Social Innovation is an emerging field that remains under-researched (Social Innovation Exchange and Young Foundation, 2010). Very few are the efforts to classify and organize the various contributions. In this sense, is very interesting the contribution carried out by Pol and Ville (2009), which discusses some of the definitions given to the concept of Social Innovation elaborating a four group classification (understanding the concept as linked to institutional change, to social purposes, to the public good or to the satisfaction of needs not covered by the market).
On this first contribution, and taking as reference the characterization of the different types of businesses proposed by Professor Yunus (Yunus et al., 2010), two basic directions can be identified in the existing definitions in Social Innovation literature as shown by the four quadrants of Figure 1.