens, distance learning and traffic of stages: from the generation of ideas through and groups which matter greatly to the people across sectoral boundaries. We argue that the
calming. Many social innovations were successfully prototyping and piloting, to scaling up and learning. involved, contribute to the diffusion and embedding lack of knowledge impedes the many institutions
promoted by the Young Foundation in its previous We look at how in some sectors key stages are of the innovation, and fuel a cumulative dynamic interested in this field, including innovators
incarnations under Michael Young (including some missing or inadequately supported. We look at the whereby each innovation opens up the possibility of themselves, philanthropists, foundations and
60 organisations such as the Open University, role of technology and how inefficient existing further innovations governments, and means that far too many rely on
Which?, Healthline and International Alert). Over the systems are at reaping the full social potential of anecdotes and hunches.
last two centuries, innumerable social innovations, maturing technologies. We also show that in some 5. This approach highlights the critical role played
from cognitive behavioural therapy for prisoners cases innovation starts by doing things and then by the connectors in any innovation system the 8. Although social innovation happens all around
to Wikipedia, have moved from the margins to the adapting and adjusting in the light of experience. brokers, entrepreneurs and institutions that link us, many promising ideas are stillborn, blocked
mainstream. As this has happened, many have Users have always played a decisive role in social together people, ideas, money and power who by vested interests or otherwise marginalised. The
passed through the three stages that Schopenhauer innovation a role which is increasingly recognised contribute as much to lasting change as thinkers, competitive pressures that drive innovation in
identified for any new truth: First, it is ridiculed. in business too. In all cases, innovation usually creators, designers, activists and community groups. commercial markets are blunted or absent in the
Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted involves some struggle against vested interests; social field and the absence of institutions and funds
as being self-evident. the contagious courage that persuades others to 6. Economists estimate that 50-80% of economic devoted to social innovation means that too often it
change; and the pragmatic persistence that turns growth comes from innovation and new knowledge.1 is a matter of luck whether ideas come to fruition,
2. These processes of change are sometimes promising ideas into real institutions. Although there are no reliable metrics, innovation or displace less effective alternatives. As a result,
understood as resulting from the work of heroic appears to play an equally decisive role in social many social problems remain more acute than they
individuals (such as Robert Owen or Muhammad 3. Social innovation is not unique to the non-profit progress. Moreover, social innovation plays a decisive need to be. We advocate a much more concerted
Yunus); sometimes as resulting from much broader sector. It can be driven by politics and government role in economic growth. Past advances in healthcare approach to social innovation, and have coined the
movements of change (such as feminism and (for example, new models of public health), markets and the spread of new technologies like the car, phrase Social Silicon Valleys to describe the future
SOCIAL INNOVATION
places and institutions that will mobilise resources national pools to develop and test new approaches to
and energies to tackle social problems in ways that issues like prison reform or childcare.
are comparable to the investments in technology
made in the first silicon valley and its equivalents n New institutions focused on adapting new
around the world. This is likely to require major technologies for their social potential such as an introduction
changes amongst governments, foundations, civic artificial intelligence, grid computing or Global
organisations and businesses, and strategies that Positioning Systems.
prioritise creative connections, and institutions that
can cut across boundaries. n New ways of cultivating the innovators themselves
drawing on experiences from organisations like the The growing importance of money are spent by business on innovation to meet 2
Rare exceptions include Pinter,
9. We show that although much innovation is bound School for Social Entrepreneurs. social innovation both real and imagined consumer demands. Almost F (1985), Stimulating Innovation:
to be messy and unpredictable it is likely to be The results of social innovation are all around us. as much is spent by governments much of it to A Systems Approach, Tudor
greatly helped by: 10. Very diverse fields are becoming interested in Self-help health groups and self-build housing; devise new methods of killing people. But far less Rickards; Gerhuny, J (1983), Social
social innovation. They include the fields of: telephone help lines and telethon fundraising; is spent by governments or NGOs or foundations to Innovation and the Division of
n Leaders who visibly encourage and reward successful neighbourhood nurseries and neighbourhood wardens; more systematically develop innovative solutions Labour, OUP; Njihoff, M (1984),
innovation, and who can straddle different fields. n Social entrepreneurship Wikipedia and the Open University; complementary to common needs. And not one country has a The Political Economy of Innovation,
medicine, holistic health and hospices; microcredit serious strategy for social innovation that is remotely The Hague, Kingston
n Finance focused specifically on innovation, n Design and consumer cooperatives; charity shops and the comparable to the strategies for innovation in
including public and philanthropic investment in fair trade movement; zero carbon housing schemes business and technology, although some, for example 3
For example his book: Young, M
high risk R&D, targeted at the areas of greatest need n Technology and community wind farms; restorative justice in Scandinavia, are rapidly coming to recognise that (1983), The Social Scientist as
and greatest potential, and organised to support the and community courts. All are examples of social future growth and well-being depend as much on Innovator, Cambridge, Mass.
key stages of innovation. n Public policy innovation new ideas that work to meet pressing social innovation as they do on a continuing stream
unmet needs and improve peoples lives. of new technologies.
n More open markets for social solutions, including n Cities and urban development This report is about how we can improve societies
public funding and services directed more to capacities to solve their problems. It is about old The Young Foundation: a centre of past
outcomes and opened up to social enterprises and n Social movements and new methods for mobilising the ubiquitous and future social innovation
user groups as well as private business. intelligence that exists within any society. We see the At the Young Foundation we have particular
n Community Development development of social innovation as an urgent task reasons for being interested in this field. For over
n Incubators for promising models, along the lines one of the most urgent there is. There is a wide, 50 years the Young Foundations precursors were
of the Young Foundations Launchpad programme All bring distinctive methods and insights. But and probably growing, gap between the scale of the amongst the worlds most important centres both
and the NESTA-Young Foundation Health Innovation all also have a great deal to learn from each problems we face and the scale of the solutions on for understanding social enterprise and innovation
Accelerator, to advance innovation in particular other, and from more extensive and rigorous offer. New methods for advancing social innovation and doing it. They helped create dozens of new
priority areas such as chronic disease, the cultivation research on how social innovation happens. We are relevant in every sector but they are likely to offer institutions (such as the Open University and its
of non-cognitive social skills or reducing re-offending. describe the emerging network of networks most in fields where problems are intensifying (from parallels around the world, Which?, the School for
(SIX socialinnovationexchange.org) that is diversity and conflict, to climate change and mental Social Entrepreneurs and the Economic and Social
n Explicit methodologies for R&D in the public sector bringing together like-minded organisations and illness), in fields where existing models are failing Research Council) and pioneered new social models
including new ways of forming partnerships for networks from all of these fields to share ideas or stagnant (from traditional electoral democracy to (such as phone based health diagnosis, extended
innovation between local and national governments. and experiences with the aim of speeding up our criminal justice), and in fields where new possibilities schooling and patient led health care). Harvards
common ability to treat, and even solve, some of the (such as mobile technologies and open source Daniel Bell (one of the USAs most influential social
n Ways of empowering users to drive innovation pressing social challenges of our times. methods) are not being adequately exploited. scientists in the second half of the last century)
themselves with tools, incentives, recognition and There is no shortage of good writing on judged Michael Young to be the worlds most
access to funding for ideas that work. innovation in business and technology, from such successful entrepreneur of social enterprises, and
figures as Everett Rogers, Christopher Freeman, in his work and his writings he anticipated todays
n Institutions to help orchestrate more systemic Rosabeth Moss Kanter, William Baumol, Eric Von interest in social enterprise and the broader question
change in fields like climate change or welfare Hippel, Bart Nooteboom, Clay Christianson and of how societies innovate.3
linking small scale social enterprises and projects John Kao. Yet there is a remarkable dearth of serious This tradition of practical social innovation is
to big institutions, laws and regulations (for analysis of how social innovation is done and how now being energetically revived from our base in east
example, shifting a citys transport system over to it can be supported, and in a survey of the field we London. We work with cities, governments, companies
plug-ins or hybrids). have found little serious research, no widely shared and NGOs to accelerate their capacity to innovate,
concepts, thorough histories, comparative research or and we help to design and launch new organisations
n New approaches to innovation for individual quantitative analysis.2 and models which can better meet peoples needs for
nations, cities and regions that cut across public, This neglect is mirrored by the lack of practical care, jobs and homes, including radical new models
private and non-profit boundaries, including cross- attention paid to social innovation. Vast amounts of of schooling, health care and criminal justice.
What social Our approach overlaps with, but differs, from

