Author
Abstract
‘Social innovation’ is a construct increasingly used to explain the practices, processes and actors through which sustained positive transformation occurs in the network society (Mulgan, G., Tucker, S., Ali, R., Sander, B. (2007). Social innovation: What it is, why it matters and how can it be accelerated. Oxford: Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship; Phills, J. A., Deiglmeier, K., & Miller, D. T. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 6(4):34–43, 2008.). Social innovation has been defined as a “novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions, and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.” (Phills, J. A., Deiglmeier, K., & Miller, D. T. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 6(4):34–43, 2008: 34.) Emergent ideas of social innovation challenge some traditional understandings of the nature and role of the Third Sector, as well as shining a light on those enterprises within the social economy that configure resources in novel ways. In this context, social enterprises – which provide a social or community benefit and trade to fulfil their mission – have attracted considerable policy attention as one source of social innovation within a wider field of action (see Leadbeater, C. (2007). ‘Social enterprise and social innovation: Strategies for the next 10 years’, Cabinet office, Office of the third sector http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/cms/xstandard/social_enterprise_innovation.pdf . Last accessed 19/5/2011.). And yet, while social enterprise seems to have gained some symbolic traction in society, there is to date relatively limited evidence of its real world impacts. (Dart, R. Not for Profit Management and Leadership, 14(4):411–424, 2004.) In other words, we do not know much about the social innovation capabilities and effects of social enterprise. In this chapter, we consider the social innovation practices of social enterprise, drawing on Mulgan, G., Tucker, S., Ali, R., Sander, B. (2007). Social innovation: What it is, why it matters and how can it be accelerated. Oxford: Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship: 5) three dimensions of social innovation: new combinations or hybrids of existing elements; cutting across organisational, sectoral and disciplinary boundaries; and leaving behind compelling new relationships. Based on a detailed survey of 365 Australian social enterprises, we examine their self-reported business and mission-related innovations, the ways in which they configure and access resources and the practices through which they diffuse innovation in support of their mission. We then consider how these findings inform our understanding of the social innovation capabilities and effects of social enterprise, and their implications for public policy development.
Suggested Citation
Jo Barraket & Craig Furneaux, 2012.
"Social Innovation and Social Enterprise: Evidence from Australia,"
Springer Books, in: Hans-Werner Franz & Josef Hochgerner & Jürgen Howaldt (ed.), Challenge Social Innovation, edition 127, pages 215-237,
Springer.
Handle:
RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-32879-4_14
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-32879-4_14
Download full text from publisher
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's
web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a
search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
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:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-32879-4_14. 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.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.