IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v45y2016i9p1923-1935.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social innovation research: An emerging area of innovation studies?

Author

Listed:
  • van der Have, Robert P.
  • Rubalcaba, Luis

Abstract

While the adoption of Social Innovation (SI) in the governance and policy domain has fueled a rapidly expanding scholarly literature, this field has become characterized by conceptual ambiguity and a diversity of definitions and research settings. This present situation inhibits the integration of findings. This paper traces the content, scope and relatively short history of modern social innovation research across disciplines by applying network and bibliometric analyses, and explores their relevance to innovation studies. Based on data from 172 publications, we analyze scholarly works that directly address the social innovation topic, allowing us to identify the precedence, dynamics and the current map of social innovation research as an emerging field of study. Our analysis suggests that the SI field is grounded in four distinct intellectual communities arising through a somewhat organized diffusion process: 1) Community Psychology; 2) Creativity research; 3) Social and societal challenges; 4) Local development. The interest of SI in the areas of management and entrepreneurship is only very recent and is currently reflected within existing communities. We forge conceptual bridges between the two (currently very separate) domains of social innovation and innovation studies, and the implications of our finding for further research and policy are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • van der Have, Robert P. & Rubalcaba, Luis, 2016. "Social innovation research: An emerging area of innovation studies?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(9), pages 1923-1935.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:45:y:2016:i:9:p:1923-1935
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2016.06.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004873331630107X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2016.06.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David J. TEECE, 2008. "Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Transfer And Licensing Of Know-How And Intellectual Property Understanding the Multinational Enterprise in the Modern World, chapter 5, pages 67-87, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Weber, K. Matthias & Rohracher, Harald, 2012. "Legitimizing research, technology and innovation policies for transformative change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1037-1047.
    3. Jakob Edler, 2010. "Demand-Based Innovation Policy," Chapters, in: Ruud E. Smits & Stefan Kuhlmann & Phillip Shapira (ed.), The Theory and Practice of Innovation Policy, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Garcia Martinez, Marian, 2015. "Solver engagement in knowledge sharing in crowdsourcing communities: Exploring the link to creativity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1419-1430.
    5. Anthony F. J. van Raan, 2005. "Reference-based publication networks with episodic memories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(3), pages 549-566, June.
    6. Cajaiba-Santana, Giovany, 2014. "Social innovation: Moving the field forward. A conceptual framework," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 42-51.
    7. Fagerberg, Jan & Fosaas, Morten & Sapprasert, Koson, 2012. "Innovation: Exploring the knowledge base," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1132-1153.
    8. Erik Swyngedouw, 2005. "Governance Innovation and the Citizen: The Janus Face of Governance-beyond-the-State," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(11), pages 1991-2006, October.
    9. M. M. Kessler, 1963. "Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers," American Documentation, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 10-25, January.
    10. DiVito, Lori, 2012. "Institutional entrepreneurship in constructing alternative paths: A comparison of biotech hybrids," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 884-896.
    11. Dolan, Paul & Metcalfe, Robert, 2012. "The relationship between innovation and subjective wellbeing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1489-1498.
    12. Kevin W. Boyack & Richard Klavans, 2010. "Co‐citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and direct citation: Which citation approach represents the research front most accurately?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(12), pages 2389-2404, December.
    13. Nelson, Richard R. & Sampat, Bhaven N., 2001. "Making sense of institutions as a factor shaping economic performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 31-54, January.
    14. Drejer, Ina, 2004. "Identifying innovation in surveys of services: a Schumpeterian perspective," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 551-562, April.
    15. Gustafsson, Robin & Autio, Erkko, 2011. "A failure trichotomy in knowledge exploration and exploitation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 819-831, July.
    16. Mónica E. Edwards-Schachter & Cristian E. Matti & Enrique Alcántara, 2012. "Fostering Quality of Life through Social Innovation: A Living Lab Methodology Study Case," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 29(6), pages 672-692, November.
    17. Joseph Schumpeter, 1909. "On the Concept of Social Value," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 23(2), pages 213-232.
    18. Faïz Gallouj, 1997. "Towards a neo-Schumpeterian theory of innovation in services?," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 405-420, December.
    19. Gallouj, Faiz & Weinstein, Olivier, 1997. "Innovation in services," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 537-556, December.
    20. Ruud E. Smits & Stefan Kuhlmann & Phillip Shapira (ed.), 2010. "The Theory and Practice of Innovation Policy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4181.
    21. Rafael Ramírez, 1999. "Value co‐production: intellectual origins and implications for practice and research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 49-65, January.
    22. Pol, Eduardo & Ville, Simon, 2009. "Social innovation: Buzz word or enduring term?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 878-885, December.
    23. Raasch, Christina & Lee, Viktor & Spaeth, Sebastian & Herstatt, Cornelius, 2013. "The rise and fall of interdisciplinary research: The case of open source innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 1138-1151.
    24. Frank Moulaert & Flavia Martinelli & Erik Swyngedouw & Sara Gonzalez, 2005. "Towards Alternative Model(s) of Local Innovation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(11), pages 1969-1990, October.
    25. Erjia Yan & Ying Ding, 2012. "Scholarly network similarities: How bibliographic coupling networks, citation networks, cocitation networks, topical networks, coauthorship networks, and coword networks relate to each other," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1313-1326, July.