some of the other current meanings of social
Rising incidence of long-term conditions such as
arthritis, depression, diabetes, cancers and heart
5
For example the work of Timo
Hamalainen and Risto Heiskala,
innovation is
innovation. Some use the term primarily to refer diseases (which are now chronic as well as acute) Sosiaaliset innovaatiot ja
to processes of innovation that are social in nature which demand novel social solutions as well as new yhteiskunnan uudistumiskyky
such as the use of open source methods, networks models of medical support. (2004), Sitra 271, Helsinki
and collaboratives. There is a good deal of interesting
work underway in this field, but it generally ignores Behavioural problems of affluence including
the question of purpose (i.e. it covers innovations obesity, bad diets and inactivity as well as addictions
whose only use is better logistics management for to alcohol, drugs and gambling.
selling baked beans or insurance). Others use the
term to refer to the social dimension of much broader Difficult transitions to adulthood which require
processes of economic change.5 Here we focus new ways to help teenagers successfully navigate
instead on replicable models and programmes. their way into more stable careers, relationships
and lifestyles.
Fields for social innovation
A contented and stable world might have little need Happiness the mismatch between growing GDP
for innovation. Innovation becomes an imperative and stagnant well being and declining real welfare
when problems are getting worse, when systems according to some measures requires new ways of
are not working or when institutions reflect past thinking about public policy and civic action.
rather than present problems. As the great Victorian
historian Lord Macauley wrote: There is constant In each of these fields many of the dominant
improvement precisely because there is constant existing models simply do not work well enough.
discontent. The other driver of innovation is Often they are too inflexible and unimaginative.
awareness of a gap between what there is and what They may be fitted to past problems or bound
there ought to be, between what people need and by powerful interests. They may be provided
what they are offered by governments, private firms by agencies that have become complacent or
and NGOs a gap which is constantly widened by the outdated. The result is unnecessary human
emergence of new technologies and new scientific suffering, and unrealised potential.
knowledge. These are some of the fields where we see
4
There is of course a large literature Defining social innovation organisations that are primarily motivated by profit particularly severe innovation deficits, but also great A short history of social innovation
on the meaning of the word social Innovation is often given complex definitions. We maximisation. There are of course many borderline opportunities for new creative solutions: Much of what we take for granted in social policy
and its limitations which we dont prefer the simple one: new ideas that work. This cases, for example models of distance learning that and service delivery began as radical innovation:
pursue here (see for example the differentiates innovation from improvement, which were pioneered in social organisations but then Rising life expectancy which requires new ways of promising ideas and unproven possibilities. The
recent work of Bruno Latour). implies only incremental change; and from creativity adopted by businesses, or for profit businesses organising pensions, care and mutual support, new idea of a national health service freely available to
and invention, which are vital to innovation but miss innovating new approaches to helping disabled models of housing and urban design (for 4 and 5 all was at first seen as absurdly utopian and has still
out the hard work of implementation and diffusion people into work. But these definitions provide generation families and continually changing housing not been achieved in many big countries, including
that makes promising ideas useful. Social innovation a reasonable starting point (and overly precise needs), and new methods for countering isolation. the USA and China. It was once thought strange
refers to new ideas that work in meeting social goals. definitions tend to limit understanding rather than Climate change which demands new thinking on to imagine that ordinary people could be trusted
Defined in this way the term has, potentially, very helping it). how to reorder cities, transport systems, energy and to drive cars at high speed. Much of what we now
wide boundaries from gay partnerships to new Our interest here is primarily with innovations housing to dramatically reduce carbon emissions. consider common sense was greeted by powerful
ways of using mobile phone texting, and from new that take the form of replicable programmes or Technology has a decisive role to play but so will interest groups with hostility. As Schopenhauer
lifestyles to new products and services. We have also organisations. A good example of a socially innovative social innovations which help to change behaviour. observed: every truth passes through three stages.
suggested a somewhat narrower definition: activity in this sense is the spread of cognitive First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed.
behavioural therapy, proposed in the 1960s by Aaron Growing diversity of countries and cities which Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
innovative activities and services that are motivated Beck, tested empirically in the 1970s, and then demands innovative ways of organising schooling, Over the last two centuries innumerable social
by the goal of meeting a social need and that are spread through professional and policy networks in language training and housing to prevent segregation innovations have moved from the margins to the
predominantly developed and diffused through the subsequent decades. A good example of socially and conflict. mainstream. They include the invention and spread
organisations whose primary purposes are social.4 innovative new organisations is the Big Issue, and its of trade unions and cooperatives, which drew on
international successor network of magazines sold by Stark inequalities which have widened in many earlier models of guilds but radically reshaped them
This differentiates social innovation from homeless people, as well as its more recent spin-offs, societies, including the US, UK, China and tend to for the grim factories of 19th century industry; the
business innovations which are generally motivated like the Homeless World Cup competition in which be associated with many other social ills, ranging spread of collective insurance against sickness and
by profit maximisation and diffused through teams of homeless people compete. from violence to mental illness. poverty, from self-organised communities to states;
10 social innovation: what it is, why it matters and how it can be accelerated geoff mulgan 11
the spread of new models of the university in the parochial, paternalistic and inefficient to meet social Services: Employment Contribution to total employment
19th century, which drew on the traditional examples needs on any scale.
of al-Azhar, Paris and Oxford, but redefined them to Social innovation has never been restricted to Wholesale and retail Transport, storage Finance and insurance Real estate, renting Public administration Education, health, social
meet the needs of modern industrial societies; the what we would now call social policy. Robert Owen trade, restaurant and communication and business services and defence work and other services
and hotels
spread of the kindergarten, building on Friedrich in 19th century Scotland attempted to create an
2003 1993 2003 1993 2003 1993 2003 1993 2003 1993 2003 1993
Froebels ideas that were embodied in the first entirely new economy and society (in embryo) from
kindergarten in 1837; and the spread of sports his base in Lanarkshire. More recently successful Australia 24.7 25.2 6.4 6.3 3.6 4.1 12.1 8.4 5.8 6.7 22.4 20.7 Australia
clubs alongside the global enthusiasm for sports like innovations have grown up in many fields. For Austria 19.6 19.3 6.4 6.4 2.8 3.0 10.8 6.3 6.1 6.5 18.6 16.4 Austria
football and cricket. example, Rabobank, a cooperative bank, has one of Belgium 18.1 19.2 6.5 6.5 3.4 3.6 14.1 11.1 10.3 10.2 24.4 22.2 Belgium
During some periods civil society provided the the worlds highest credit ratings. The Mondragon Canada 25.5 24.7 6.1 6.3 5.3 5.3 11.0 8.1 4.8 5.8 22.8 23.7 Canada
impetus for social innovation. The great wave of network of cooperatives in Spain now employs some Czech Republic 18.3 18.2 7.2 7.1 1.6 1.5 9.8 7.7 6.4 5.6 14.2 14.0 Czech Republic
industrialisation and urbanisation in the 19th century 80,000 people, and has grown by 10,000 each Denmark 19.2 17.6 6.5 7.0 2.7 2.9 10.2 7.7 7.2 8.1 28.4 27.0 Denmark
was accompanied by an extraordinary upsurge decade since 1980. It now operates with some Finland 16.0 15.2 7.2 7.7 1.7 2.6 10.2 6.8 7.3 7.7 26.4 24.6 Finland
of social enterprise and innovation: mutual self- 50 plants outside Spain making it probably the France 16.6 16.5 6.4 6.1 3.1 3.3 14.8 11.5 8.9 9.9 25.3 22.9 France
help, microcredit, building societies, cooperatives, worlds most successful social enterprise. Social Germany 20.0 18.8 5.4 6.2 3.3 3.4 12.4 7.5 6.9 8.1 22.4 18.6 Germany
trade unions, reading clubs and philanthropic innovation can be found in utilities too: in the UK Greece 22.0 20.3 6.8 6.9 2.4 2.2 6.5 4.8 7.1 7.1 16.1 14.6 Greece
business leaders creating model towns and model one of the most successful privatised utilities is Hungary 17.7 15.4 7.7 8.9 1.9 1.9 6.8 3.6 7.5 6.5 19.7 20.1 Hungary
schools. In 19th and early 20th century Britain the one that chose to become a mutual Welsh Iceland 16.6 18.0 6.2 6.6 3.9 3.8 9.1 5.4 5.2 5.3 30.1 26.6 Iceland
civil society pioneered the most influential new Water/Glas Cymru. In many countries significant Ireland 20.5 19.4 6.2 5.1 4.2 3.8 8.5 6.0 5.1 5.6 21.4 21.2 Ireland
models of childcare (Barnardos), housing (Peabody), shares of agriculture, retailing, and finance are Italy 20.5 19.6 4.5 4.9 2.7 2.8 11.0 7.4 5.6 6.6 22.2 20.8 Italy
community development (the Edwardian settlements) organised through co-ops and mutuals that combine Japan 18.0 17.4 6.0 5.7 3.0 3.2 7.5 6.9 3.2 3.3 27.8 23.4 Japan
and social care (Rowntree). economic and social goals. There has also been Korea 26.5 25.4 6.0 5.3 3.4 3.4 7.8 3.8 3.4 3.2 16.4 11.4 Korea
During some periods the lead was taken by social innovation in the media: from trade union Luxembourg 18.6 20.9 8.4 7.2 11.4 9.7 16.5 8.9 5.2 5.4 17.1 16.4 Luxembourg
social movements. The first of these was the anti- newspapers in the 19th century through community Mexico 19.3 18.3 6.0 5.5 0.5 0.9 3.5 3.0 4.6 5.2 21.6 21.0 Mexico
slavery movement in late 18th century Britain radio and television networks to new media forms Netherlands 20.2 20.0 5.6 5.8 3.5 3.5 15.3 11.5 6.2 7.0 26.8 25.1 Netherlands
which pioneered almost all the methods used by like Ohmynews in South Korea. Ohmynews employs New Zealand 26.8 25.9 6.2 6.2 3.0 4.0 12.0 8.8 3.2 4.8 25.6 23.7 New Zealand
campaigns: mass membership, demonstrations, over 30,000 citizen reporters and combines a higher Norway 17.5 17.2 8.3 9.4 2.1 2.7 10.2 6.3 6.6 8.5 32.1 29.3 Norway
petitions, consumer boycotts, logos and slogans young readership than the newspapers with real Poland 16.2 14.2 5.2 6.1 2.0 1.5 6.3 3.5 3.7 2.4 14.4 14.9 Poland
(including, famously, the slogan: Am I not a man evidence of political influence. Portugal 20.8 19.3 3.1 3.5 2.1 2.6 7.1 5.7 8.0 8.0 19.2 17.2 Portugal
and a brother?). The 1960s and 1970s saw Religion, too, has played a role in generating, Slovak Republic 20.4 13.5 7.3 7.7 1.7 1.4 6.7 5.4 6.9 6.4 18.5 19.6 Slovak Republic
particularly vigorous social movements around sustaining and scaling social innovation, from Spain 21.5 20.9 6.0 5.9 2.1 2.7 8.0 5.7 8.0 8.8 19.7 19.0 Spain
ecology, feminism and civil rights which spawned Florence Nightingale, who was supported by nurses Sweden 15.2 15.5 6.8 7.0 2.2 2.0 11.8 8.1 6.1 8.1 32.3 32.2 Sweden
innovations in governments and commercial markets from the Irish Sisters of Mercy, to the black faith- Switzerland 21.3 - 6.6 - 6.0 - 10.2 - 9.3 - 13.4 - Switzerland
as well as in NGOs. Another wave of civic innovation inspired pioneer, Mary Seacole, who set up new Turkey 19.2 13.0 5.0 5.0 1.1 - 2.5 - 5.7 - 9.4 - Turkey
in movements is under way as the power of the medical facilities during the Crimean war, to the United Kingdom 24.2 23.0 6.1 5.9 4.3 4.5 15.1 12.2 5.6 6.4 23.8 23.8 United Kingdom
internet and global media is harnessed to causes like Victorian settlements which paved the way for so United States 21.2 22.7 5.5. 5.2 4.9 4.7 12.0 9.9 6.1 8.3 27.5 24.6 United States
world poverty and the environment. much 20th century social change. In South Africa
At other times governments have taken the lead the anti-apartheid movement depended greatly
in social innovation, for example in the years after on faith, while in the US black churches were
1945 when democratic governments built welfare instrumental in the civil rights movement and
states, schooling systems and institutions as various innovations in micro-banking. Recent years have
as credit banks for farmers and networks of adult also seen the emergence of new waves of engaged
education colleges. This was a period when many Muslim NGOs such as Islamic Relief.
came to see civic and charitable organisations as too Looking back it is hard to find any field in which
6
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk;
www.bbc.co.uk/history. Chadwicks
social innovation has not played an important role.
Even the spread of the car depended not just on
Social and economic change: the shape
of the economy to come Who does social
innovation
wider role in British society was, the technology of the internal combustion engine Economies in both developed and to a lesser extent
unfortunately, far less progressive. and modern production lines, but also on a host of developing countries are increasingly dominated by
associated social innovations: driving schools, road services rather than manufacturing. Over the next
7
OECD in Figures, 2005 Edition markings and protocols, garages, traffic wardens 20 years the biggest growth in OECD countries is
STATISTICS ON THE MEMBER and speeding tickets, and more recently, congestion likely to come in health, education and care, whose individuals, movements and organisations
COUNTRIES charging systems. shares of GDP are already much greater than cars
Improvements in healthcare depended on or telecoms, steel or biotech. These are all fields in
innovations in medicine (including antibiotics) and which commercial, voluntary and public organisations
surgery (from sterilisation to keyhole surgery) but deliver services, in which public policy plays a
also on a host of other innovations including: public key role and in which consumers co-create value
health systems to provide clean water and sewers; alongside producers no teacher can force a student
changing home habits to promote cleanliness in to learn if they do not want to. For all of these reasons
kitchens and new methods of measurement a traditional business models of innovation are of only
primary interest of Florence Nightingale who was limited use. Much of the most important innovation
as innovative a statistician as she was a nurse. of the next few decades is set to follow the patterns
Health improvement also depended on new of social innovation rather than the patterns familiar
organisational forms such as primary care practices from sectors like IT or insurance.
and barefoot health services; new business forms The table below from the OECD7 shows that
in pharmaceuticals to enable long-term investment the contribution to total employment of education,
in research (for example, Du Pont); state regulation health, social work and other services sector has
of food to promote safety, and more recently to cut risen in nearly every member country. In the same
sugar and salt contents and provision of meals to ten year period total expenditure on healthcare rose
children in schools; national health services funded as a percentage of GDP in all but three member
by taxpayers; self help groups, and civil organisations countries. Yet much of the writing on R&D and
for diseases such as Alzheimers; volunteers, trained innovation and most government policies lag
for example to use defibrillators; and new models behind these changes and remain much more
of care such as the hospices pioneered by Cicely focused on hardware and objects rather than
Saunders. Modern healths heroes are not just the services. In health, for example, many governments There are many lenses through which to understand cajoling the lazy and timid majority into change. 8
www.robert-owen.com
pioneers of new drugs and surgical procedures. They (including the UK) provide very generous subsidies social innovation. For much of the last century it Robert Owen, Octavia Hill and Michael Young are www.newlanark.org
also include social innovators like Edwin Chadwick,6 for R&D into pharmaceuticals despite their relatively was understood within much broader frameworks three people who embody this view of history.
whose report The Sanitary Conditions of the poor record in delivering health gain, but very little of thinking about social change, industrialisation The most important social innovator from the
Labouring Population, published in 1842 when the for innovation in models of health service delivery. and modernity. Small innovations were seen as 18th century was arguably Robert Owen, born in
average life expectancy for factory workers in the new reflections of big dynamics. In the contrary approach 1771 at the dawn of the industrial revolution.8 By
industrial towns and cities like Bolton in north-west advocated by Karl Popper and others, social the turn of the century he had bought four textile
England was only 17 years, successfully persuaded innovation was the incremental and experimental factories in New Lanark and was determined to
government to provide clean water, sewers, street alternative to the errors of utopian blueprints and use them not just to make money but to remake
cleaning and refuse. violent revolution (our reflections on theories of the world. Arguing that people were naturally good
Health is typical in this respect. Science and change and their relevance to social innovation are but corrupted by harsh conditions, under Owens
technology have played a profoundly important role contained in this endnote A, p50). management the cotton mills and village of New
in helping people live longer and healthier lives, Today most discussion of social innovation Lanark became a model community. When Owen
but simplistic accounts in which progress is directly tends to adopt one of three main lenses for arrived at New Lanark children from as young as five
caused by technology invariably fall apart on closer understanding how change happens: individuals, were working for 13 hours a day in the textile mills.
inspection. Instead most of what we now count movements or organisations. He stopped employing children under ten and sent
as progress has come about through the mutual young children to newly built nursery and infant
reinforcement of social, economic, technological and Individuals always taking no schools, while older children combined work and
political innovations. as a question secondary school. In addition to schools New Lanark
In the first social change is portrayed as having been set up a crche for working mothers, free medical
driven by a very small number of heroic, energetic care, and comprehensive education, including
and impatient individuals. History is told as the evening classes. There were concerts, dancing,
story of how they remade the world, persuading and music-making and pleasant landscaped areas. His
9
The Octavia Hill ideas inspired emulators all over the world, and New empowerment in private markets and public services: France were copied in some 35 countries. There are of organic food, household composting, municipal 11
Bornstein, D (2004) How
Birthplace Museum Lanark remains a popular tourist attraction. He had NHS Direct, the spread of after-school clubs and also many less well-known but impressive figures, government (for example the hundreds of US Mayors to change the world: social
www.octaviahillmuseum.org an enormous influence on the new cooperative and neighbourhood councils can all be traced to Youngs some of whom are described in David Bornsteins who committed themselves to Kyoto in the early entrepreneurs and the power
mutualist movements as well as paving the way for work. However, for our purposes, his most important book on How to Change the World.11 These accounts 2000s), and civil society (through mass campaigns of new ideas, Oxford University
10
For a good overview of his work modern management theories. skill lay in creating new organisations and models: in include the stories of Jeroo Billimoria, founder of like Friends of the Earth). Press, Oxford
see Dench, G, Flower, T and Gavron, The 19th century produced many more social total some 60 independent organisations including the India-wide Childline, a 24-hour helpline and Feminism too grew out of many different
K (2005) Young at Eighty: the innovators. A good example is Octavia Hill, who the Open University, the Consumers Association, emergency response system for children in distress12; currents.15 In the West it had its roots in the 12
Childline was founded in Bombay
prolific public life of Michael Young, was born in 1838.9 Her father had been a follower Language Line, Education Extra and the Open Vera Cordeiro, founder of Associacao Saude Crianca humanism of the 18th century and the Industrial in 1996; by 2002 the organisation
Carcanet Press, Manchester. For a of Robert Owen and as a child she was exposed to College of the Arts. Some of these drew on formal Rensacer in Brazil13; Taddy Blecher, founder Revolution, and in the French Revolutions Womens was working in thirty cities. A full
full biography see Briggs, A (2001) an extraordinary range of contemporary progressive academic research; others simply drew on hunches. of the Community and Individual Development Republican Club. It evolved as a movement that was account is available in Bornstein, D
Michael Young: Social Entrepreneur, thinkers, including Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith, Others still drew on informal conversations held on Association (CIDA) City Campus, the first private simultaneously intellectual and cultural (pushed (2004) op cit.
Palgrave Macmillan, London father of sanitary reform, F. D. Maurice, the leader buses or street corners which illuminated peoples higher education institution in South Africa to forward by pioneers like Emmeline Pankhurst,
of the Christian Socialists, and John Ruskin. In unmet needs.10 offer a virtually free business degree to students Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer), political 13
Renascer provides care to poor
1864, Ruskin bought three buildings in Paradise Although many of these ideas look obvious in from disadvantaged backgrounds14, and Karen Tse, (New Zealand was the first country to give all adult children after they are discharged
Place, a notorious slum, and gave them to Octavia retrospect they were generally met with hostility, founder of International Bridges to Justice. Their women the vote and along with Scandinavia has from hospital. By 2002, Renascer
Hill to manage. The aim was to make lives noble, and one of Michael Youngs characteristics (shared individual stories are always inspiring, energising, consistently been ahead of the US, Germany, France had assisted 6,000 children and
homes happy, and family life good and her with many pioneers in social innovation) was, in and impressive. They show just how much persistent, and the UK) and economic (helped by womens successor organisations a further
determination, personality, and skill transformed the words of one of his collaborators, Tony Flower: dedicated people can achieve against the odds and growing power in the labour market). Many of its 10,000 people. Now the challenge
the poverty-stricken areas into tolerably harmonious sheer persistence, a kind of benign ruthlessness, they serve as reminders of the courage that always ideas were crystallised through legislation: Norways is to transform Renascer into a
communities. Communal amenities such as meeting clutching onto an idea beyond the bitter end, always accompanies radical social change. ruling Labour Partys recent proposal that big reference and training centre
halls, savings clubs, and dramatic productions taking no as a question. Many of his projects began companies should be required to have 40% of their spawning and supporting cells across
were encouraged. Her training programmes laid the very small often only one or two people working Movements for change boards made up of women is just one example. Brazil. A full account is available in
foundations of the modern profession of housing from a basement in Bethnal Green. But he was Seen through another lens, however, individuals are As in the case of environmentalism, thousands Bornstein, D (2004) op cit.
management and her first organisation, the Horace always looking for small changes that could achieve the carriers of ideas rather than originators. If we ask of social innovations grew out of the movement:
Street Trust (now Octavia Housing and Care) became leverage by demonstrating how things could work which movements had the most impact over the last from clubs and networks to promote women in 14
CIDA believes itself to be the only
the model for all subsequent housing associations. differently. And he was convinced that practical half century the role of individuals quickly fades into particular professions, to integrated childcare free, open-access, holistic, higher
In addition, Octavia Hill was the first advocate of action was often more convincing than eloquent the background. The most far-reaching movements centres, abortion rights, equitable divorce laws, educational facility in the world
a green belt for London; launched the Army Cadet books and pamphlets. of change, such as feminism or environmentalism, protections against rape and sexual harassment, which is operated and managed by
Force to socialise inner city teenagers; campaigned Another striking feature of his work was that he involved millions of people and had dozens of maternity leave and skills programmes for mothers its students, from administration
to create public parks and to decorate hospitals straddled different sectors, as did his creations. Most intellectual and organisational leaders, many of returning to the labour market. duties to facilities management.
with arts and beauty; and in 1895 created the of them became voluntary organisations. But some whom had the humility to realise that they were often Disability rights is another example of a powerful Two additional key features are
National Trust (which now has more than 3.4 million which began as voluntary organisations ended up as as much following, and channelling, changes in set of ideas whose impact is still being felt on partnerships with a great number
members), arguably the worlds first great modern public bodies (such as the Open University); some public consciousness as they were directing them. building regulation, employment practices and of businesses in the design and
heritage organisation. which had been conceived as public bodies ended Like individual change-makers these movements public policy, as well as on popular culture, where delivery of all programmes and
Michael Young (after whom the Young up as voluntary organisations (Which? for example); have their roots in ideas grown from discontent. But stereotypes that were once acceptable are shown to the requirement of every student
Foundation is named) was one of the 20th centurys and some which began as voluntary organisations their histories look very different. Environmentalism, be degrading and offensive.16 As recently as 1979 it to return to their rural schools and
outstanding social innovators. As Head of Research ended up as for-profit enterprises (like Language for example, grew from many different sources. was legal for some state governments in the USA to communities, during holidays, to
for the Labour Party in 1945, he helped shape the Line, which was recently sold for 25m). There were precursors in the 19th century, including: sterilize disabled people against their will. During the teach what they have learnt. A full
welfare state and saw the power of the government These individuals are particularly outstanding movements for protecting forests and landscapes; 1980s and 1990s the disability movement became account is available in Bornstein, D
to change peoples lives, not least through radical examples drawn from British history. All three scientifically inspired movements to protect increasingly militant: voluntary organisations serving (2004) op cit. See also
social innovations including the National Health combined an ability to communicate complex biodiversity; more politicised movements to counter disabled people went through fierce battles as the www.cida.co.za; Lucille Davie writing
Service and comprehensive welfare provision. He ideas in compelling ways with a practical ability the pollution of big companies or gain redress for their beneficiaries fought to take control over NGOs that on www.joburg.org.za; and Andrea
became concerned, however, about the risks of to make things happen. There are countless other victims; movements of direct action like Greenpeace had been established as paternalistic providers for Vinassa writing on www.workinfo.com.
government becoming too powerful and moved out examples of similar social innovators from around the (which itself drew on much older Quaker traditions); mute recipients. Thanks to their battles, legislation
to east London to approach change through a very world leaders of social innovation have included and the various Green Parties around the world which conferred new rights and obligations on employers 15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
different route. His approach involved stimulating politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals, business have always been suspicious of individual leaders. and planners; and technologists accelerated their History_of_feminism
argument and he wrote a series of bestsellers people as well as NGO activists. Some are widely Environmentalism has spawned a huge range of efforts to innovate. The Center for Independent
that changed attitudes to a host of social issues, celebrated like Muhammad Yunus, the founder social innovations, from urban recycling to community Living founded in 1972 by disability activists in 16
www.disabilityhistory.org
including urban planning (leading the movement of Grameen, Kenyan Nobel Prize winner Wangari owned wind farms. Today environmentalism is as Berkeley, California developed technologies such as http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
away from tower blocks), education (leading thinking Maathai, or Saul Alinsky the highly influential much part of big business culture as companies like telecaptioners, text telephones, voice-recognition collections/drilm
about how to radically widen access) and poverty. evangelist of community organising in the USA, or BP try to finesse the shift to more renewable energy systems, voice synthesizers and screen readers. http://americanhistory.si.edu/
He also pioneered ideas of public and consumer Abbe Pierre whose approaches to homelessness in sources, as it is of the alternative business culture In the UK, the direct payments and In Control disabilityrights
17
INSP programmes gave people with disability direct a throwback to pre-democratic times. All of these Effective leaders and the teams around them need to Sometimes innovation is presented as a 18
For the comparisons between
http://www.sdinet.org control over public budgets and services far beyond movements have also emphasised empowerment focus on four horizons for decision-making: distraction from efficiency and performance business and the social sector in
GROOTS any other public services. enabling people to solve their own problems management. The truth is that any competent making organisations great see
http://www.groots.org Growing numbers of movements are taking rather than waiting for the state, or heroic leaders, 1. Day to day management, efficiency leadership should be able to do both with time, www.jimcollins.com
Streetnet shape globally and they are increasingly to solve problems for them. and firefighting money and management effort devoted to each
http://www.streetnet.org.za cooperating across borders. Impressive grassroots of these horizons, and appropriate organisational
WIEGO movements that have done this include the Innovative organisations 2. Effective implementation and incremental structures and cultures for each task.
http://www.wiego.org International Network of Street Papers (INSP), The third lens for understanding innovation is innovation over the medium term of 1-3 years
Streetnet (a network of street vendors based in the organisation. Not all innovations come from The wider context:
South Africa), Shack/Slum Dwellers International, new organisations. Many come from existing 3. Developing more radical options including in understanding social change
GROOTS (which links together grassroots womens organisations learning to renew themselves. The very different fields that could become mainstream Every successful social innovator or movement has
organisations around the world), WIEGO (which Internet came from within the US military and the in 3-20 years succeeded because it has planted the seeds of an
campaigns for women in informal employment), and early understanding of climate change from NASA, idea in many minds. In the long run ideas are more
the Forum Network in Asia for drugs projects.17 All just as many of the most advanced ideas about how 4. Taking account of generational timescales powerful than individuals or institutions; indeed, as
have pioneered and promoted the spread of radical to look after children have evolved within existing particularly in relation to climate change and issues John Maynard Keynes wrote, the world is ruled by
social innovations. public and professional organisations in countries like pensions little else. But ideas need to take concrete form.
Interestingly all of these very different like Denmark. Even the great religious prophets only spawned
movements have adopted an ethos suspicious of Any successful organisation needs to be Innovation matters for all but one of these great religions because they were followed by great
overly individualistic pictures of change. In their simultaneously focused on existing activities, horizons but it is bound to matter most for the organisers and evangelists and military conquerors
view the idea that progress comes from the wisdom emerging ones and more radical possibilities that latter two, and for organisations that have a sense of who were able to focus their energies and create
of a few exceptional individuals is an anachronism, could be the mainstream activities of the future. their responsibilities to the future. great organisations.18 And ideas only rule the world
Functionality / net value

