Social innovation and management innovation: the flip side of the coin

The process of social innovation is motivated by the goal of meeting a social need (Mulgan, 2006). The organizations that initiate it, structure themselves in the perspective of this strategic objective and implement aligned management practices (Lettice & Parekh, 2010). The nature of social innovation and its context lead some organizations to design or adopt innovative management approaches to support the social innovation. Of a varied nature, these management breaks can relate to the structure of the organization, its processes, its human resources management practices, its partnerships, its business model (Birkinshaw et al., 2008; Volberda et al., 2013). These management innovations are intrinsically linked to the underlying social innovation and its structuring values.In addition to the beneficial effects of these management innovations, attention must be paid to their hidden (induced) effects that are likely to alter in the long term the foundations of social innovation itself.The article highlights the management philosophies hidden behind social innovations and analyses their effects. We study them in a critical perspective from two theoretical fields: social innovation and management innovation.Using a methodology based on case studies (Eisenhardt &Graebner, 2007), we emphasize the managerial effects that question the foundations of social innovation. The case of a company that innovates in its relations with local populations to help solve malnutrition, questions the line between disinterested philanthropic practices and strategic innovation to access difficult markets. The case of a cooperative that practices equal salary questions the sustainability of a management model presented as socially innovative. The case of a social business fighting social exclusion highlights the paradoxes of a management focused on processes (the learning process of people in a situation of failure), which weakens the organization. These and other cases allow us to show the perverse effects of managerial breaks induced by some processes of social innovation.