    26. Erjia Yan & Ying Ding, 2012. "Scholarly network similarities: How bibliographic coupling networks, citation networks, cocitation networks, topical networks, coauthorship networks, and coword networks relate to each other," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1313-1326, July.
    27. Chataway, Joanna & Hanlin, Rebecca & Mugwagwa, Julius & Muraguri, Lois, 2010. "Global health social technologies: Reflections on evolving theories and landscapes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1277-1288, December.
    28. Kevin W. Boyack & Richard Klavans, 2010. "Co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and direct citation: Which citation approach represents the research front most accurately?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(12), pages 2389-2404, December.
    29. Jan-Peter Voß & Adrian Smith & John Grin, 2009. "Designing long-term policy: rethinking transition management," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 42(4), pages 275-302, November.
    30. Geels, Frank W., 2004. "From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6-7), pages 897-920, September.
    31. Sleuwaegen, Leo & Boiardi, Priscilla, 2014. "Creativity and regional innovation: Evidence from EU regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1508-1522.
    32. Foray, D. & Mowery, D.C. & Nelson, R.R., 2012. "Public R&D and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D programs?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 1697-1702.
    33. Shapira, Philip & Klein, Hans & Kuhlmann, Stefan, 2001. "Innovations in European and US innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 869-872, June.
    34. Landström, Hans & Harirchi, Gouya & Åström, Fredrik, 2012. "Entrepreneurship: Exploring the knowledge base," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1154-1181.
    35. Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Truffer, Bernhard, 2012. "Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 955-967.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wenyuan Li & Mohammed Abubakari Sadick & Abdul-Aziz Ibn Musah & Salisu Mustapha, 2018. "The Moderating Effect of Social Innovation in Perspectives of Shared Value Creation in the Educational Sector of Ghana," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-26, November.
    2. Rakas, Marija & Hain, Daniel S., 2019. "The state of innovation system research: What happens beneath the surface?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    3. Attila Havas & Doris Schartinger & K. Matthias Weber, 2022. "Innovation Studies, Social Innovation, and Sustainability Transitions Research: From mutual ignorance towards an integrative perspective?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2227, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    4. Piñeiro-Chousa, Juan & López-Cabarcos, M. Ángeles & Romero-Castro, Noelia María & Pérez-Pico, Ada María, 2020. "Innovation, entrepreneurship and knowledge in the business scientific field: Mapping the research front," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 475-485.
    5. Guan-Can Yang & Gang Li & Chun-Ya Li & Yun-Hua Zhao & Jing Zhang & Tong Liu & Dar-Zen Chen & Mu-Hsuan Huang, 2015. "Using the comprehensive patent citation network (CPC) to evaluate patent value," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1319-1346, December.
    6. Yu-Wei Chang & Mu-Hsuan Huang & Chiao-Wen Lin, 2015. "Evolution of research subjects in library and information science based on keyword, bibliographical coupling, and co-citation analyses," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 2071-2087, December.
    7. Yang, Siluo & Han, Ruizhen & Wolfram, Dietmar & Zhao, Yuehua, 2016. "Visualizing the intellectual structure of information science (2006–2015): Introducing author keyword coupling analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 132-150.
    8. Markard, Jochen & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Analysis of complementarities: Framework and examples from the energy transition," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 63-75.
    9. Jun-Ping Qiu & Ke Dong & Hou-Qiang Yu, 2014. "Comparative study on structure and correlation among author co-occurrence networks in bibliometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1345-1360, November.
    10. Catia Milena Lopes & Annibal José Scavarda & Guilherme Luís Roehe Vaccaro & Christopher Rosa Pohlmann & André Luis Korzenowski, 2018. "Perspective of Business Models and Innovation for Sustainability Transition in Hospitals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, December.
    11. Singh, Shiwangi & Dhir, Sanjay & Das, V. Mukunda & Sharma, Anuj, 2020. "Bibliometric overview of the Technological Forecasting and Social Change journal: Analysis from 1970 to 2018," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    12. Song Yanhui & Wu Lijuan & Qiu Junping, 2021. "A comparative study of first and all-author bibliographic coupling analysis based on Scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1125-1147, February.
    13. Huguenin, Ariane & Jeannerat, Hugues, 2017. "Creating change through pilot and demonstration projects: Towards a valuation policy approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 624-635.
    14. Diercks, Gijs & Larsen, Henrik & Steward, Fred, 2019. "Transformative innovation policy: Addressing variety in an emerging policy paradigm," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 880-894.
    15. Hervas Oliver,Jose Luis & Gonzalez,Gregorio & Caja,Pedro, 2014. "Clusters and industrial districts: where is the literature going? Identifying emerging sub-fields of research," INGENIO (CSIC-UPV) Working Paper Series 201409, INGENIO (CSIC-UPV).
    16. Bu, Yi & Ni, Shaokang & Huang, Win-bin, 2017. "Combining multiple scholarly relationships with author cocitation analysis: A preliminary exploration on improving knowledge domain mappings," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 810-822.
    17. Chang, Yuan-Chieh & Chen, Min-Nan, 2016. "Service regime and innovation clusters: An empirical study from service firms in Taiwan," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(9), pages 1845-1857.
    18. Catia Milena Lopes & Annibal José Scavarda & Mauricio Nunes Macedo de Carvalho & André Luis Korzenowski, 2018. "The Business Model and Innovation Analyses: The Sustainable Transition Obstacles and Drivers for the Hospital Supply Chains," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    19. Paul Windrum & Doris Schartinger & Luis Rubalcaba & Faiz F. Gallouj & Marja Toivonen, 2016. "The co-creation of multi-agent social innovations," Post-Print halshs-01322603, HAL.
    20. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:45:y:2016:i:9:p:1923-1935. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.