Product / service 3
the four horizons of effective leadership
Period of transition
Legacy / generational time Product / service 1 of favour from
C02, pensions etc. existing product
or service to
innovation
long (2-20+ days)
Radical innovation necessary and likely
Medium (1-3 years) Product / service 2 (failed)

Incremental innovation, efficiency
and performance
short (days,
weeks, months)
Fire-fighting
Time
19
This section draws on very useful when the right conditions are in place. To fully cases, to compete against yourself. up before the new theory can take over. and the innovators connect to the main sources of 24
Festinger, L (1957), A theory of
work by Hmlinen, TJ (2007), understand social innovation, we therefore need to The second barrier to change is peoples So why, despite the power of these barriers, power and money. When the conditions are right cognitive dissonance, Evanston,
Social Innovation, Structural look at the conditions which either allow change or interests. In any successful social system many does change still happen? The simple reason is that new ideas can quickly move from the margins to the Row, Peterson and Company.
Adjustment and Economic inhibit it.19 people will have high stakes in stability. The risks of in some circumstances each of the four barriers to mainstream, since many people are well-attuned to As Howard Gardner has shown
Performance in Hmlinen, TJ and There is a vast literature on how change happens, change will appear great compared to the benefits of change switches. First, efficiency: sooner or later watching what the successful do, take their cues intellectuals are particularly
Heiskala, R (eds) Social Innovations, but at its heart it emphasises two simple questions: continuity. This applies as much to peasant farmers all systems become less optimal, less successful at from recognised figures of authority and only adopt attached to ideas that give them
Institutional Change and Economic why (most of the time) do things stay the same? nervously contemplating new models of farming as to delivering the goods. As their problems accumulate new ideas when they no longer appear risky. In all status, and particularly concerned to
Performance: Making Sense of and why (some of the time) do things change?20 For managers responding to globalisation or civil servants the crisis may be felt at many levels: declining cases change is more likely when there are visible, avoid cognitive dissonance.
Structural Adjustment Processes innovators themselves the barriers to change often contemplating a new deal around performance profitability for companies; fiscal crisis or legitimacy easily identifiable winners. Conversely, as Machiavelli
in Industrial Sectors, Regions and look like personal failings on the part of the powerful: related pay. Most will have sunk investments of crisis for the state; the personal stress felt by pointed out, change is harder when the losers are 25
Gardner, H (2004) Changing
Societies, Edward Elgar Publishing, their stupidity, rigidity and lack of imagination is time and money in past practices that they are millions as they see their cherished values or norms concentrated and certain, and the winners are Minds, Harvard Business
Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, all that stands between a brilliant new idea and loath to discard or cannibalise. In stable societies the less validated by experience. Although people are diffuse and uncertain of their possible gains.26 School Press
MA, USA its execution. But the barriers to change go much most acute tensions will have been papered over or adept at explaining away uncomfortable results and When systemic change does happen for
deeper than this. settled in compromises prompting fear that change avoiding cognitive dissonance24, and although elites example the rise of welfare states fifty years ago, 26
And in both cases change may be
20
This chapter also draws in First, efficiency. People resist even the most may bring these to the surface. Simultaneously the generally try to police taboo ideas, at some point the shift to a more knowledge based economy in the so delayed that apparently new ideas
particular on the school of thought appealing reforms because in the short-run they interest groups which are the greatest beneficiaries performance is bound to decline. Then a growing last decades of the 20th century, or the shift to a risk being outdated by the time they
promoted by Christopher Freeman, threaten to worsen performance. The reason for this of the status quo will have learned how to work range of interests, particularly more marginalised low carbon economy in the early 21st century the win acceptance. Schon, D (1973)
Carlotta Perez and Luc Soete in is that within any social system different elements the system to their own ends and how to make ones, lose confidence in the system, and start to opportunities for social innovation greatly increase. Beyond the stable state, WW Norton,
a pioneering series of books and have optimised around each other over time. The themselves indispensable.21 seek alternatives. Critics become more visible: in Some ideas can be copied from other societies that New York.
articles on technological, economic details of how businesses operate; how professions The third barrier is minds. Any social system particular the young, marginal, ambitious, and angry have moved faster for example how to run web-
and social change in the 1980s are trained and rewarded, how laws are made, how comes to be solidified within peoples minds in the start to advocate radical change and to directly based exchange systems, or road charging. But more 27
Economists generally emphasise
and 1990s. families organise their time and a million other form of assumptions, values and norms. The more challenge their older colleagues who have been most often the elements of the new paradigm are not self- allocative efficiency. But other kinds
aspects of daily life have evolved in tandem. Any new the system appears to work, giving people security socialised into the status quo and find it hardest evident; they evolve rapidly through trial and error, of efficiency can be just as important
21
This is core to the argument of approach, however well designed, may appear quite and prosperity the more its norms will become to imagine how things could be different.25 Artists, and even the elements which appear to be proven for long-term growth. Dertouzos,
Mancur Olson, who argued that long inefficient compared to the subtle interdependencies entrenched as part of peoples very sense of writers and poets may come to the fore during this successes need to be adapted to local conditions. M, Lester, R and Solow, R (1990),
periods of stability would inevitably of a real social or economic system. Even public identity.22 Organisations then become locked into phase, using stories, images and metaphors to help Once a system has made a fundamental Made in America: Regaining the
lead to stagnation, The Rise and sectors which by many standards are highly routines and habits that are as much psychological people break free from the past, while others may shift new energies are often released. An productive edge, Harper Perennial,
Decline of Nations (1982), Yale inefficient will have built up their own logic like the as practical, and which become embedded in cling even harder to fixed points in their identity, emerging paradigm is likely to be rich in positive New York.
university Press, New Haven military bases in the old Soviet Union that propped organisational memories.23 responding to the cognitive fluidity of the world interdependencies. New kinds of efficiency are
up local economies, or the vast US prisons built in The fourth barrier is relationships. The personal around them by ever more ferocious assertion of their discovered including more systemic efficiencies,
22
An interesting recent book which the 1980s and 1990s that did the same. relationships between the movers and shakers in nationality, religion or values. During these periods such as the efficiencies that flow into the
explores some of these dynamics The importance of this point was identified the system create an additional stabilising factor in mental models start changing. Intellectuals, activists, economy from better public health or low carbon
is Michael Fairbanks and Stace by a succession of writers about change from the form of social capital and mutual commitment. political entrepreneurs, trouble makers, or prophets technologies.27 This is one of the reasons why
Lindsay: Plowing the Sea; Nurturing Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s to Donald Schon Much of the business of government and the social find their voice in denouncing the present and big changes are often followed by a honeymoon
the Hidden Sources of Growth in the in the 1970s. In the 1990s Amitai Etzioni and sector rests on personal relationships that may count promoting a different future, with a characteristic period. People tire of change and want to give the
Developing World, Harvard Business Clayton Christensen recognised the implication for more than formal organograms. These networks tone that is deliberately unsettling, amplifying new model a fair chance. New elites radiate the
School Press, Boston, 1997. that any radical innovators have to hold their of favours and debts can be key for getting things to dissonance and tensions. At the same time the confidence that comes from successfully overcoming
nerve and hold onto their supporters through happen within a stable system, but they are likely to longstanding personal relationships that held the enemies and barriers. And societies as a whole
23
Richard Nelson and Sidney difficult transition periods when things may seriously impede any radical change. system in place come under strain as some sense immerse themselves in the business of learning new
Winter: An evolutionary theory of appear to be getting worse rather than better. These barriers explain why even where there is a that change is imminent and others resist. habits, rules, and ways of seeing and doing.
economic change remains the Christensens account of the innovators dilemma healthy appetite for incremental improvements and Patterns of this kind can be found on a micro
outstanding account of how firms is a good summary of this issue. Firms or public changes it is generally hard to push through more scale within particular sectors and they can affect
resist change and sometimes organisations with established ways of doing things radical transformations regardless of evidence or whole societies. During periods of change those
enable change to happen. become used to improving their position by steadily rationales or passions. within the system especially those who have
adding new features. But radical new options then Probably the most famous account of these prospered from it and now sit at the top of business,
arise which start off less efficient than the older, barriers was provided by Thomas Kuhn in his work on bureaucratic or political hierarchies are likely
optimised alternatives, but which have the potential science which popularised the idea of a paradigm. to be the last to see its deficiencies. Ever more
to transcend them. For the organisation this presents Kuhn showed that even in the apparently rational sophisticated accounts may explain why the status
two dilemmas: first how to cultivate the new, world of science better theories do not automatically quo can be saved, or why only modest reform will
potentially higher impact innovation (recognising displace worse ones. Instead existing theories have be enough. Such periods, when old systems are in
that it may fail); and second, how to simultaneously to be clearly failing on a wide range of issues and crisis, can continue for many years. But sooner or
ride both the old and the new waves how, in some ultimately their adherents have to have died or given later they come to an end as the new ideas diffuse,
How social Stages of Innovation

