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In-depth studies of social innovation and third sector involvement

Thu, June 30, 1:30 to 3:00pm, Campus Ersta, Martasalen

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Social innovation has become a key theme on the European political and research agendas and it is laden with a large variety of hopes as to the positive effects it could yield on society at large (Nicholls & Murdock, 2012). At the same time it is insufficiently clear, who actually contributes to social innovation in a major fashion. We often find accounts that social innovation is a phenomenon which feeds from all sectors and involves a magnitude of different players (Dahl et al., 2014; The Young Foundation, 2012).

However, third sector organisations are generally recognised as more responsive to the needs of vulnerable target groups and better in providing access to society for marginalised people (Anheier, 2013; Neumayr et al., 2007). It also has a strong link into society established through volunteering (Ranci, Costa, Sabatinelli, & Brandsen, 2012). Due to these circumstances, this panel is led by the following main proposition: Social innovativeness varies by organisational form and actor involvement, in the sense that the properties of third sector organisations and volunteering make its formation particularly likely.

The three contributions of this panel explore this proposition by a qualitative, in-depth investigation of social innovation. The two individual activity fields explored in separate contributions are consumer protection in finance and community development. Instead of presupposing a confirmation of the proposition by looking (only) at third sector organisations, the cross-national case studies, which each cover three to four countries, start with a broadly recognised social innovation stream.
This stream is contextualised by making use of the theory of ‘strategic action fields’ (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). It serves to identify engaged stakeholders, their agendas and power positions. The method not only serves for understanding the kernels of the presented cases, but also for making the analysis comparable across activity fields. Thereafter, by employing the method of process tracing (Collier, 2011; George & Bennett, 2005), the first two contributions of this panel will follow the specific social innovation trends back to their origins, identifying actors that have contributed to the stream in a major fashion and their traits. The identification of actor influence and traits is aided by a predetermined set of hypotheses.

The third contribution instead is a cautious attempt of condensing the findings of the entire seven cross-national case studies of one social innovation stream each that the first two contributions are part of. By means of a ‘qualitative comparative analysis’ (QCA) (Ragin, 1989, 2000; Rihoux & Ragin, 2009) we will try to identify the relevant favourable and hindering conditions for social innovations cross-nationally. We test a set of factors on two levels: (1) organisational traits; and (2) national institutional frameworks, including aspects such as the size and scope of the third sector and volunteering, or socio-political and socio-economic characteristics of the nation state.

In combination, the contributions of this panel will outline who is involved in the evolvement of social innovation, and at which stage and under which surrounding conditions.

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