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TopBackground
There is an increasing recognition of the socio, technical, environmental and economic value contribution of social innovation and social entrepreneurship, alongside a capacity to support sustainable development (OECD, 2014). This is reflected at a strategic policy level by the focus demonstrated by individual governments, via the Europe 2020 Strategy (OECD, 2010) and through the Global Agenda Council (World Economic Forum, 2013). In the higher education sector, it is evidenced across expanding conference coverage, evolving university, student and community engagement partnerships (Kingma, 2011) and the genesis of specific subject inclusion in postgraduate curriculums (Bhutiani et al., 2012).
Within industry, the role of intrapreneurs has gained prominence (Stewart, 2013), alongside external collaborations with social entrepreneurs (OECD, 2010). Further, the transformational change-making role of the citizen as users and active prosumers, contributes to a transition encapsulated as an emergent new industrial revolution (Anderson, 2012). This continues to attract momentum and acceptance, and moreover, facilitates creative intersectional approaches to solution development, testing and problem-solving for societal benefit. This can range from corporate sponsored Living Labs to grassroots, social innovation networks (Keohane, 2013; Eaves, 2014).
Catalysts for this burgeoning interest span international to local levels and varying stakeholder perspectives. Demographic mega-trends related to fertility, mortality and immigration are impacting public finance and infrastructure, poverty and climate change (Nugent & Seligman, 2008). Global market challenges, developing country needs and continuing employment and social consequences of the European Economic Crisis remain prevalent (European Commission, 2013). There is also a shift to third-party government (Keohane, 2013) and growing disillusionment with for-profit business operating models, whilst community concerns and capabilities have been brought into sharp focus (Grant, 2010).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social Innovation: The invention, incubation, evaluation and scaling-up of solutions to meet identified but unmet social needs and problems, or to achieve systemic change, whilst increasing the societal capacity to act.
Crowdfunding: An online platform to raise capital for a proposed venture, distributed across many individuals.
Crowdsourcing: The connection of large groups of people online to source and organise expertise, knowledge, time, beta testing and resources for a specific aim.
Social Entrepreneur: Transformational change agents with a primary aim to deliver social change and create social value.
Social Intrapreneur: An individual that works within a company and takes direct initiative to deliver innovative services, products and approaches for shared financial and social, environmental or advocacy benefits.
Hackspace: Encompasses different forms of Makerspaces, Makerlabs, Makerhoods, Fab Labs and Creative Spaces with a similar socio-technical mission, opening access to create, motivate, innovate and empower.