innovation happens
the uneasy symbiosis of bees and trees
This story of change emphasises the interaction In what follows we describe some of the stages that move to digital hearing aids); individual social 28
For example:
between the innovators and the environment innovations have to pass through as the bees find entrepreneurs (Octavia Hill founding the National http://james.parkinsons.org.
they are working in. It emphasises, too, that powerful allies to join up with. Trust and pioneering occupational therapy); rising uk/uk.htm
new ideas have to secure support if they are to citizen expectations and aspirations (such as patient
survive. The support they need may include: Generating ideas by understanding needs attitudes towards health professionals resulting in
the passion and commitment of other people, and identifying potential solutions patient choice); or demographic change (Language
the money of patrons or the state and contracts The starting point for innovation is an awareness Line catering for the needs of public services and
or consumers. Social change depends, in other of a need that is not being met and some idea of people for whom English is a second language).
words, on alliances between what could be how it could be met. Sometimes needs are glaringly Some of the best innovators spot needs which are
called the bees and the trees. The bees are obvious like hunger, homelessness or disease. But not being adequately met by the market or the state.
the small organisations, individuals and groups sometimes needs are less obvious, or not recognised They are often good at talking and listening, digging
who have the new ideas, and are mobile, quick like the need for protection from domestic violence, below the surface to understand peoples needs
and able to cross-pollinate. The trees are the or racism, and it takes campaigners and movements and dislocations, dissatisfactions and blockages.
big organisations governments, companies to name and define these. Michael Young got many of his best ideas from
or big NGOs which are poor at creativity but Needs come to the fore in many ways through random conversations on street corners, buses and
generally good at implementation, and which angry individuals and groups, campaigns and even in cemeteries. Empathy is the starting point and
have the resilience, roots and scale to make political movements as well as through careful ethnography is usually a more relevant formal tool
things happen. Both need each other, and most observation. They may come from informal social than statistical analysis. Personal motivations also
social change comes from alliances between the movements (like health related, online self-help play a critical role: people may want to solve their
two, just as most change within organisations groups28); religious movements (instrumental own problems and they may be motivated by the
depends on alliances between leaders and groups in the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign); existing suffering of their friends or family.
well down the formal hierarchy. voluntary organisations (the RNID leading the Some of the most effective methods for
29
A recent article in the Economist cultivating social innovation start from the in stations or next to bus shelters. Many of the most Developing, prototyping and piloting ideas convinced that most motorists would prefer to invest 33
Mulgan, G (2005), Government
can be found at presumption that people are competent interpreters important ideas straddle the boundaries between The second phase of any innovation process some of their time in exchange for lower costs. They and Knowledge, in Evidence and
www.economist.com/business/ of their own lives and competent solvers of their sectors and disciplines. For example about 50% involves taking a promising idea and testing it out did not.34 But even failed ideas often point the way Policy Journal
displaystory.cfm?story_id=5624944 own problems. Anyone seeking to find an answer to of public sector innovation is now thought to cross in practice. Few plans survive their first encounter to related ideas that will succeed. As Samuel Beckett
the management of chronic diseases or alienation organisational boundaries, for example. with reality wholly intact. But it is through action put it: Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. 34
The project did survive for several
30
For example, de Bono, E (1970) amongst teenagers may do best to find out how Some organisations use formal creativity methods that they evolve and improve. Social innovations years in Milton Keynes in England.
Lateral Thinking Creativity Step by people themselves are solving their problems. to generate possibilities, including the ones devised may be helped by formal market research or desk Assessing then scaling up and But it never took off.
Step, Perennial Library London, and Another method is to find the people who are solving by Edward de Bono30, the design company Ideo, analysis but progress is often achieved more quickly diffusing the good ones
many others. their problems against the odds the ex-prisoners and the consultancy What If?, all of which aim to by turning the idea into a prototype or pilot and then The third stage of the social innovation process
who do not re-offend or the 18 year old without any free people to think more laterally, and to spot new galvanising enthusiasm. comes when an idea is proving itself in practice
31
See www.globalideasbank.org/site/ qualifications who nevertheless finds a job. Looking patterns. Some methods try to force creativity for Social innovations are often implemented early. and can then be grown, potentially through organic
home. The top 500 ideas that will for the positive deviants the approaches that work example, getting developers and designers to engage Because those involved are usually highly motivated growth, replication, adaptation or franchising.
change the world are at: when most others are failing gives insights into with the toughest customers, or those facing the most they are too impatient to wait for governments or Usually innovations spread in an S curve, with an
www.globalideasbank.org/site/store/ what might be possible, and usually at much lower serious problems, to ensure more lateral solutions. professions to act. The experience of trying to make early phase of slow growth amongst a small group of
detail.php?articleId=178. cost than top down solutions. Creativity can be stimulated by other peoples their ideas work then speeds up their evolution, committed supporters, then a phase of rapid take-off,
A list of similar organisations can be Next, needs have to be tied to new possibilities. ideas which are increasingly being collected and and the power of example then turns out to be and then a slowing down as saturation and maturity
found at: New possibilities may be technological for banked. Nicholas Albery, a regular collaborator with as persuasive as written argument or advocacy. are achieved.
www.stuartcdoddinstitute.org/ example, using the mobile telephone to support Michael Young, founded the Institute for Social Michael Young usually moved very quickly to set Taking a good idea to scale requires skilful
innovationlinks.shtml frontline workers, using digital television to Inventions in 1985. He produced regular editions up an embryonic organisation rather than waiting strategy and coherent vision, combined with the
strengthen local communities, or using artificial of the Book of Social Inventions and the Book of for detailed business plans and analyses. Language ability to marshal resources and support and identify
32
Useful websites include: intelligence to guide family law, as in Victoria in Visions, and, in 1995, helped launch the Global Line, for example, began as two people with the key points of leverage, the weak chinks in
Poverty Action Lab Australia. Indeed the internet is now generating a Ideas Bank a rich online source of ideas and telephones and a tiny contract with the neighbouring opponents walls. Bees need to find supportive
www.povertyactionlab.org; host of new business models that are set to have experiences, which also produces regular editions of police station. trees with the machineries to make things happen
Social Action Laboratory enormous impact in the social field. Some of these the Global Ideas Book.31 A key virtue of quick prototyping is that on a big scale. That in turn may demand formal
www.psych.unimelb.edu.au/research/ are being collected by the Open Business Network, In some cases ideas can be bought on the open innovations often require several goes before they methods to persuade potential backers, including
labs/soc_actionlab.html which is linked to the Young Foundation.29 market. The company Innocentive, for example, work. The first outings are invariably flawed. The investment appraisals, impact assessments and
Affirmative Action Laboratory Other possibilities may derive from new offers cash rewards on the web for innovators who British National Health Service took 40 years to newer devices to judge success like social returns on
www.naledi.org.za/pubs/2000/ organisational forms, like the Community Interest have workable solutions to problems they solve, move from impossible dream to reality; the radio investment or blended value.
indicator/article4.htm Company recently launched in the UK, or the based on the assumption that often a neighbouring took a decade to find its form its early pioneers For many decades there has been a lot of
Innovation Lab Copenhagen special purpose vehicles increasingly used in sector may already have solved a similar problem. wrongly assumed that members of the public would discussion on the problems of scaling up apparently
www.innovationlab.net/sw4918.asp global development. Or possibilities may derive 100,000 scientists and technologists are now part purchase airtime to send messages to their friends excellent local initiatives. Time and again charismatic
Civic Innovation Lab from new knowledge for example, newly acquired of Innocentives network and the company recently and families, as with the telephone. What became social entrepreneurs have established brilliant
www.civicinnovationlab.org understanding of the importance of early years teamed up with the Rockefeller Foundation to Wikipedia was a failure in its first outing. projects and then spent decades trying and failing to
Eastman Innovation Lab development in shaping future life chances. offer rewards for scientists working on science and There is now a much richer range of methods get the model to take root in other places, even when
www.eastman.com/innovationlab Innovators generally have a wide peripheral vision technology projects that could particularly benefit available for prototyping, piloting and testing new they have had high profile backing from funders and
MIT Community Innovation Lab and are good at spotting how apparently unrelated poor or vulnerable people. Today there are also many ideas either in real environments or in protected political leaders. Time and again apparently very
http://web.mit.edu/cilab methods and ideas can be combined. innovation labs, some linked to universities, some conditions, halfway between the real world and the powerful ideas have languished and never found
ETSU Innovation Lab Few ideas emerge fully formed. Instead linked to companies and some focused on particular laboratory. The relatively free money of foundations sufficient backing to grow to any scale.
www.etsu.edu/innovationlab innovators often try things out, and then quickly problems. These include the MIT Community and philanthropists can be decisive in helping ideas To understand processes of growth its important
adjust them in the light of experience. Tinkering Innovation Lab, the Social Action Laboratory at through this phase. Governments have also become to distinguish what is being scaled up and how it
seems to play a vital role in all kinds of innovation, Melbourne and the Affirmative Action Laboratory in more sophisticated in their use of evidence and is scaled up. The what can vary greatly in nature,
involving trial and error, hunches and experiments South Africa.32 knowledge,33 with a proliferation of pilots, pathfinders along a continuum from very generic ideas which
that only in retrospect look rational and planned. All societies constantly throw up possible social and experiments. Incubators, which have long been spread by attraction to tightly controlled growth
New social ideas are also rarely inherently new innovations. Some never get beyond a conversation widespread in business, have started to take off in under a single management team.
in themselves. More often they combine ideas that in a kitchen or a bar. Many briefly take organisational the public sector and amongst NGOs, though practice Each type of growth brings with it different
had previously been separate. Examples of creative form but then fade as enthusiasm dims or it and understanding remains very patchy. In business opportunities and challenges. Type 4 growth is often
combinations include diagnostic health lines (which becomes obvious that the idea is not so good after new devices like 3D printers have made it easier to the most attractive for social innovators, since it
combined the telephone, nurses and diagnostic all. But the key to success is to ensure that there is turn ideas quickly into prototypes. In the social field offers the promise of growth and impact without too
software); magazines sold by homeless people; the as wide as possible a range of choices to draw on. As parallel methods are being developed to crystallise much managerial responsibility. But it is usually the
linking of gay rights to marriage; applying the idea of Linus Pauling, (Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and promising ideas so that they can be tested quickly. hardest in practice because of the ambiguities of
rights to animals; or the use of swipe cards to make peace) observed, the way to get good ideas is to get Some ideas that seem good on paper fall at control and the financial obligations that it brings.
possible large scale bicycle hiring schemes, located lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away. this stage. Michael Young launched a DIY garage How does scaling up happen in any of these
capacities to do this by. Many social movements see as promising.35 35

Markides, C and Geroski, P (2005)
have achieved their greatest impact by persuading For innovators themselves one of the key lessons Fast Second: how smart companies
parliaments to pass new laws, for example giving from all sectors is that ideas spread more quickly bypass radical innovation to enter
women the vote, or legalising gay marriage. As well when credit is shared, and when at least some of the and dominate new markets, Jossey-
Patterns of growth and replication as new laws, governments can commit spending, for trees can claim ownership. As President Truman Bass, San Francisco
example, to extended schools and confer authority suggested: it is amazing what you can achieve if you
Type 1 Spread through advocacy, persuasion and the sense of a movement; on public agencies, for example, to grow the role of dont care who gets the credit.
General ideas and principles e.g. the idea of the consumer cooperative health visitors.
This growth phase is potentially becoming much Learning and evolving
Type 2 Spread through professional and other networks, helped by some faster. With the help of the web, innovations can Innovations continue to change through a fourth
1+ design features evaluation: eg the 12 step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous spread very quickly, and indeed there can be little stage: learning and adaptation turns the ideas
point in doing local pilots since the economics of the into forms that may be very different from the
Type 3 Spread through professional and other networks, sometimes with web may make it as cheap to launch on a national expectations of the pioneers. Experience may
1+2+ specified programmes payment, IP, technical assistance and consultancy. E.g. some or continental scale. Marginal costs close to zero show unintended consequences, or unexpected
methadone treatment programmes for heroin addicts would be an accelerate the growth phase but also the phase of applications. In professions, in competitive markets
example, or the High Scope/Perry model for early years. decline and disappearance. and in the public sector, there is an increasingly
However, often growth is inhibited both by the sophisticated understanding of how learning takes
Type 4 Spread by an organization, using quality assurance, common absence of effective demand and by weaknesses place. New models such as the collaboratives in
1+2+3+franchising training and other support. E.g. the one third of independent public of capacity. In charities and social enterprises the health (used by the NHS to improve innovation and
schools in Sweden that are part of a single network would be an founders who were just right for the organisation practice in fields like cancer and primary care) and
example; or Grameens growth in Bangladesh and then worldwide. during its early years are unlikely to have the right closed research groups (used by a number of major
mix of skills and attitudes for a period of growth and cities to analyse their transport strategies) have
Type 5 Organic growth of a single organisation, sometimes including consolidation. Often founders cling on too long and helped to embed innovation and improvement into
1+2+3+4+some direct control takeovers, with a common albeit often federated governance trustees, funders and stakeholders do not impose fairly conservative professions.
structure. E.g. Amnesty International or Greenpeace. necessary changes. By comparison in business the These highlight the degree to which all processes
early phases of fast growing enterprises often involve of innovation can be understood as types of learning,
ruthless turnover of managers and executives. Indeed rather than as eureka moments of lone geniuses.
growth in all sectors nearly always involves outgrowing Instead, ideas start off as possibilities that are
founders. Wise founders therefore put in place robust only incompletely understood by their inventors.
succession plans and very few successfully remain They evolve by becoming more explicit and more
in executive roles for much more than a decade. formalised, as best practice is worked out, and
Similar considerations apply to organisations which as organisations develop experience about how to
create other organisations. Christian Aid, CAFOD make them work. This phase involves consolidation
and Tearfund, for example, are all social innovations around a few core principles which can be easily
cases? Scaling up depends on two clusters of factors community of supporters through the combination of with global reach today that outgrew their founders communicated. Then as the idea is implemented
being in place: contagious courage and pragmatic persistence. Good and founding institutions the British Council of in new contexts it evolves further, and in new
An environment that provides effective demand names, along with brands, identities and stories play Churches, the Catholic Womens League and the combinations, with the learning once again more
for the model: public agencies willing to provide a critical role. Evangelical Alliance respectively. tacit, held within organisations, until another set of
commissions or contracts; members of the public Businesses grow ideas through a well-established In business, the experience of companies such as simpler syntheses emerge.
willing to pay for services; charitable funders willing range of methods some of which are becoming more Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Amazon suggests Some organisations appear particularly good at
to provide subsidy. For radical ideas this effective commonly used in the social sector. These include that pioneers who create markets through radical maintaining the momentum from innovation rather
demand is generally not present, or not shaped in the the organic growth of an originating organisation, innovation are almost never the companies that go on than being stuck in a particular form or market.
right way. For example public bodies often provide franchising and licensing; and takeover of similar to scale up and dominate them. The skills and mind- For example the Samaritans in Australia have
funding and contracts for specific functions but not but less effective organisations. Some social sets required for creating a radically new market become a provider of welfare services, while the ECT
in a joined up way. innovations spread through the organic growth not only differ from, but actively conflict with, those Group in the UK started as a community transport
Capacities to grow in terms of management, of the organisations that conceived them like needed to grow and consolidate. Big companies are organisation and evolved into a major supplier of
money, leadership and governance. There are many the Samaritans volunteer service which provides often better placed to take new ideas from niche kerbside recycling services and is now moving into
aspects to this capacity, including managerial, confidential, emotional support. Some have grown markets to mass markets, and many have concluded health. Generally, bigger organisations have more
financial and personnel skills. A particularly through federations, including many NGOs like that they should subcontract the creation of new and absorptive capacity to learn and evolve but small
important capacity is being able to straddle different Age Concern or the Citizens Advice Bureaux. radical products to start-up firms. This allows them ones can gain some of this ability through the skills
sectors. Another is the ability to communicate. Social Governments have often played the critical role to concentrate their own efforts on consolidating of their staff and through taking part in the right kind
innovators need to capture the imagination of a in scaling up social innovations and have unique markets, buying up companies or licenses that they of networks.
Linear and less Stages of

linear patterns Innovation
36
Making Finland a leading country As we have seen the conventional account of innovation does not even work very well for applied
in innovation (2005), Final Report innovation presents it in terms of the funnel model: science let alone other fields. Some of the most
of the Competitive Innovation many different and varied ideas are slowly whittled important innovations evolve in a zig zag line with
Environment Development down until eventually only a small number of the their end uses being very different from those
Programme, Edita Prima Ltd most feasible concepts are left standing. At each that were originally envisaged. Sometimes action
stage tough decisions have to be made based on precedes understanding. Sometimes doing things
judgements of the realistic potential of the idea (for catalyses the ideas. There are also feedback loops
37
Ibid: 15 example by internal committees or external funders). between every stage, which make real innovations
The waterfall model of research funding more like multiple spirals than straight lines.
captures a similar idea: that the amount of basic Pigeonholing ideas too early can stifle their potential.
research affects the number of innovations, which in And the linear approach fails to take account of
turn determines the growth rate of production and the social factors that shape innovation including
subsequently of employment.36 market factors and social demands. As a result
But experience and the history of innovation more recent perspectives emphasise the interactive
suggests that there are very real flaws with this character of the innovation process, the significance
model. Some 20 years ago Nathan Rosenberg of communication, and the synergic advantages of
showed convincingly that the linear model of networks and clusters.37 Real life innovation is a discovery process that individual or communitys problems and passions. 38
www.barnardos.org.au/barnardos/
often leaves ideas transformed and mutated, and The new model is launched in prototype in a very html/innovations.cfm
sometimes sees them jump from one sector to precarious form before securing resources and
another. So, for example, innovations to reduce support from philanthropists or small donors.
obesity can be found in public health programmes Growing new social models usually takes longer than
funded by taxpayers, as well as in online in self- in other sectors because of the need to align a more
help groups and in large commercial organisations complex set of allies and a more complex economic
like Weightwatchers. Many of the innovations base, though the most successful can in time
associated with the Young Foundation ended up replicate themselves through growth or emulation.
in a different sector from where they had started: Good examples include the Grameen Bank and
not for profit ideas ended up as for-profit firms; BRAC in Bangladesh, The Big Issue and Teach
public agencies ended up as charities, charities First, or Barnardos Australias case management
ended up as government agencies. These provide systems for children.38 Community Land Banks are
strong arguments against any support for innovation an example of how ideas can spread successfully:
that is too prescriptive too early about the best they were pioneered in India, spread to the USA
organisational form for a new idea. However, each and are now being adopted globally. The web is
sector does have some distinct patterns, drivers also making it possible to create and spread new
and inhibitors and understanding these is vital for social organisations much more quickly, and to meet
Basic research Applied research Advanced development Pre development Development Pre production Production
anyone wanting to promote new ideas. new needs in different ways. Pledgebank launched
by mySociety.org (led by Young Foundation fellow
Theories, models Proof of concept WAM Prototype First model First batch
Working Social organisations and enterprises Tom Steinberg) has created a very powerful tool
Appearance Model In social organisations (charities, community groups, for bringing groups together to advance a cause. It
NGOs) new ideas often begin from a particular allows people to commit to an action so long as a
Table 1: social innovation in social organisations
Generation of possibilities Prototypes Growth
Practice, imagination, beneficiaries and user Start ups, incubators, learning by doing and Organisational growth, emulation,
inputs generate possibilities. pilots road test ideas e.g. Pledgebank, new replication and franchise to achieve scale
models of refugee integration. e.g., Mdecins Sans Frontires, Wikipedia,
Grameen, Teach First, Reach Out!.
Table 2: Social innovation in social movements
Formation Campaigning and advocacy Legislation, habit change, changed values
Small groups, seeking likeminded allies, Movements try to demonstrate worthiness, Governments endorse claims and pass
spurred by anger, resentment e.g. current unity, numbers and commitment e.g. slow legislation. Public habits change e.g. equal
campaigns against slavery or for legalised food and Make Poverty History. opportunities in business, gay marriage..
prostitution.
39
There is also a small, but growing, specified number of other people do so as well. A moved from the radical margins in the 1960s to
group of organisations dedicated very different model is the Australian organisation transform mainstream business, helped along the
to encouraging innovation in the Reach Out! which has used the web to help young way by changes in legislation. More recent examples Table 3: Social innovation in politics
UK voluntary sector (including the people contemplating suicide: 4m people have used of innovative campaigns include Make Poverty
Community Action Network, the the service since its inception. History, a dramatically novel campaign linking Demands and campaigns Policy formulation and manifestos Public spending, programmes
Centre for Innovation in Voluntary New sources of finance for social enterprise such politicians and celebrities, and the Fathers for Legislation, new professions
Action and NFP Synergy). as UnLtd are making it easier for individuals with Justice campaign, which made headlines with its NGOs, party activists, people in need and the Politicians become champions, ministers Bureaucrats and professionals then
a good idea to get started, and easier for existing use of shock tactics in advocating fathers rights. media make demands for new programmes and officials take up issues and give political implement, provide funding and authority
organisations to grow, for example through the loan e.g. fathers rights, or free eldercare. commitment e.g. to extended schools or new e.g. for tax credits, early years centres or
finance provided by Charity Bank.39 But most of the Politics and government powers for neighbourhood governance. bicycle transport networks.
time social innovation in the social field is slow, and Politicians and political activists promote new ideas
determined as much by luck as anything else. partly to promote their beliefs and partly to gain an
edge in political competition more public support
Social movements and more chance of winning and retaining power.
Social movements operate in the space between They campaign through party structures, newspaper
politics and civil society. To succeed they have to articles, meetings and lobbies to get their ideas
address a compelling fear or aspiration. Generally into party programmes and manifestos, ministerial Table 4: Social innovation in government
speaking, innovative social movements start out speeches and programmes, and then into legislation
with small groups seeking likeminded allies, or spending programmes. For example, campaigns Generation of possibilities Piloting, testing, learning by doing Scaling up
animated by anger or hope. They then develop into for environmentally tougher building regulations,
more organized campaigns that try to demonstrate community bus services or foyers for homeless Creativity methods, consultations, Incubators, zones, and pathfinders with Growth, new structures, franchises and
the four key attributes of any successful social teenagers have all focused on politics as the best contestability and the adaptation of models assessment and evaluation methods test spending programmes achieve scale e.g.
movement: worthiness, unity, numbers and route to achieve change, even if the services were from other sectors generate possibilities e.g. and capture lessons e.g. restorative justice urban road charging and integrated
commitment. States can play a decisive role in then run by NGOs. weekend prisons or nurse led primary care. or carbon markets, or uses of artificial web portals.
helping them to succeed or blocking them. Some political leaders are natural social intelligence in family law.
Campaigns for equal opportunities, for example, innovators: Jaime Lerner, mayor of the city of
Curitiba in Brazil, has, over several decades, been an The motivation is usually to address a compelling encouraging and promoting innovations, particularly Corporate Social Responsibility is usually more 40
Wingham, R (1997) Guaranteed
outstanding example. He has been responsible for problem or to cut costs. Here the experience of on cross-cutting issues, such as the Nem Konto detached from core business activities. However, electronic markets: The backbone of
completely refashioning his citys transport system, officials themselves, consultations and contestable (Easy Account), under which all citizens will have an well designed CSR projects can encourage genuinely the twenty first century economy?,
rebuilding parks and libraries and experimenting markets can be key to taking innovations from account number relating to a digital account, even if radical approaches, and apply imaginative business Demos, London. This book described
with lateral solutions, such as paying slum children ideas into reality. Promising ideas may be tested they do not have a bank account. thinking to social problems. Companies like BP, a sophisticated new form of market
for bringing rubbish out of slums with vouchers for through incubators (like Singapores incubator for TNT and Salesforce have given a very high priority that could be organised on the web,
transport. Some political leaders take pride in being e-government), or zones (like the UKs Employment Markets to CSR, employee volunteering and creative ways and which is now being piloted in
on the cutting edge of cultural and social change. Zones), pathfinders or pilots, with formal assessment Commercial markets can also be an effective of using corporate resources. But despite the major east London.
San Francisco, for example, pays for sex change and evaluation methods to prove their efficacy. route for promoting new social ideas. Successive contribution of business skills to the social sector
operations as a result of political campaigns, while A good example of encouraging public social innovations have gone from the margins surprisingly few CSR projects have had much
in the 1980s Ken Livingstones London pioneered innovation is the partnership between the state of the counterculture into the mainstream using influence on the big systems of health, education or
radical models of equal opportunity, appropriate and city of New York to support the Centre for commercial markets. They have generally started welfare. One reason may be that the aim of making
technology and social inclusion. A good current Court Innovation which helps develop, test out with enthusiasts producing and consuming in projects attractive in reputational terms leads some
example of how political leaders can galvanise and appraise new approaches to courts and crime what is almost a gift economy. Then as markets CSR projects to be gold-plated, which in turn makes
creative combinations of public bodies with reduction. For example, it introduced specialist grow enthusiasts are able to form small companies them too expensive to be replicated by cash-
academics and business, helped by a major event, is drug and domestic violence courts. Denmark within their own niches, helped by consumers and strapped public sectors.
the city of Zaragozas work in developing new digital provides two very different examples: its Ministry of in some cases by mission-related investment. At a
services ahead of its Expo in 2008. Economics and Business Affairs founded MindLab later stage more mainstream investors have often Academia
Within government bureaucracies there is a in 2002 as a way of injecting innovation into its come in, convinced that there really is scope for Sometimes new models are developed in
rather different story of social innovations gaining work mainly by spreading creative methods, and making profits. Then, in a final stage, what was once universities, argued about within academic
momentum, away from the glare of party politics. its Ministry of Finance has played a leading role in marginal becomes mainstream as larger companies disciplines, put into practice and then evaluated
try to take models over, making use of their scale, before spreading. To succeed they have to offer
logistical and marketing prowess. the prospects of peer recognition and to mobilise
A good examples is the evolution of fair trade intellectual labour for example from PhD students.
from being a radical campaign supported by Examples include the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
churches and trade unions to the mainstream models used by Martin Seligman to help teenagers
of most supermarkets. The point at which avoid depression; models of participant action used
mainstreaming occurs can be experienced as deeply to empower communities, the idea of food miles,
ambiguous with Nestls launch of a range of fair developed by Tim Lang, which has led to new
Table 5: Social innovation in markets trade products in 2005 being a good example. thinking about local sourcing, or the idea of trading
Another example is the spread of Linux open source carbon and other emissions.
Embryonic niches Niche markets Co-option into mainstream software which has, in barely a decade, moved from But academia still lacks mechanisms for
the margins of computer culture into becoming a cultivating and disseminating good ideas. After two
Enthusiasts produce and consume in what is Small companies, mission related Multinationals and majors buy in and dominant technology underpinning the internet and decades of energetic reform to improve technology
almost a gift economy, e.g. life coaches. investment and consumer and shareholder achieve marketing clout e.g. Linux software, an increasingly powerful competitor to Microsoft. transfer universities are only just beginning to think
activism develop niche markets e.g. speed complementary medicine and fair trade. The University of Phoenix is an interesting example about how to achieve equivalent results in the
dating or plug in cars. of an innovation that took some elements from social field, through the employment of heads of
NGOs and the public sector (including the Open social innovation and social transfer, running social
University) and turned them into a successful laboratories or incubators to connect users and
commercial model that could be quickly scaled up. innovators, or setting up social science parks.
There are also many important social
Table 6: Social innovation in academia innovations in markets themselves. These include Philanthropy
innovative types of business organisation (like Philanthropists are well placed to support
Invention Diffusion Incorporation Denmarks Mandag Morgen, which combines a innovation: they have money, can often access
newsletter, think-tank, forum and consultancy) and powerful networks and have the advantage of
New ideas are developed on the margins of Ideas are tested in practice or spread The once radical idea becomes mainstream new types of market (like the various guaranteed minimal accountability. In the 19th century
academia e.g. 150 year life expectancy. through academic networks e.g. Cognitive e.g. the idea of educating for multiple electronic market concepts which are now being philanthropists played an important role in
Behavioural Therapy or participant action. intelligences. piloted in east London).40 innovation, notably in creating model towns for their
A small number of companies have pioneered workers. In the 20th century the great legacies left
social change rather than following it. The Body by Carnegie, Rockefeller and Ford helped to fund,
Shop is the outstanding example of integrating and shape, creative new approaches to poverty,
a social mission with a business one. Business healthcare and learning. Michael Youngs work, for
41
Mulgan, G and Steinberg, T
(2005), Wide Open Open source
example, was supported by the Ford Foundation.
During much of the 20th century there was
idea using the language of software programmers:
Given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow meaning Common patterns of
success and failure
methods and their future potential, very widespread criticism of philanthropy. Its mix that with enough people working on a project even
London, Demos of paternalism, idiosyncratic funding and power the most complex issues and problems can be
without accountability were seen as anachronisms. resolved. In practice most of the influential open
42
Ibid: 15 This prompted the more progressive foundations source models turn out to be led by a influential
including Ford in the US and the Rowntree leaders who can motivate a dispersed group of
43
Ibid: 16-22 organisations in the UK to adopt more radical developers, and intervene to maintain standards and
approaches to empowerment. Today, although many values.43 But the underlying idea is highly egalitarian
philanthropists support projects in a scattergun way and democratic.
and without much coherent view of social change, Open source methods have many limitations and
there is growing interest in how resources can be potential problems. They work less well, for example,
used more strategically. The Gates Foundation in fields where underlying goals are contested or
has been the pre-eminent example in recent ones which require heavy capital investment, and
years, supporting existing healthcare and poverty so far they have proved of limited use in shaping
alleviation models but also encouraging innovation, decisions in zero-sum situations (bugs are only
for example by designing funding tools to incentivise shallow when there are no conflicting interests).
new vaccines and treatments for AIDS, TB and However they offer radically new ways of organising
malaria. The sheer scale of resources at its disposal new ideas and innovation, democratising the design
has also enabled it to take a more rounded approach process and linking users to producers. Their
to changing public attitudes and to collaboration full potential remains to be proven but there is
with governments. In the UK, Peter Lampl (through great scope (described in Wide Open) to extend
the Sutton Trust) has been an outstanding recent them into fields such as the media and finance,
example of modern individual philanthropy. lawmaking and legal advice.
Through his single minded focus on a specific issue
raising social mobility through education he
has successfully combined funding for innovative
projects and pilots with support for research and
direct influence on public policy.
Social software and open

source methods
Online networks of various kinds are fast becoming Social innovation doesnt always happen easily, protections and status, plus open media and the web
one of the more important spaces where innovation even though people are naturally inventive and are key. In business social innovation can be driven
can happen. The potential impact of open source curious. In some societies social innovations are by competition, open cultures and accessible capital,
methods and social softwares is described in strangled at birth, particularly societies where power and will be impeded where capital is monopolised
more detail in the Young Foundation/Demos book is tightly monopolized, where free communication by urban elites or government. In politics and
Wide Open. These generally link widely dispersed is inhibited, or where there are no independent government the conditions are likely to include
communities of contributors in collaborative work. sources of money. Some innovations may simply be competing parties, think tanks, innovation funds,
Well-known examples include Linux software; too radical to be viable and the phrase Leonardo contestable markets and plentiful pilots. In social
Wikipedia; and the many new applications growing effect is sometimes used to describe ideas (like the organisations the acceleration of social innovation
up around Googlemaps.41 Their starting ethos helicopter) that were too far ahead of the prevailing is aided by practitioner networks, allies in politics,
is the opposite of proprietary knowledge the levels of technology (by contrast, some of Leonardo strong civic organisations (from trade unions to
underlying principle is that knowledge grows best da Vincis other ideas, like flying men with wings hospitals) and the support of progressive foundations
through sharing and cooperation, and the open attached to their arms or legs simply failed the laws and philanthropists. And in all of these fields global
source networks operate at times like conversations, of physics.) Within any hierarchy there are many links make it much easier to learn lessons and share
sometimes more like formal research teams or people who are skilled at finding ways to kill new ideas at an early stage, with ideas moving in every
university scholarship, and sometimes as DIY.42 ideas (we list Rosabeth Moss Kanters rules for direction (for example, the movement of restorative
Their key principles include transparency and stifling innovation in this endnote b, p51). justice from Maori New Zealand to mainstream
visibility; reasonably open access so that anyone can Generally, social innovation is much more likely practice around the world).
contribute regardless of formal expertise; peer review to happen when the right background conditions Most innovations in business and technology
and feedback. Eric Raymond summed up the basic are present. For social movements, basic legal fail. So do most social innovations. Sometimes
there are good reasons for failure. An idea may to cultivate a flow of new models and innovations strong emphasis on the role of entrepreneurs finding 44
The same is often true in the arts
be too expensive; not good enough relative to the that may in time become mainstream. In cultivating new combinations in the story of economic growth. where impresarios and producers can
alternatives; or flawed by unforeseen side-effects. these, innovation tends to be easier where: Second, putting social innovations into effect play a more decisive, and creative
But we think that many ideas are failing not because usually involves cutting across organisational, role than the more famous people
of inherent flaws but because of the lack of adequate n the worst-case risks can be contained (for sectoral or disciplinary boundaries (and often they serve.
mechanisms to promote them, adapt them and then example, through keeping innovation relatively tapping into new sources of value by arbitraging
scale them up. In business there is a reasonable small scale) ideas and knowledge).
flow of good innovations in part because of the pull Third, social innovations, unlike most
of competitive markets, but also because of public n there is evident failure in existing models technological ones, leave behind compelling new
subsidy of technology, and private investment in social relationships between previously separate
incubators, venture capital and start-ups. The n users have choice (so that they can choose a individuals and groups. These matter greatly to the
equivalent potential supports for social innovation radically different model of school or doctor rather people involved, contribute to the diffusion and
foundations, public agencies are much weaker. than having it forced on them) embedding of the innovation, and fuel a cumulative
Governments which typically provide some 30- dynamic whereby each innovation opens up the
40% of NGO finance in countries like the US, n expectations are carefully managed (for example possibility of further innovations (as the organisation
Germany, UK, France and Japan are generally poor through politicians acknowledging that many models or group further differentiates itself from itself
at recognising and replicating good innovations, are being tried out and that some are likely to fail) and becomes more confident about its capacity to
particularly when these come from other sectors. exercise power).
It is notoriously difficult for government to close n contracts for services reward outcomes achieved Our approach highlights the critical role played
even failing programmes and services, and there rather than outputs or activities by the connectors in any innovation system the
are few incentives for either politicians or officials people and institutions which link together different
to take up new ideas. Failure to adapt is rarely n there is some competition or contestability rather people, ideas, money and power. If we stand back
career threatening, and anyone who does promote than monopoly provision by the state. and look at the whole system of innovation and
innovations risks upsetting powerful vested interests. change its clear that they often play more important
Its all too easy to conclude that the apparently How public sectors dock with the social or roles than the individual entrepreneurs, thinkers,
promising new idea is too dependent on particular non-profit sector is also important here, particularly creators, designers, activists and community
circumstances such as a charismatic individual given that public funding tends to overshadow other groups, even if they are often less visible.44 Indeed
or that the evidence just isnt strong enough (the revenue sources for many innovations. their absence often explains why so many social
threshold for evidence on existing programmes tends Public bodies usually move too slowly for innovations are stillborn and why so many social
to be much lower). impatient entrepreneurs and activists. But in one entrepreneurs are frustrated.
Sometimes, too, innovation on the ground may important respect they typically move too fast: far- Economic development is usually characterised
be impeded by structures and systems (and anyone reaching restructurings tend to be driven through too by growing numbers of intermediary occupations
concerned with social change needs to be clear about quickly, ignoring the long time it takes to establish advising, interpreting and brokering. The same may
whether most can be achieved upstream, in the realm new cultures, procedures and skills, let alone new be true in the social field where progress seems to
of law, policy and structures, or downstream in the patterns of trust. For these sorts of systemic change depend on the density and quality of connections,
practical methods used on the frontline). timescales of 10-15 years are more realistic than the and the calibre of the connectors.
shorter timescales of impatient ministers.
Handling innovation in public contexts
Social innovators generally find governments A connected difference theory of
unresponsive. But there are sometimes good reasons social innovation
for public sectors to be cautious about innovation. We are now in a position to draw some of these
Innovation must involve failure and appetites for threads together and suggest an overarching
failure are bound to be limited in very accountable theory which makes sense of the diversity of
organisations, or where peoples lives depend on social innovations. In the many examples weve
the reliability of such things as traffic light systems, described three key characteristics have come
or welfare payments. Most public services, and up again and again. These differentiate social
most NGO service delivery organisations, have to innovation from technological innovation and give
concentrate primarily on better management and it its distinctive character.
performance of existing models rather than invention First, social innovations are usually new
of new ones. combinations or hybrids of existing elements, rather
However, all competent leaders of public than being wholly new in themselves. In this sense
organisations recognise that they also have a duty we are echoing Joseph Schumpeter who placed a
What next In what follows we therefore turn to the new

methods and structures which are needed to
put social innovation on a firmer footing all of
investment vehicles, ranging from technology
oriented venture capital to banks.
An equivalent mix of funding sources is needed
45
46
Ibid: 16
As above
an agenda for action which help to reinforce the connections that make for social innovation, for experiments, start ups
innovation systems work. and then for growth. Some of that will need to
come from government, drawing on the experience
Leadership and structures suited to of funds like the UK governments Invest to Save
innovation Budget (set up to fund innovative collaborative
A lot of social innovation bubbles up from the ventures between public agencies that would
bottom and is messy, unpredictable and lead to long term savings) and Futurebuilders (for
entrepreneurial. But it is greatly assisted when investing in growing social organisations). Some
leaders in fields like health and education (whether will need to come from foundations, which have
in local or national government, or in other agencies greater freedom to experiment, and to target
with the power to act) visibly value and reward unfashionable and politically controversial fields.
innovators and innovations. Some will need to come from more commercial
There are simple devices for reinforcing these funds drawing on the experience of venture capital
messages: board directors with responsibility for funds such as Bridges Community Ventures in the
ensuring a strong flow of new innovations; events, UK and Pacific Community Ventures in the US.
rewards and competitions for new ideas; pay review Although these are bound to be less suitable for
systems that give weight to entrepreneurialism and higher risk and more radical ventures which cannot
healthy risk taking; audit cultures that do not crush demonstrate a prospective income stream, they fill
creativity. This is also territory where what leaders an important niche alongside the growing field of
say matters, as well as what they do. venture philanthropy which is providing some debt
Structures are also important. In the very best and quasi-equity finance alongside grants46 (a list of
organisations innovation becomes mainstream the key forms of finance is provided in this endnote
and people at every level are open to ideas and C, p51). Looking to the future, these are some of the
quick to seize new opportunities. Funding and funding elements that would form a more mature
investment automatically gravitate to the most social innovation system:
promising innovations. But in the great majority
of organisations this doesnt happen. Instead n Public (and foundation) funding for high risk
innovation depends on dedicated people and teams, blue skies R&D in priority areas, deliberately
with a license to explore new possibilities at arms aiming to generate a wide range of options that
length from day to day performance management can be tested, observed, adapted and improved,
pressures. Again and again radical innovations with an assumption that a significant proportion
have had to be developed in their own separate will not work.
structures, insulated from the day to day pressures
of existing organisations (for example in skunk n Public agencies, foundations and individual
Throughout this report we have argued that social strategies for innovation beyond science and works). Generally in/out units of this kind, which philanthropists providing core funding for
innovation is too little understood and too often technology to encompass services and social straddle the boundaries of organisations or systems, intermediary bodies like innovation laboratories
left to chance. Business and science no longer organisations. Some have deliberately introduced and combine freshness of perspective and the power and accelerators, that can then provide a mix of
depend on obdurate individuals and teams battling new teams within government to act as catalysts to make things happen, seem to be most effective at development and financial support (we describe
against the odds to get their ideas accepted. Instead for creativity. Some have introduced welcome driving change. some of these in the next section).
they recognise that more systematic approaches new support for individual social entrepreneurs,
pay dividends. A similarly thorough approach is community projects and pilots and have recognised Finance focused on innovation n More sophisticated metrics to assess investment
long overdue in relation to social issues. If social the need to cultivate milieux in which risk taking is Bright ideas may appear to emerge from thin air, prospects and results achieved in a way compatible
innovation continues to be left to chance the risk is accepted and there is the buzz and optimism that but the business of innovation invariably involves with innovation, such as rapid learning and evolution
that pressing social problems will worsen; barriers seem so essential for creativity.45 But all of these costs to generate ideas, test them out and then to of end goals during prototyping and start-up.
(from congestion to climate change) will increasingly still fall well short of what is needed, and without adapt them in the light of experience. In business,
constrain economic growth; and the costs of key systemic conditions for innovations to evolve and a significant proportion of funding for innovation Public policy frameworks that
sectors (like health, the largest industry of the 21st spread, most are bound to be crushed by existing comes from governments through grants, tax encourage innovation
century) will rise while their effectiveness stagnates. vested interests, or at best to remain no more than credits for R&D and subsidies, alongside private Public policy has rarely been explicit in
Some countries have begun to widen their interesting pilots. investment within companies and through dedicated supporting social innovation, despite the plethora
47
Making Finland a leading country of supports for technological R&D. Yet there Dedicated social innovation and businesses and where they have the clear
in innovation (2005), Final Report are many simple ways that governments can accelerators support of political leaders in the city.
of the Competitive Innovation improve the climate for innovation. In Finland, Few new ideas are born fully formed: instead they
Environment Development for example, the governments main advisory body often need incubation in a protected environment National and cross-national pools
Programme, Edita Prima Ltd: 25. on science, innovation and research (SITRA) has that provides support, advice and the freedom Many of the problems faced by communities
recommended that innovativeness should be made to evolve. There are various incubators of social around the world are not unique. We favour cross
a criterion for competitive bidding associated with ventures already in existence such as Singapores national innovation pools which bring together a
public procurement. They have also recommended incubator for e-government ideas or Social Fusion, group of interested governments or foundations
that a proportion of funding for departments a California-based incubator for social enterprises. from several countries for an aligned innovation
should be clearly designated to innovation and There are also a growing number of sources of process. The precursor for this exists in the closed
development activities, which are interpreted support for individual social entrepreneurs, including groups of cities that share data and experiences
widely to include innovation in services.47 In the funding and support organisations such as Ashoka on transport systems. An equivalent, for example
UK various methods have been used to support and UnLtd, and educators such as the School for for employment for the over-50s, would agree a
social innovation including: Social Entrepreneurs and the Skoll Centre for Social common research programme, undertake parallel
Entrepreneurship at Oxfords Sad Business School. pilots, enable mutual learning between the people
n More developed markets for social solutions, The Young Foundations Launchpad programme involved, (both those on the receiving end of the
including outcome based funding models (which takes a more active role in the identification of programme and those delivering it) and carry out
reward organisations for cutting recidivism, keeping needs and the design of new organisations as well as joint assessment of the results.
people in jobs or improving the experience of their incubation and launch, with a particular focus
chronic disease sufferers) and greater competition on ideas that have the potential to be scaled up. Research and faster learning
and contestability. A related approach is to develop accelerators To inform practical initiatives we also need much
for particular sectors, such as health and education more extensive, rigorous, imaginative and historically
n Decentralisation of power and money allowing or cross-cutting themes such as ageing or care, with aware research on how social innovation happens
communities greater freedom to shape their an emphasis on scaleable innovations. The NESTA/ and how it can be helped. Alongside greater
own solutions along with shared knowledge, Young Foundation Health Innovation Accelerator is conceptual clarity and common definitions we
measurement of results and peer networks to an example. These are most likely to work in sectors need more case studies and better analysis of
prevent complacency where public provision is dominant and where a critical success factors and potential inhibitors at
government can see the advantage of speeding up each stage of the innovation process, better links
n Zones in the main public services allowing innovation. They are also most likely to be useful with adjacent disciplines working on private sector
spaces for public, private and non-profit where there is scope for innovation that crosses innovation and science, public sector improvement,
organisations to break nationally set rules and test sectoral and disciplinary boundaries as is the case and civil society, as well as research on some of
out new ideas. The UK Employment Zones have with services for chronic illness, diet, fitness and the specifics of social innovation for example on
been particularly effective in encouraging more mental health. its links to faith; on which styles of philanthropy
radical approaches to welfare. Such accelerators can: provide development achieve the greatest long-term impact; how business
funding for social entrepreneurs, groups of public CSR can best contribute to scaleable and replicable
n Collaboratives (like the UKs health collaboratives) sector workers, private companies and academics, models; or how the use of new internet based
bringing together practitioners, policy makers, and as well as partnerships; rapidly test out new ideas business models can address social challenges.
social entrepreneurs to discuss new possibilities and in practice, with quick assessments; allow fast
changing needs learning across a community of innovators; and
establish clear pathways for scaling up the most
n Innovation units to coordinate pioneers, promote promising models.
new ideas and promote faster learning (for example A parallel idea (city accelerators) is being
the Department for Educations Innovation Unit) developed for cities to help them address pressing
needs. These combine: systematic methods for
n Expert user laboratories to test out ideas, with the mapping changing needs; scanning for promising
close involvement of users in shaping innovations solutions (from around the world as well as from
(building on the UKs Expert Patients programme) people living within the city, frontline staff etc.);
testing them out in practice with rapid measurement
n Technology labs focused specifically on mining and assessment; and then applying them. These
mature or near mature technologies for social too are likely to work best where they can provide
potential: such as mobile telephony, artificial support for a wide range of types of organisation and
intelligence and Global Positioning Systems. project from teams of public sector staff to NGOs
annex 1
A global network for Why we need to

action and research know more about
social innovation
48
For example, the world banks This report was prepared as a contribution to an n Social movements
social innovation blog emerging global network committed to building
http://psdblog.worldbank.org/ up the field of social innovation. The network is n Community Development
psdblog/2006/02/ sharing a common website (the international Social
social_and_envi.html Innovation Exchange SIX), a series of events The network will also pull in the many thinkers
which began with the Young Foundation/CCCPE in the field, aggregating blogs48, recent research and
49
These include Mandag Morgen, conference in Beijing in 2006, collaborations, new ideas, as well as drawing together collaborative
the Copenhagen Institute for development of learning tools, case studies. groups to work on common problems. The aim is
Future Studies and Learning Lab Individuals and organisations in many different to draw in the very many small organisations from
in Denmark; Demos, the British fields are now engaging with social innovation from the NGO world, design, academia and community
Council, the International Futures social entrepreneurship and design, public policy action converging on this area49 and thousands of
Forum and the Design Council in and cities, media organisations and academia. organisations working on practical social innovation
the UK; the Centre for Comparative All are bringing distinct insights but all also in health, education, the law, welfare and poverty
Political Economy in Beijing which have much to learn from each other. The core and the environment. Our interest lies in finding
runs a major annual prize for local partners in SIX come from a wide range of sectors, ways to enhance this disparate community, and The observations set out in this report have been of more practical work. For example, one strand of 50
For example, a review of the
innovations; the Institute for Smart including Mondragon/MIK, corporations including to develop common ways of understanding social drawn from many case studies, analyses and from research has tried to understand how the substantial literature on organisational
Governance in Hyderabad and the Cisco and Philips Design, NGOs including the innovation and common methods for supporting our own experience. But we are acutely aware just public funding that is devoted to basic science innovation identified 6,240 articles
Centre for Knowledge Societies in Global Ideas Bank, organisations involved in social social innovation that are widely understood. That how much is not known about social innovation. should best be used. It has looked at whether published between 1980 and
Bangalore; the Doors of Perception entrepreneurship such as Kaospilots and the School will include work to persuade governments and In this section we compare whats known about to organise funding strategically or reactively in 1994 alone. Wolfe, RA (1994),
Network in the Netherlands; for Social Entrepreneurs, grassroots innovation foundations to engage more seriously in this field, innovation in science and business, and identify the response to scientists interests and enthusiasms. Organisational innovation: review,
the Kennedy School at Harvard movements including Honeybee, and global events but the main aim will be very practical to help relevant knowledge in surrounding fields which is It has concerned itself with the role of intellectual critique and suggested research
University; the pan-European organisers like the Tallberg Forum, alongside many partners move more quickly to viable solutions. likely to provide useful insights as the field develops. property protection and whether, for example, directions, Journal of Management
EMUDE network coordinated more in the fields of social change. We believe that this work is long overdue. There promising biotech ideas in a university should be Studies 31 (3), pp405-431. For a
from Milan; and the Baltic Design Our aim has been to create a network of network is a good chance that within the next 20 to 40 years Whats known about innovation in quickly handed over to private companies and made more recent literature review see
Network around the Baltic sea. for innovations taking place in the space between the innovative capacity of societies and governments business and science secret. It has studied the global collaborations that Reed, R (1999), Determinants
www.balticdesigntransfer.com civil society, government and business, and drawing will become at least as important a differentiator The study of innovation in business and science now drive progress in fields like fusion technologies of Successful Organisational
on the best existing networks in: of national success as the innovative capacity of (and to a lesser extent public services) has for energy, or new drugs for cancer, and the practical Innovation: A Review of Current
economies. As that happens, new tools will be progressed rapidly over the last few decades, with question of how far public support should spread Research, Journal of Management
n Social entrepreneurship needed, new skills and new kinds of organisation. much richer theories and much more empirical from basic research, through support for generic Practice, Jan-June 2000
All societies have remarkable capacities for myopia, analysis of specific sectors which has yielded a great technologies, to subsidy for promising applications.
n Design obduracy and inertia. But greater awareness of the wealth of insight.50 In business, the vast volume of analysis done 51
Walker RM, Jeanes, E and
gap between what exists and whats needed in such In science, there are extensive and distinct on innovation has given rise to fairly well accepted Rowlands, RO (2002), Measuring
n Technology fields as zero carbon housing and poverty alleviation literatures on invention and innovation. The typologies to understand the different types of Innovation applying the
should focus the minds of politicians, business, pioneering work started at Sussex University in innovation connected to products, services and literature-based innovation output
n Business foundations and NGOs on the need to raise their the mid-1960s remains the benchmark in terms processes. Some have used the distinctions indicator to public services, Public
game. Hopefully the ideas set out here will help of sophisticated, empirical study of innovation in between total, expansionary or evolutionary Administration 80 10 pp201-214
n Public policy them to do so. science, technology and economics. Much of that innovations51; others have preferred to differentiate
work has focused on the long waves of technological between incremental, radical or systematic
n Cities and economic change, but there has also been a lot ones52, or between innovations that happen within
52
Walker RM, Jeanes, E and organisations and those that cross organisational firms (the model that exists in sectors such as literature on innovation in management practices the internet. In retrospect these claims were greatly 59
See Rogers, EM (1995), Diffusion
Rowlands, RO (2002) Measuring boundaries.53 microchips, software, cars and retailing). This is and organisation64 and some cases of non-profit overblown. But there is no doubt that the internet of Innovations, Free Press New
Innovation Applying the This body of work has provided many useful roughly the opposite structure to that found in sector innovation influencing the business sector.65 both grew out of radically different models and has York; Nutley, S Davies, H and
Literature-based Innovation Output insights.54 Economists have shown the importance many public services which combine a monopoly One recent report suggested that innovation in made new business models possible. Many of the Walter, I (2002), Learning from the
Indicator to Public Services, Public of incentives and returns (including temporary department or ministry with very small operating management practices was now more important internets key business innovations emerged from Diffusion of Innovations University
Administration 80 10 pp201-214 monopolies) and the dynamics whereby many units schools, primary care centres and police than product innovation and that the lead in this very open processes, without any role for intellectual of St Andrews; Nooteboom B
competing innovations consolidate on a dominant stations; a structure that may greatly reduce the field has passed to China.66 Another rising theme is property: the original technologies of the internet (2000), Learning and innovation in
53
As identified by Damapnour, model because of economies of scale, and prospects for radical systemic innovation. the important role that users can play in innovation. (like the TCP/IP protocol) were developed by organisations and economies, Oxford
F (1987), The Adoption of sometimes because of the power of leading Much of the academic work on innovation has This has always been mainstream in the social networks of programmers supported by the Defense University Press, Oxford
Technological, Administrative and companies.55 They have also shown the importance focused on how ideas diffuse, yielding insights into field, but is being given increasing prominence Advanced Research Projects Agency and the
Ancillary innovations: Impact of of smallness in invention: patents from small firms the role of (amongst others) leadership, networks in business for example by Eric von Hippel and Pentagon; and the first web browser was developed 60
Smith-Doerr L et al (1999),
Organisational Factors in Journal of are twice as likely to be amongst the top 1% of and social systems in determining the likelihood and Charles Leadbeater along with the development at the University of Illinois without any ownership. Networks and Knowledge
Management, 13, 4 pp675 -688 patents subsequently identified as having high rate of diffusion.59 Everetts Rogerss seminal work of new ways of tying consumers and users into the More recently, open source Linux software has been Production: Collaboration and
impact. Other insights emphasise the importance of on diffusion, for example, showed that adopters of design of new products and services.67 developed by a loose community of programmers Patenting in Bio-Technology in
54
The best recent survey of the field abundant venture capital56 and the common ways any new innovation or idea could be categorized as Many of the issues that are thrown up from (for a thorough analysis of open source methods Leenders AJ and Gabbay SM
is Nooteboom, B (2001), Learning in which new models often start on the periphery innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early this work are directly relevant to social innovation. and their great potential see the Young Foundation/ (eds) Corporate Social Capital and
and Innovation in Organisations and and are then taken over by big organisations (for majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards For example, in business there has long been Demos publication in 2005: Wide Open68), while the Liability, cited in Noteboom B
Economies, Oxford University Press, example, self service supermarkets began in small (16%), and roughly fitted a Bell Curve. People could talk of the chasm that innovations have to cross internet has continued to foster very novel business (2001) op cit
which provides a very sophisticated retailers before being copied by big ones). Here, fall into different categories for different innovations as they pass from being promising pilot ideas to models (from Friends Reunited to the many
overview both of the sociology and once again, we see how bees and trees can so a farmer might be an early adopter of hybrid becoming mainstream products or services. There innovations of Google and MySpace). 61
For example, Moss Kanter, R
economics of innovation complement each other. corn, but a late majority adopter of video recorders. are likely to be quite long phases when revenues So a lot is known about business innovation. (2001), Evolve! Succeeding in
We know that disaggregated industries tend to Rogers showed these innovations would spread are negative, and when investors have to hold their But there are still some fundamental uncertainties. the digital culture of tomorrow,
55
Two good general sources are adapt better to volatility, big structures better to through society in an S curve, starting off slowly, nerve. As weve seen exactly the same challenge Despite the extensive literature and the many Harvard Business School Press,
the Stanford Project on Emerging stable conditions. And we know how serendipitous then spreading much more rapidly until saturation faces any social innovation. Several methods have departments in universities and business schools Cambridge, Mass.
Companies: innovation often is seeking one solution, firms is reached (and he applied his approach not just been designed to speed up this period, including this field is far from being a settled science. For
www.gsb.stanford.edu/SPEC/ stumble on another, quite different one. to business but also to practical health problems, faster prototyping, intensive handholding by example, the debate about intellectual property 62
For example, Kao J (1991), The
index.html and Innovation and Thanks to decades of sociological research we including hygiene, family planning, cancer venture capital companies and the use of rigorous remains deeply contentious. It used to be thought Entrepreneurial Organisation, Prentice
Entrepreneurship now know that one reason why some sectors have prevention and drink driving). milestones against which funds are released but that property rights were vital to stimulate Hall, New Jersey, and Jamming
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn. historically been more innovative than others is Another important issue that has been there is no avoiding a period of uncertainty while innovation, and that their absence was one reason
edu/index.cfm?fa=viewCat&CID=12 the role of intermediaries who help make markets much studied is the nature of learning between success is uncertain (and as Rosabeth Moss Kanter why public sectors and NGOs were less innovative 63
For example, Braben, D (2004),
work more efficiently, spotting connections and organisations and individuals. For example, one memorably put it, everything looks like a failure in than private firms. But there are now plenty of Pioneering Research: A Risk Worth
56
Albury, D and Mulgan, G (2003), opportunities (and these can be more important finding is that the most important value of patents the middle). sceptics who point out that most fundamental Taking, Wiley
Innovation in the Public Sector, than formal market structures)57. More generally, the is often not their direct impact on production but The organisational choices faced by social and innovations were not protected as patents. They
Strategy Unit, London, p26 detailed study of innovation has put an increasing their role in facilitating learning by increasing the commercial organisations also run in parallel. Some argue that patents may crush innovation in 64
For example, Hamel, G (2000),
emphasis on the value of relationships rather than attractiveness of the patent holder as a partner companies organise innovation largely in-house as fields like software and that patents for business Leading The Revolution, Penguin,
57
Murmann, JP (2004), Knowledge formal stocks of knowledge or assets, and the very for others.60 part of their mainstream business (like 3M); some ideas (like Amazons protection of its One-Click New York
and Competitive Advantage, extensive field of organisational learning, pioneered There is also an extensive literature and body create semi-autonomous corporate venture units purchasing system) constrain innovation rather than
EH.NET; von Hippel, E (2005), by figures such as Michael Argyris, has had a big of practice on how innovation should be organised (like Nokia); some grow through acquisition of other encouraging it. It has even been suggested that the 65
For example, Follett, MP (1924),
Democratising Innovation, MIT influence on innovation studies. within organisations, pioneered by figures including innovative companies as well as their own innovation great majority of universities which have invested Creative Experience, New York
Press Cambridge Mass; Baumol, R Some of the more recent work on the experience Peter Drucker, Rosabeth Moss Kanter61 and John (Cisco for example); others use widespread in trying to capture the intellectual property they
(2003), The Free-Market Innovation of innovation has shown that it is more like a Kao.62 They have studied the many methods used networks (like the Original Design Manufacturing produce have lost money by doing so.69 Another 66
Hagel, J and Brown, JS,
Machine: Analyzing the Growth cultural activity than traditional science. The key is to generate ideas pulling in possibilities from companies in China). Again, in the social field major issue is that most understanding of innovation Connecting globalisation and
of Miracle Capitalism, Princeton often a creative reinterpretation of old problems or sales forces, customers, staff and universities and there are advantages and disadvantages in keeping has been derived from studying manufacturing. Less innovation: some contrarian
University Press solutions by a group of innovators, who then have to using skunk works, internal venture funds and innovation in-house (as, for example in the British is known about innovation in services and many perspectives, paper prepared for the
persuade others of this reinterpretation.58 competitions or competing teams. They have also National Health Service in the past); integrating business involved in services find the innovation World Economic Forum 2006
58
Lester, R and Piore, M (2004), One of the reasons that rigorous research analysed the relative advantages of developing innovative NGOs into big public systems (as has literature unsatisfactory (IBM for example has
Innovation The Missing into business innovation has proved valuable ideas inhouse or by turning new ideas into separate often happened in housing); or using networks (the called for a new services science to rectify this). 67
Von Hippel, E (2005),
Dimension, Harvard University Press is that many findings are counterintuitive. For businesses run by intrapreneurs. traditional method of innovation in fields as diverse Ian Miles work at Manchester is a rare exception Democratising Innovation, MIT.
Cambridge Mass example, in some sectors the best market structure One finding is that funding that backs groups as public health and urban planning). of work that is both theoretically sophisticated and Leadbeater, C (2006), The user
for innovation seems to be a combination of or individuals rather than specific projects over In the late 1990s it was briefly fashionable to grounded in empirical observation and data.70 innovation revolution, National
oligopolistic competition between a few big periods of time may deliver greater results than claim that the whole paradigm of innovation in both Similarly there is considerable disagreement Consumer Council
companies and a much larger penumbra of smaller overly planned innovation.63 There is also a growing business and civil society was being transformed by about the precise role of entrepreneurs whether,
68
Mulgan, G and Steinberg, T as in Schumpeters account, they are an elite for a social innovation concerned with a very Organisations provides a particularly useful survey aims) and social entrepreneurship (understood 74
Evans, E and Saxton, J (2004),
(2005), Wide Open: the potential of who drive change, or whether they are better intense but contained need. In some of the most of the field (and builds on her experience in running as the use of entrepreneurial skills to achieve Innovation rules! A roadmap
open source methods, Demos and understood as reacting to changes in the radical social innovations participants lives are the Innovation Journal and the Innovation Network a social purpose but not necessarily involving to creativity and innovation for
the Young Foundation, London environment. There is also disagreement on the dramatically improved by the act of collaboration in Canada). social enterprise) onto a surer footing.78 However, not-for-profit organisations, NFP
precise relationships between market structures (e.g. the reorganisation of social care as self- As well as the study of innovation in economics whilst social innovation certainly occurs through Synergy, London
69
See http://en.wikipedia. and innovation; on the relative virtues of private directed support).71 and science there is an emerging, yet still small, social enterprise and social entrepreneurship it
org/wiki/Reverse_engineering for an ownership and public listings on stock exchanges body of research into the capacity of formally also happens in many other contexts. Conversely, 75
Ibid
interesting discussion of property (with some suggesting that privately owned These are all reasons why there is a need for constituted social organisations (non-profits, NGOs, although social entrepreneurship often involves
rights and innovation. companies are better placed to invest long-term in more rigour, sharper concepts, and clearer metrics. charities, voluntary and community organisations) innovation, only a small minority of social 76
Leat, D (2003), Replicating
innovation); and on the appropriate timescales for to innovate in the delivery of public services73 entrepreneurs create new models that can then Successful Voluntary Sector
70
See for example Innovation in intellectual property protection. Existing research on social innovation and, to build up innovative capacity more widely.74 be scaled up, and that process of scaling up often Projects, Association of Charitable
services by Ian Miles in The Oxford and related fields However such research (whilst extremely valuable) involves governments and larger businesses. Foundations London, Community
Handbook of Innovation. Business innovation and social Fortunately this is not a completely barren territory. tests one sectors putative innovative capacity Another relevant body of work comes from the Action Networks beanstalk
innovation: similarities and differences There have been many case studies of social not the wider territory of social innovation. The study of social investment (providing a range of programme
71
In the UK, the In Control pilots If the literature on business innovation is extensive innovations within different fields (including health, little original research on voluntary organisations debt through to equity products to social purpose www.can-online.org.uk
delivered under the governments but still unsettled the systematic analysis of education and criminal policy) and useful attempts innovative capacity has tended to conclude that organisations) stemming from progressive practice
policy Valuing People and now social innovation is in its infancy. As weve already have been made to understand social innovation voluntary organisations are better at believing they in philanthropy, for-profit banking and venture 77
One leading figure in the social
recommended for wider adoption seen, some of the patterns may be similar. Social in some universities, including Stanford (which are innovative than being innovative.75 There is capital.79 This work is valuable in illuminating enterprise field, for example, has
are a good examples of innovation in innovations only thrive if they really do meet needs: publishes a Social Innovation Review, primarily also some limited emerging work on the replication the potential for different kinds of support but repeatedly suggested that the social
the a new relationship between user to spread they need to gain the support of people focused on foundations and CSR), Fuqua (which has of successful voluntary sector initiatives76 which, it remains in its infancy in understanding how sector is experiencing a rapid jump
and suppliers Improving the Life with resources funders, investors, purchasers. As done significant work on social entrepreneurship), though valuable, investigates one aspect of the portfolios of different kinds of risk could be in productivity, and cites as evidence
Chances of Disabled People, Prime in the private sector there will be parallel questions and Harvard where the Kennedy School has run an process of innovation in isolation from its wider and assembled, and the perspective of financial the fast growth of jobs numbers
Ministers Strategy Unit, January of risk and reward, and of how to manage portfolios extensive programme on innovations in governance. precursory elements. investment naturally tends to favour models that in civic organisations in countries
2005 p93; Controlling interest, of ideas. And, again as in the private sector, very In the UK there has been a long programme of work Considerable work is now under way on can already demonstrate either public demand, or like Germany and USA. The growth
David Brindle in Society Guardian, capital intensive innovations (the hugely expensive at Sussex and Manchester (primarily looking at measuring the outputs and outcomes of public and the prospect of public sector contracts. Genuinely in jobs is fairly well-attested; but
March 2nd 2005 CERN in Switzerland, the worlds largest particle social innovation from a technological perspective) social organisations, including the fascinating work radical innovations can rarely do either. to link it to rising productivity is
www.selfdirectedsupport.org physics laboratory, could at a stretch be thought of and at Warwick (primarily looking through the lens of led by Dale Jorgensen at MIT on valuing the informal In short, whilst there is plenty of knowledge at best a non-sequitur, at worst
as a social innovation) will develop in very different public administration and business). economy and family work, and the recent work led to draw on, the whole is less than the parts. economically illiterate. A more
72
Stanford Social Innovation Review ways from ones with very low barriers to entry (like Much of this work has been suggestive and by Tony Atkinson at Oxford University on the value In a preliminary survey of research undertaken honest comment might be that we
www.ssireview.com the millions of websites which have made use of the interesting. But it has tended to consist of case of public services. These go far beyond the rather across the world we have found no quantitative know very little about whether civic
The Social Innovation Forum technologies invented at CERN). studies and exploratory studies rather than offering misleading claims that are sometimes made for the analysis systematically identifying inhibitors productivity is rising, falling or flat.
www.wfs.org/innovate.htm But many of the patterns of social innovation are robust theory, substantial data sets, or even much in productivity and efficacy of social organisations.77 and critical success factors at each stage of the
Government Innovators Network very different: the way of practical learning about how innovation But they have yet to generate reliable metrics for the social innovation cycle. Nor have we found work 78
For example: Amin, A, Cameron,
www.innovations.harvard.edu should best be organised72 and there has been social or civic value that social organisations create. specifically analysing the role that policy makers, A and Hudson, R (2002), Placing
www.changemakers.net n There are likely to be very different motives, surprisingly little theoretical progress since the The global umbrella organisations supporting funders and universities can play in supporting the the Social Economy, Routledge,
Drucker NonProfit Innovation which may include material incentives but will pioneering work of Chris Freeman, Giovanni Dosi social entrepreneurs and civic action notably process of social innovation. London; Westall, A (2001), Value
Discovery Site almost certainly go far wider, to include motives of and Carlotta Perez in the 1980s linking social Civicus and Ashoka have chosen to remain in an Led, Market Driven, IPPR London;
www.pfdf.org/innovation recognition, compassion, identity, autonomy and care. innovation to broader patterns of technological advocacy and promotional stance giving primacy to Why what we dont know matters Pharaoh, C (2004), Social enterprise
change. Nor has much use been made of the civic organisations in the first case, and a largely A Google search on the word innovation in in the balance, Charities Aid
73
For example Alcock, P, Barnwell, n The critical resources are likely to be different: advances made in parallel disciplines from individualistic model of change driven by social March 2007 threw up some 121 million web Foundation, West Malling
T and Ross, L (2004), Formality in businesses money provides the bottom line, psychology to organisational theory. entrepreneurs in the latter. They have done a pages, ranging from articles to toolkits, books to
or Flexibility? Voluntary Sector but social innovations usually seek out a different There is a growing field of research on public great deal to promote wider understanding of civic consultancies. By contrast a search for social 79
For example: at www.
Contracting, NCVO, London; mix of resources including political recognition sector innovation, building on some pioneering activism, and have provided invaluable support innovation generates only 840,000 a sign of how davidcarrington.net/articles.php;
Osborne, S (1998), Voluntary and support, voluntary labour and philanthropic work in the 1960s and 1970s that tried to map the for many individuals and organisations across the marginal this field remains. Peacock, G et al, (2003) The Magic
Organisations and Innovation in commitment. traits of innovative states and governments. More world. But they have done less to advance serious We believe that the absence of sustained and Roundabout how charities can
Public services, Routledge, London recent work has looked at patterns of diffusion, the knowledge about how social change takes place, systematic analysis is holding back the practice of make their money go further: an
n Social organisations tend to have different patterns interplay between politics and bureaucracies, and or to engage with the new insights from economics social innovation. Specifically, a lack of knowledge introduction to programme related
of growth: as a rule they dont grow as fast as private the ecological niches that innovations fill. Canada and technology. makes it harder to see the main gaps in current investment, Bircham Dyson Bell,
ones, but they also tend to be more resilient. has been a particularly fertile country for research Meanwhile within academia, centres at provision of funding, advice and support. This is London; Bolton, M (2004), New
in this field (and increasingly for research on social Harvard, Oxford and elsewhere are beginning to put likely to result in fewer potential innovations being approaches to funding not for profit
n Judging success is also bound to be very innovation as well). Eleanor Glors recent publication the study of social enterprise (understood as the initiated. A lack of knowledge about common organisations: a snapshot, Charities
different. Scale or market share may matter little A Gardener Innovators Guide to Innovating in technique of trading in the market to achieve social patterns is almost certain to make it harder for Aid Foundation, West Malling
annex 2
innovators themselves to be effective and for ideas

to be improved into a sustainable form.
of social innovation is in its infancy. As weve already
seen, some of the patterns may be similar. Social 10 world-changing
social innovations
We know that some of the critical success innovations only thrive if they really do meet needs:
factors for social innovation include strong to spread they need to gain the support of people
leadership, clear mission, sensitivity to markets with resources funders, investors, purchasers. As
and users, and lean and flexible design. But much in the private sector there will be parallel questions
more work needs to be done to understand the of risk and reward, and of how to manage portfolios
precise ways in which social innovation can best be of ideas. And, again as in the private sector, very
supported. We need to better understand: capital intensive innovations (the hugely expensive
CERN in Switzerland, the worlds largest particle
n The key gaps in particular sectors, and whether, physics laboratory, could at a stretch be thought of
for example, there is an excess of experimentation as a social innovation) will develop in very different
1. The Open University and the many models of distance learning that have opened
relative to take-up or vice versa. ways from ones with very low barriers to entry (like up education across the world and are continuing to do so.
the millions of websites which have made use of the
n The best balance between very speculative technologies invented at CERN). 2. Fair trade pioneered in the UK and USA in the 1940s-80s and now
funding of new ideas and investment in the growth But many of the patterns of social innovation are growing globally.
of part-proven innovations. very different:
n How best to straddle the innovation chasm n There are likely to be very different motives,
3. Greenpeace and the many movements of ecological direct action which drew
between promising ideas and large scale which may include material incentives but will on much older Quaker ideas and which have transformed how citizens can engage
implementation. almost certainly go far wider, to include motives of directly in social change.
recognition, compassion, identity, autonomy and care.
n Appropriate and acceptable ratios of risk are 4. Grameen alongside BRAC and others whose new models of village and
the patterns from venture capital or creative The critical resources are likely to be different:
community based microcredit have been emulated worldwide.
n
industries relevant, and if so what are the in businesses money provides the bottom line,
implications for investment? but social innovations usually seek out a different
mix of resources including political recognition 5. Amnesty International and the growth of human rights.
n The best ways of refining and testing innovations and support, voluntary labour and philanthropic
for example, in incubators or as offshoots of commitment. 6. Oxfam (originally the Oxford Committee for Relief of Famine) and the spread of
existing organisations. humanitarian relief.
n Social organisations tend to have different
n The relationships between organisational forms patterns of growth: as a rule they dont grow as
and creativity for example, do boards of trustees fast as private ones, but they also tend to be more
7. The Womens Institute (founded in Canada in the 1890s) and the innumerable
tend to inhibit it? resilient. womens organisations and innovations which have made feminism mainstream.
n The best ways of using visionary founders and n Judging success is also bound to be very 8. Linux software and other open source methods such as Wikipedia and Ohmynews
moving them to one side if they lack management different. Scale or market share may matter little that are transforming many fields.
skills or become rigid in their thinking. for a social innovation concerned with a very
intense but contained need. In some of the most
n The role of different electoral systems in radical social innovations participants lives are
9. NHS Direct and the many organisations, ranging from Doctor Foster to the Expert
encouraging political competition and dramatically improved by the act of collaboration Patients Programme, which have opened up access to health and knowledge about
social innovation. (e.g. the reorganisation of social care as self- health to ordinary people.
directed support).
n The merits and challenges of engaging service 10. Participatory budgeting models of the kind pioneered in Porto Alegre and now
users and existing providers at differing stages of the These are all reasons why there is a need for
being emulated, alongside a broad range of democratic innovations, all over the world.
innovation process. more rigour, sharper concepts, and clearer metrics.
Business innovation and social innovation:

similarities and differences
If the literature on business innovation is

extensive but still unsettled the systematic analysis
annex 3
Suggested
Further Reading
Open Standards, Open Source, and Open Edwards, M (1999), NGO Performance What Lewis, D (ed) (1998), Bridging the Chasm: Rickards, T (1985), Stimulating Innovation: A
Innovation: Harnessing the Benefits of Openness Breeds Success? New Evidence from South Asia, International Perspectives on Voluntary Action, Systems Approach, London, Palgrave MacMillan
(April 2006), A Report by the Digital Connections World Development 27 (2), pp361-374 Earthscan, London
Council of the Committee for Economic Development Ritchey-Vance, M (1996), Social capital,
http://www.ced.org/docs/report/report_ecom_ Evans, E and Saxton, J, Innovation Rules! A Massey, D (1999) Imagining globalization: power- sustainability and working democracy: New
openstandards.pdf Roadmap to Creativity and Innovation for geometries of time-space in Brah, A. et al. (eds) yardsticks for grassroots development, Grassroots
Not-for-profit Organisations Global Futures: Migration, Environment and Development 20(1), pp39
Bornstein, D (2004), How To Change the World: nfpSynergy.net Globalization, Basingstoke, Macmillan, pp27-44
Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Seely Brown, J and Hagel, J (2006), Creation Nets:
Oxford University Press, Oxford Evans, P (1996), Development Strategies Across Moore, MH (2005), Social Entrepreneurship, Mass Getting the most from open innovation in The
the Public-private Divide: Introduction, World Mobilisation, and Systems Change, paper prepared McKinsey Quarterly No. 2, 41-51
Dees, JG, Anderson, BB, and Wei-Skillern, J (2002), Development 24(6), pp10331037 for Skoll Conference on Social Entrepreneurship,
Pathways to Social Impact: Strategies for Scaling Sad Business School, Oxford University Spinosa, C, Flores, F and Dreyfus, HL (1999),
Out Successful Social Innovations, CASE Working Fagerberg, J et al (ed) (2005) The Oxford Handbook Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship,
Paper Series No. 3, Duke University of Innovation Moore, M (2003), What Makes Microcredit Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity,
Programmes Effective? Fashionable Fallacies and MIT Press
Dees, JG and Anderson, BB (2006), Framing a Fox, J (1996), How Does Civil Society Thicken? Workable Realities (with Pankaj Jain), IDS Working
Theory of Social Entrepreneurship: Building on The Political Construction of Social Capital in Rural Paper No. 177 Thackara, J (2005), In the Bubble: Designing in a
Two Schools of Practice and Thought in Research Mexico, World Development 24(6), pp10891103 Complex World, MIT Press
on Social Entrepreneurship: Understanding and Moore, M with Joshi, A (2004), Institutionalised
Contributing to an Emerging Field, ARNOVA, CASE, Fulton, K and Dees, G (2006), The Past, Present, Co-production: Unorthodox Public Service Thomas, L (1974), The Lives of Biology: Notes of a
Duke University and Future of Social Entrepreneurship: A Delivery in Challenging Environments, Journal of Biology Watcher Bantam USA
Conversation with Greg Dees, Gathering of Leaders, Development Studies Vol.40, No.4
Development Assistance Committee (1997), New Paltz, New York Varshney, A (1998), Democracy, Development and
Searching for Impact and Methods: NGO Evaluation Moore, M (2006), The New Private Philanthropies the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India,
Synthesis Study, OECD, Paris Gershuny, J (1983), Social Innovation and the Could Challenge the Existing Aid Business, Boston Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Division of Labour, USA, Oxford University Press Review A Political & Literary Forum vol 31 no 4:
Drayton, B (2006), Everyone a Changemaker Social pp11-12 Varshney, A, Why have Poor Democracies not
Entrepreneurships Ultimate Goal, Innovations Jain, P (1994), Managing for Success: Lessons Eliminated Poverty? A Suggestion, Asian Survey,
(Winter Edition), MIT Press From Asian Development Programs, World Mulgan, G (2006), The Process of Social Innovation, September-October 2000
Development 22(9), pp13631377 Innovations, Spring, MIT Press, pp145-62
Easterly, W (2006), The White Mans Burden: mitpress.mit.edu/innovations Varshney, A (forthcoming), Democracy and Poverty,
Why the Wests Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done Jain, P (1996), Managing Credit for the Rural in D. Narayan, ed, Measuring Empowerment,
So Much Ill and So Little Good, Oxford, Oxford Poor: Lessons From the Grameen Bank, World Mulgan, G (2006), 360 degree improvement and Stanford University Press
University Press Development 24(1), pp7990 the imperative of social innovation, speech to Public
Services Conference, 6th June
Edwards, M and Hulme, D (eds.) (1992), Making a Kelley, J (2006), The Ten Faces of Innovation: Available at
Difference: NGOs and Development in a Changing Strategies for Heightening Creativity, Profile http://www.youngfoundation.org.uk/index.
World, Earthscan, London Books Ltd php?p=306
Kingston, W (1984), The Political Economy of Rao, A and Kelleher, D (1995), Engendering
Innovation, The Hague/Boston; reprinted: Martinus Organizational Change: The BRAC Case, IDS
Nijhoff, 1989 Bulletin 26(3), pp6978
endnotes
A There have been many attempts to define an groups and so on. It is also possible to point to some b Rosabeth Moss Kanters Rules for Stifling C The seven main sources of social investment are:
overarching theory of social (or economic) change. common themes in the stories of social change: the Innovation are:
These theories were particularly fashionable role of blockages and impediments in galvanising n Specialist investors established specifically to
in the 19th century change was explained change; the role of ideas in giving shape to these 1. Regard any new idea with suspicion because its provide capital to under-capitalised geographical
through elaborate theories focused on the impact and turning personal resentments into social forces; new, and because its from below. communities, such as Bridges Community Ventures
of technology, contradictions, class struggle, or the role of new knowledge in making things possible
the advance of reason, and there were also more from technologies like the car or genomics, to 2. Insist that people who need your approval to act n Specialist lenders established specifically to
simplistic theories which ascribed change to visionary the knowledge about health that has motivated first go through several other layers of management provide capital to civil society organisations, such
individuals or national will. More recently there anti-smoking campaigns. There are also parallel to get their signatures. as Futurebuilders
have been various attempts to define an overarching struggles for resources political, economic, cultural
theory of change (and in economics to offer a and parallel stories about how new ideas and 3. Ask departments or individuals to challenge or n Specialist divisions of mainstream
synthetic theory of growth). However, all theories movements try to attract others. But these cannot criticise each others proposals (that saves you the banking institutions
of this kind are based on a simple error: although be summarised into a simple model (for example, trouble of deciding you just pick the survivor).
every aspect of social life is connected, there are no by analogy with evolutionary theories) that have n Venture capital funds targeting businesses
good reasons for believing that a single theory could any explanatory or predictive power, despite many 4. Express your criticisms freely, and withhold your pursuing social goals alongside profits (such as
explain phenomena as diverse as family life, urban attempts. We believe that it is possible to provide praise (that keeps people on their toes). Let them Climate Change Capital)
communities, the evolution of workplaces, identity more accurate analyses and descriptions of how new know they can be fired at any time.
and conflict, crime and violence, exploitation and models, programmes and organisations emerge and n Government investment agencies
cooperation. They are different in nature, have their spread, how they crystallise, are concentrated in a 5. Treat identification of problems as signs of failure,
own logics, rhythms, and any general theory is likely model and are then amplified, and our expectation to discourage people from letting you know when n Individual philanthropists or angel investors
to be either banal or wrong. Even within economics is that new insights will come from gathering something in their area isnt working.
overarching theories of change and growth have examples, studying the fine-grained detail as much n Grant making foundations (through mission
not fared well compared to more modest theories as from abstract theory. Anyone wanting to achieve 6. Control everything, carefully. Make sure that people related investments)
focused on such things as the dynamics of labour social change also needs to have thought through count everything that can be counted, frequently.
markets or monetary policy. The big social changes how they think change happens and how they can
that have accompanied industrialisation have had influence major interests and public excitement, how 7. Make decisions to reorganize or change policies in
some common features: urbanisation; changed they can circumvent barriers, and what might be secret, and spring them on people unexpectedly (that
gender roles; the rise of mass media; globalisation; realistic timescales for change. But we are neither also keeps people on their toes).
political empowerment of previously marginalised advocating, nor expecting, an overarching theory.
8. Make sure that requests for information are fully
justified, and make sure that it is not given out to
managers freely (you dont want data to fall into the
wrong hands).
9. Assign to lower-level managers, in the name of

delegation and participation, responsibility for figuring
out how to cut back, lay off, move people around, or
otherwise implement threatening decisions that you
have made. And get them to do it quickly.
www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/skoll
Skoll Centre for Social

Entrepreneurship
Sad Business School
University of Oxford
Park End Street
Oxford OX1 1HP
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1865 288 838

[email protected]

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skoll centre for social entrepreneurship

3 Acknowledgements 27-32 stages of innovation

20 How social innovation happens: the uneasy

26 Linear and less linear patterns 47 Annex 2: 10 world-changing social innovations

48 Annex 3: Suggested Further Reading

summary (for example, open source software or organic food),

What social Our approach overlaps with, but differs, from

Functionality / net value

Medium (1-3 years) Product / service 2 (failed)

How social Stages of Innovation

capacities to do this by. Many social movements see as promising.35 35

Linear and less Stages of

Table 1: social innovation in social organisations

Generation of possibilities Prototypes Growth

Table 2: Social innovation in social movements

Formation Campaigning and advocacy Legislation, habit change, changed values

Social software and open

What next In what follows we therefore turn to the new

A global network for Why we need to

innovators themselves to be effective and for ideas

Business innovation and social innovation:

If the literature on business innovation is

9. Assign to lower-level managers, in the name of

Skoll Centre for Social

Tel: +44 (0)1865 288 838

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